Answering the OP's question...
To read the crafting lists, first you go to the link on the left labeled, "Guild Recipe Lists." You then choose which craft you want to look up. You should get a long list that has a lot of lines that look something like this.
Tin Ingot 15 Fire Crystal Tin Orex4
(Apologies for them being so close together... I tried to edit it a few times, and it doesn't seem to want to cooperate. So, bear with me. ^^)
You may notice that you can click on lins where the item names are listed. These links will bring you to a more detailed description that will let you how (and if) the item can be synthed, what mobs drop it (and where), if you can buy it off of an NPC (and where), and what you can make using the item.
The item on the left ("Tin Ingot," in this case) is the item being synthed. The number, 15, is how high you can possibly skill up your crafting level to synthing this item. (When synthing these, you will only recieve skillups before your level in that particular craft is 15 or more.) The next one over, "Fire Crystal," tells you which crystal you'll need to make this synth. Depending on what you're making, you'll need different crystals. There's a pretty specific pattern... equipment pieces generally are synthed with Earth Crystals, food usually uses Fire, and so on. The items on the right, "Tin Orex4" tells you what the ingredients are that you need to make the item on the left. In this case, you need a Tin Ore - but you'll need four of them, or else the game will give you an error message and you won't do anything.
When synthing for skillups, I've personally found that synthing things that have a skill cap 5 or 6 levels above my current skill gives decent skillups, and you don't end up failing all that many synths. If you visit the guilds, there's people there that will add support to your synthing. The one who offers "Advanced synthing support" is your best bet... sure, it costs a little bit of money, but almost never do you encounter a synth where you lose more money getting support than you do breaking it. This support adds three levels (supposedly) to your current skill for five minutes. You can still skill up even if the +3 pushes you over the cap, so long as your true skill is under the cap for that synth.
So if you're level 6 Smithing, and you're synthing something that caps at 8, if you get support, you're virtually at level 9. But you will still continue to get skillups, because your real skill is level 6.
Various things affect synth success and skillup rates. Some of the things I've been told, that I can not yet confirm for sure:
1. Moon phase. Supposedly 0% New Moon is a prime time to skill up. But in a trade for the skillups, you also become more likely to break your synths.
2. Direction. There are various elemental compasses, such as the one at
http://ffxi.lokyst.net/timer/crafttimer.html that can show you this elemental compass, and in this case, also calculate relative success rates.
3. Day of the week - Darksday is the best time for skillups, with more breakage. Lightsday gives more success, but fewer skillups. Also, the day that is strong against your crystal you're using will give better skillups but (say it with me) more breakage. Vice versa with the one that's weak to your crystal.
3. Conquest. This is one that I've heard that affects synth success, but I can't personally see that it really would have any affect. I've heard a few people say that you have better success and skillup rates when your country is leading conquest. I personally think this is a load of crap, but of course, I could very well be wrong.
While I see that I went way above and beyond the question posed, I certainly hope that this all was a help to you. Best of luck, may you have lots of good days of synthing. ^^
Speedly
Edited, Mon Oct 3 19:42:45 2005 by Speedly Edited, Mon Oct 3 19:50:02 2005 by Speedly