1. You can go to paypal.com and I beleive they have automatic donate button generators which you could put anywhere you want on your site.
2. I would check your cookie settings as
VB and Photopost need to be set the same. If you post a test login I can tell ya whats wrong if anything
3. You can turn things on and off on the index as you see fit. It all depends on what you have on off etc. More information here might help