Alright. I'll help you clear a few things up. I (also) am fairly new to the language. I've been toying with it for about a week, maybe less.
I am going to start at the top:
I personally prefer Code::Blocks, it is a very versatile program, you can change the Syntax Highlighting to your liking, and as you become more experienced you will notice just how many things you can customize throughout the program.
Something you may be missing out on: The steps to creating a program.
1) Open Code::Blocks
2) File --> New --> Empty File
3) Save as --> You are going to want to save it as a .cpp file, this means Code::Blocks will use C++ to compile your program.
4) Once you have completed your code, click the Build button (Blue gear on the top left of the interface)
5) After the program is built, you can click the "Run" button (arrow pointing towards the right, Located in the top left by the blue build button)
I've included a screenshot of my screen so you can locate my Build(Blue Gear) and Run(blue play) buttons, as well as the Build and Run (combination of both)
http://i54.tinypic.com/2m63hfr.png
So with that being said, you understand how to compile and run a program.
For future references; if you have a large amount of code you wish to post, and don't want to dedicate a huge post to lots of code, codepad.org can be quite useful.
In regards to questions to help you better understand program structures and data types:
Create a program that asks for a number of feet, then converts it to meters.
Be sure to use appropriate variable types! (Hint: meters and feet conversions usually aren't whole numbers (integers
Any questions, I'll be glad to answer to the best of my abilities :D