Shoutbox Help!

Hello everyone, I followed a tutorial on biorust to create shoutbox's (biorust.com/tutorials/detail/110/us) . After uploading the stuff, I added some css to make it look a bit prettier and a bit of javascript to optomize the way it functions, and I'm stuck on two things regarding php and javascript- (I'm not very php / javascript smart).

I want the page to refresh every 3-5 seconds, so I tried the

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5">

but I don't want whatever the person was typing in the 'message' section to disappear on refresh. I just want the table td holding the already posted shouts to refresh but not the actual form- I searched and searched google for this and all I got is that it's possible with AJAX- but I didn't find a clear- working code

I also want the 'name' to be remembered in a javascript or php cookie, but I can't get any of the codes I searched for to work with the script =/

I hope I'm not asking for too much- If you know how to resolve ANY of the above two issues please help me out =/

the currently revised shout.php script is


<?php


// calling session_start() the function which starts our authentication session

session_start();


// connecting to mysql server

$l = mysql_connect  ( "localhost" , "Admin" , "shoutbox" ) or die("Error connecting:<BR><BR>".mysql_error());

mysql_select_db( "evergre7_shoutbox" ) or die("Error getting db:<BR><BR>".mysql_error());


// defining getShouts() which is our function that gets all of our shouts

function getShouts()

{


	echo '<div align="center">

		<table width="150" cellspacing="3" cellpadding="0" class="table">

		  <tr>

			<td> 

	';	

	

	$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM shouts ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 10") or die(mysql_error());

	while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($query) )

	{

		

		$name = stripslashes($row['Name']);

		$contact = stripslashes($row['Contact']);

		$shout = stripslashes($row['Shout']);

		

		if(empty($contact))

		{

		

			echo '<p><span class="author">'.$name.'</span> <span class="dash">|</span> <span class="shout">'.$shout.'</span></p>';

			

		} else {

		

			echo '<p><span class="author"><a href="'.$contact.'" target="_blank">'.$name.'</a></span> - <span class="shout">'.$shout.'</span></p>';


		} // if empty contact

				

	} // while row mysqlfetcharray query

	

	echo '<br><br>';

	

	echo '

			</td>

		  </tr>


		';	


} // function getshouts



// our processing if control statement

if ( isset ( $_POST['shout'] ) )

{

	

	$name = addslashes($_POST['name']);

	$message =  $_POST['message'];

	

	if ( ( isset($name) ) && ( isset($message) ) )

	{

		

		// getting smilie list

		$smilies = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM smilies") or die(mysql_error());

		while($get = mysql_fetch_array ($smilies))

		{

			

			$alt = $get['Alt'];

			$smilie = $get['URL'];

			

			$message = str_replace( $get['Symbol'] , '<img src="smilies/'.$smilie.'" border="0" width="15" height="15" alt="'.$alt.'">' , $message);

			$themessage = addslashes($message);

			

			// replacing all smilies

					

		}

	

		mysql_query("INSERT INTO shouts (Name, Contact, Shout) VALUES ( '$name' , '$contact' , '$message' )") or die(mysql_error());

		$_SESSION['has_posted'] = 'yes';

		header("Location: shout.php");

		

		// if required fields aren't empty, process into database

		

	} else {

	

		echo '<script>alert("Some fields were not filled out!");</script>';

		header("Location: shout.php");

		

		// if required fields were left empty, show an error dialog

		

	}


}/* else {


	echo '<script>alert("Please follow the form to this page.");</script>';

	header("Location: shout.php");

	

	// if they weren't even referred from the form, show error dialog and redirect


} // if isset post shout


/* STARTING THE MAIN SCRIPT NOW */


// starting the table


//displaying the shouts

getShouts();



mysql_close($l);



?>

	  

			<div align="center">

			<form name="shout" method="post" action="shout.php" class="form">

				<tr><td>

					<span class="headers">name:</span> <br><input name="name" type="text" id="name" size="25" maxlength="10" onfocus="this.select()" onblur="this.value=!this.value?'Anonymous:':this.value;" value="Anonymous" class="input"><br>

				</tr></td><tr><td>

					<span class="headers">Message:</span> <br><input name="message" type="text" id="message" size="25" class="input"><br>

				</tr></td><tr><td>

					<input name="shout" type="submit" id="shout" value="Post!" class="submit">

				</tr></td>

			  </div>

			</form>

			

		  

		  </table>

		  </div>


<link href="shoutbox.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">


<body>


<script type="text/javascript">

window.onload = function () {

		// focus on the input field for easy access...

		var input = document.getElementById ('message');

		input.focus ();

		// ...but if someone wishes to go back in their history, let them!

		document.onkeydown = function (e) {

			if (!e) {

				var e = window.event;

			}

			if (e.keyCode === 8 && !input.value) {

				history.back();

			}

		};

	};


</script>