How do you do this?

I want to make a background very similar to this site: http://www.freelayouts.com/ (its just an example, its not my site, althought I wish it was)
Does anyone know how to have the background fade like that?

and also how would i do it like this template here: http://www.freelayouts.com/templates/view/4428

 

It's a gradient, use a program like Photoshop.

 

Yeah its gradient tool pretty simple, look here

http://www.freelayouts.com/images/bkg_page.jpg

 

what exactly am I supposed to be looking at?

 

It's that sliver of an image to the left.