I’m new to blender and ive been improving very rapidly… right now im focusing on uv mapping for my project (click here). The problem is that i cannot unwrap well enough to be able to make a usable texture… the texture that i have right now is just simple but i want to be able to put on the words and labels and such. One thing that seems weird to me is that, as far as i can find out from all of my searching, there is no way to move your viewpoint around the uv plane… i can zoom in but once ive zoomed i havent found a way to pan. Is this possible? i dont see how it couldnt be. anyway, back to the unwrapping problem, i think the biggest help for me would be if someone could unwrap it for me and then tell me step by step how they did it. im not sure how quickly some of you guys can do that but dont bother if it would take too long but please let me know if you would be willing to do that for me. if you cant do that for me please post a comment helping me w/ the unwrapping process because i really really want to learn but ive read every tutorial i can find and i still cant get acceptable results so help please 
You said you “read” every tutorial, so you may have missed the definitive UV mapping video tutorial from Greybeard. If so you should definitely watch it:
my computer is really terrible (i definately shouldnt be modeling on it) so i hadnt watched any video tutorials yet but ill give that one a shot
It is definitely not difinitive, but here is a beginning tut as well:
http://www.lowpolycoop.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=74
There are a few other uv tips in that forum also.
The basic answer to some of your questions is that many of the navigation and transformation functions you have in the 3D window have some sort of corresponding function in the uv window. Select, border select, grab, rotate, scale, weld/align, etc. For example, pan is hold down the option/alt key (sorry I’m on a mac). Just mess around a bit and use the stuff in the menus. Make a copy of your file so you won’t be afraid of messing up.
Scott
thanks alot everyone ill check out those tutorials and thank you for the tip on panning, you have no idea how long i have been messing around trying to figure that one out 
all else fails… there IS a UV unwrapper script included in the latest release of blender…
really? how do i use it?
select mesh,go to scripts window.
its in scripts->UV->Archimap UV unwrapper. Run the script then check the UV image editor.
well thank you everyone! i finally got passed the learning curve… i can now uv map enough to accomplish what i want for now so thanks everyone who helped (i havent tried that script yet- i was able to unwrap by myself. but it looks useful) check out the progress ive made on my racquet at the link above thanks again!