Changing the look and feel of java GUI

Regarding question number 1, please see:
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/onlineTraining/GUI/Swing2/shortcourse.html#JFCPluggable
Which is part of the Swing tutorial, Part II.

Basically you use some code that looks a little like this:
try {
UIManager.setLookAndFeel (
"javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel");
} catch (java.lang.ClassNotFoundException e) {
// Can't change look and feel
}