Replacing the core search module with the views search filter

Hi

I am pretty new to drupal and I am having trouble creating the search results page my website requires.

I originally just used the core search module as I wasn't aware that the results page was so limited. I soon found out though that theming it would be very hard. After a lot of research I found that one could create a search function using views. I have now done this, but what I need is for these two search functions to be connected. So when I search for a term in the core search box in my sidebar my views results page shows up and not the core search results page. I have found ways of doing this with drupal 5 using views fastsearch (http://www.lullabot.com/articles/custom_search_forms_views_and_fastsearc), but this module has not been upgraded to drupal 6 and I am therefore finding it very hard.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Ideas of other ways of theming my results page are also welcome! What I am trying to achieve is a table set up with the fields: title, thumbnail, address and a link for each result.

Also, I am new to this so please explain clearly!

Thanks