hello thks alot for all your help i was able to solve the problem...one last question on registration the code is meant to send an auto email to the registrant and it is not doing that. where have i gone wrong? $queryq = "insert into registrant values ('$flag','$firstname','$lastname','$dateofbirth','$email','$password','$companyname','$street','$country','$phone','$fax','$area')"; $resultq = mysql_query($queryq) or die("Error with the query. Message: ".mysql_error()); print mysql_error(); $sub="Registration"; $message="You have been registered has an author with id $flag"; mail($email,$sub,$message,'From : admin'); echo ' You have been sign-up successfully ';