[REF] ALL ROMS | ROOTING | FAQ's | STICKIES | POSTING RULES - Read before posting - xda-developers
here is some more information on rooting, as for flashing a recovery, after you download rom manager you can choose to keep the recovery that is installed with the app or an alternate(either is fine), in the main menu of the app it will say "reboot into recovery", select that and wait for the phone to restart, then choose backup and do a nandroid backup so that of something goes wrong you can fall back on that backup.