DB Logic help...

hey- I have a few pages on my website which need to be divided up into different columns and rows based on a category in a table. for example, on a links page, I have three different columns, one for bands, one for sites, and one for other things. I'm storing those things in the table with a category field, so that when I output the data, it goes to the right place. However I'm a little unsure of the actual code to do this... can someone lend me an example or give me some ideas? thanks chris