Help With Polls

hi. i'm kind of new to this whole php/mysql stuff. i read the devarticle by mitchell on polls, but it does not work for me. when i try to add a new poll, i input a question, and at least two answers, but i always get the two errors about not entering a title and not entering at least two questions. i'm wondering if maybe my information is not getting passed to the function somehow. but i used his script exactly. i am using my friend's web space, and when i input information using forms, i need to do something like:
$question=urlDecode($HTTP_POST_VARS["question"]);
to get the value of the variable question on the previous page. so i'm wondering if something like that is the cause of my problem or something entirely different. i have tried using that type of code for the variables $question and $answer1-5 before and after the global declaration but i still get the same errors.
any help or referral to maybe a different tutorial would be great. thanks.

oh and does anyone know what:
global $HTTP_GET_VARS
means?

Thanks again.

$HTTP_GET_VARS is not a an autoglobal variable like $_GET is. These variables contain the same information, however, $HTTP_GET_VARS is available in PHP versions before 4.1.0 where $_GET is not. Use $HTTP_GET_VARS for compatibility with older versions of PHP.

Anyhow, $HTTP_GET_VARS is not automatically in the global scope, so to make it work inside a function you must put it into the global scope using the global construct.