What about this

1

a user signs up for my forum. sets a cookie called i believe phpmysql_data
not sure. Watever what I am trying to do is on my homepage I want it to say,
“Welcome, Lost” where Lost is the user’s id. Do I draw it from this cookie? or do I have to use sessions? and how would I draw it out of a session?

Get me?:block:

2

Sessions: http://us4.php.net/manual/en/ref.session.php

Cookies: http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.setcookie.php

You can use either. I prefer sessions. More secure. More options. Cookies are stored locally and can be easily by-passed or hacked.