Noobish question: Do I have to hard code to add widgets to just one particular page?

Hi all.. i'm extremely new at wordpress (and website creation for that matter) and just installed atahualpa, which i think is the best theme i've came across so far.

1)I would like to have a landing page where I put a content slider or some other widgets/feeds (ie. a typical homepage). I've tried adding a new widget area but it ended up in all pages and posts. I hope I don't have to end up coding the page as I don't know codes at all (perhaps just some basic html).

2)I have added a blank page and pointed the blog page option to this blank page where my posts will be shown. I hope this is the right way to do it.

I would really appreciate if someone can enlighten me on this. Thank you!