Testing Category with PHP and Displaying Conditional Sidebar Info

Hi,

My goal is to display a certain set of information in my sidebar when a particular category is being viewed. I’m using WordPress. I’ve tried a number of different solutions (like creating a different sidebar file and calling it as an include on the particular category template page instead of using the get_sidebar function as well as trying my hand at a conditional test within the sidebar.php file) and have come up short. I’m not a php expert by any means and I imagine that there may be something rather simple here that I’ve missed.

I’ve posted the existing sidebar.php at pastebin: http://wordpress.pastebin.com/TixHcN9k

What can I add to my sidebar and/or index file to check the category and then display only a defined section of the sidebar? Your help is very much appreciated!