It wasn't long ago that I've discovered that I'm not just stuck with mysql for effectively operating databases from PHP. For very small websites that need tiny databases, it's maybe easier to stick with sqlite, which uses PHP 5's built in database engine. It's fast, but limited.

For those who're still using big databases, and have a mysql server running the database, I recommend you to switch to mysqli. The 'i' on the end stands for 'improved'. Lots of the queries are exactly the same, but improved sounds good to me. To make the switch, you don't even need to rebuild your database.

Here's a question, let's say the method for signing up for my new website would be to register your email address, and then you get a link to follow in your email, and then you complete the rest of the registration.

I want to make it so that these entries expire, meaning that if somebody gives their email address, but then never follows the link to register, that entry will eventually disappear.

I am planning to allow users of my website to upload images, but I don't want millions of pictures to fill up my storage space. I've read up on this, and I've found 2 options.

There is the option to store images directly into the database as a longblob, and the option to move the images into a directory and then store a pointer to it in the database.