I am having trouble figuring out how to keep a browser window to come up the size that it is and keeping it from resizing. Is it possible to have it do that?

I had the same problem with IE... well before I switched to Firefox. :)
MS has some fix but I found that this little utility worked best:
IE New Window Maximizer http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22832,00.asp