Blog template and slider

Hi

First of all i´d like to say that i just love the theme. Ecellent job guys.

Justo two features to be perfect for my needs:

1. how difficult would be to create a blog template page? I´d like to have a menu item called “News” that leads me to a page where i´d like to show all blog excerpts from any possible category. Is it feasable? Any code?

2. is there a way of enter a link to external sources via slide buttons?

Thank you so much