Module development and code questions

Hi,

I am working through development of my first module and have a question. So here's the 'configure' case in my block hook in the module file:

I am currently trying to create a site using drupal 5.1... i am using the 'nice menus' module, and it seems to work fine in firefox, but i just checked in IE and the nice menu system doesnt seem to be working :/ can anyone suggest any fixes for this? The nice menus module worked fine for me in both IE and FF for drupal 4.7.

Thnx!

I've seen a little discussion on such a module but haven't seen it go far.

I've not developed a module before (or done any serious PHP development) but would be willing to learn as I go along if anyone else is willing to help out and point me in the right direction!

So, if anyone can give their thoughts on how such a module would work could they please reply!

Thanks,

Tom

Is there any built in functionality of authencating via POST or variables in the url.

Im making a module that an external resource with a limited script language will access an url on my Drupal install, and this will trigger some Database queries. The only real available method of auth needs to be done either via POST variables, or variables in the url. Preferably i would like to create a very limited user account for this, and pass the login creditials through that.

I want to provide an individual counter on each profile page to display how many times that particular profile page has been accessed.
So that users can keep track of how many people (appart from themselves) have seen their profile.

Is there a module that can do that?

I see some modules where they have an arbitrary amount of instances. How do I make that happen? For example I want a module to display in the left sidebar in some places and the right sidebar in other places.