Column Spacing problems

I am having problems with my portal columns maintaining the same spacing in general and on different browsers. I have dealt with this by placing portal items in a border of the same size as other objects in the same column. This has corrected most problems but what remains is occasional blank space (for no reason I am aware of) outside the border and the existing widgets forcing columns to their width (which is unknown to me and uneditable) for example the recent topics existing widget forces my center column which is 466px to a wider width - how can this be fixed I.E. changing the dimensions of existing widgets. Some offer height changes but the I'd like to be able to change the widths to specific dimensions.

what it is is the custom message atop of your poratl. You need to be sure all the images and adverts are the same width this will cause the blocks to be bigger than the others even if you but them in "block form"

It used to happen to me. Be sure everything is the same width!