AOL can do whatever they want, its their network. Recently, however, they made an adjustment to what email they accept from outside sources that utilize PHP. What is even more interesting is that they haven't made the adjustment public - it was only through analysis of the logs and subsequent calls with the tech center that the new policy was uncovered. It is assumed it is an effort to combat spam from entering their network.

This has implications for PHP scripts that send the user communication. All scripts will need to be adjusted to add a valid email address to the 'Return-To' header. To do so, the '-F' modifier is used in the format: '-F valid@emailaddress.xxx'

PHP's mail function allows the addition of 'additional paramaters' (http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php) that make it super easy.

So, if AOl users aren't getting email from your PHP scripts, add the -F flag (with a valid email address) and consider your problem solved..

In PHP, you can seemingly freely use single quotes (') and double quotes (") around statements of various types. They often are used with echo or print_r commands where you are sending something to the screen.

I have read debates in the past about which one is beter and faster. Because double (") seemed to be easier to work with as far as production goes, I've been using it more lately.

I came across an neat little article on PHP tips at Evolt.org. One such one was regarding the major difference. While speed is a factor, double quotes tells PHP to interpret the code WHILE looking for a variable. If you are echoing a lot of variables and your script is short, double will do ya. Otherwise, single quotes are faster in the long run since they don't have to interpret anything. They serve as sort of a container.

There are so other excellent tips in the article. While many scripts I write are somewhat basic, optimizing them whereever possible can never be a bad thing. Clean coding is seems to be much like good writing. Shorter, simpler many times means better.

Good Windows Info: http://cloanto.com/kb/3-157.html
Solid Mac Info: http://www.trah.co.uk/starterfile/mac.htm

Hybrid CDs with Toast
The only thing that Toast allows for you to do is make a CD where users on each platform - Win/Mac or Unix - will only see the files for that suppoorted platform, and none other. Win/Unix utilize ISO 9660. Macs support that format, but use their own individual format too. By using Toast, you can hide these files from other platforms. Other Mac issues, like icons, window position, etc., are also supported with the hybrid format.

One thing to keep in mind is that even without hybrid software, all platforms can 'see' ISO 9660 cds - hybrids just make it prettier and more convenient.

Here's an explanation on hybrid production using Toast from Roxio: http://www.roxio.com/en/support/toast/toasthybrid.jhtml

A Thing About Macs and OS X
Autorun will not work on Mac OS X. According to Autorun-Autoplay-tools.com, " Mac autoplay behavior requires QuickTime 2.0 or above and System 9 or below. OS X does not support autoplay. Classic will autoplay a CD if Classic is already running before the CD is mounted. This would be useful if you're planning a presentation to work over all environments for the Macintosh. A few years ago there was a Mac virus which used the QuickTime Autorun feature to wreak havoc on Mac’s all over the world. Macintosh engineers came up with a solution for fixing the problem—they simply removed the autorun feature from the OS X operating system. Hence the inability for OS X users to autorun CDs."