How can I make a change to the layout and order of elements to the node template

Hello,

A couple of questions:

1. I would like to change the order of elements on my page. For exmaple:

Title Comment count

Author - Taxonomy (Tags) / Taxonomy (Tags) - Star Rating Feature

Post image (To support three sizes and media types)

Teaser

read more button

I made a copy of node.tpl.php from the omega defaults and placed in templates directory of my sub-theme called thebridge but i'm not seeing the changes that I have made. Do I need to make changes to the file's name?

I would also like to display the posts image in two ways:

1. Image to span the width of the content div
2. Thumbnail sized image that is floated right of the content.

If you can point me to a good tutorial that would be great.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.