3 Issues - URGENT - please help

A few questions. Clients waiting to see changes.

There is a wonderful page on security, thanks to the people who take the time to put this together. Everyone should read - http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Important_Site_Security_Recommendations

On this page, among other issues, it says to, after you are done with your cart set up/build, to scure many folders. It say to secure your images folders. BUT !!! If i change permissions for security to 644 on my images folder....my images wont show up. As if the cart can't access the files. How can I secure my images folder without denying cart access to call on the images ?

Also, I have read MANY posts on footer issues. On most of my pages i do not need to change this, but i have stripped down my 'home' page to simplify and now my footer is too far up on page. I need it to stick to the bottom if possible, none of my css attempts can do this properly. Please help

On a final note. Is there ANY POSSIBLE way to HIDE the attributes 'price' ? My client does not want the price of the attribute to be include inthe text of the attributes dropdown menu i set up.

Thanks for the input guys, and I am in urgent need of a quick response.