I'm a bit of a newbie and trying to get me head around the concepts of skins and tempates (still not totally sure why they are different)

my question is can populate content and skin variables dynamically?

basically i want to have a user form and change the basic look and content of a site according to the details on the form.

simple example:
Site Title

the user form has a feild for this this. on submit the text is taking from the field and perhaps via a DB (based on siteID or something) populate the portal accodingly. So when viewing the portal the Sitetitle is set according to the user input form.

more complex
background colours

The input form also has a colour picker. this colour is saved with the site title and other information and then the background colour for the portal set by the dynamic variable.

is this kind of thing possible?

ideally in order to set up a portal the user would only complete a single registration form and these varibale used to change the colours and text and module content dynamically. The layout is fixed. but other modules and content will be added in the normal admin role manner.

any advice / education appreciated
thanks