Smb in Redhat 7 and Gaim

Hi guys,

I'm still having a success story on an old RHL 7.0 PC with just a few minor issues,

1) I have my RHL machine networked to an XP machine using SMB. At the moment to access the shared folders I have to 
drop down to the command prompt, su, and then use the smbmount command. Could there be a script to automate this at 
boot up?

2) Once mounted, the SMB drive is read only to everyone except root, even if I use the 'rw' switch. Is there an easy solution 
and could this also be put into the automated file (I thought about changing user permissions but that seems a bit drastic)

3) I have recently installed an older version of gaim - 0.59, and for some reason talking to a lot of people their text appears as 
a really bright colour such as yellow or cyan so its hard to see. Is this a problem with X or gaim? I'm in 16bit high colour on a 
correctly detected and configured Matrox Millennium 2.

Thanks for all your help,

Christopher Ninnes.