Using the standard synaptics tochpad on my laptop, how would I go about customising it.
For example, using a corner of it for the middle mouse button or changing the scroll feature to work like a mac (2 fingers scroll).
Can anyone point me in the right direction?
I have pretty much zero programming ability.

Check this page. For a lot of info on synaptics touchpad settings that go in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Ok, that's helpful, but I really liked the 2 finger scrolling i saw on a friend's macbook. In windows I had the 2 top corners set to scroll back and forward firefox tabs. it would be handy to get that back.