Here is a book I came across today - haven’t had a chance to skim through it. If you are looking to take the plunge into building your own blog using Wordpress, it’ll help to start with a book like this. Then you can increase your knowledge by visiting blogs like ours!
WordPress Complete: set [...]

Pretty neat little plug in - keeps graphical changes after an upgrade to the screen you see here (I think!). I’ll have to test it and post an update.
Custom Wordpress Log in Screen