See "Forum Design & Integraton" forum, do a search for "sidebar", you'll see a few posts, the one by me includes 2 looks: Left Only sidebar, Right Only sidebar, Left and Right sidebar; all set through header/footer inserts through the style settings.
As for the birthday layout and all the other "modifications" they are done through modifing the forum, see the "modifications" forum, the "birthday" acknowledgement is a part of the Calendar modification.
Might I also sugguest the SpellCheck modification for users like me
