Module development and code questions

So I saw the example block in the handbook but have a question about it.

I made a block to list the recent files uploaded to my site, however because the title is very long (over 25 characters -- usually around 50-60 characters) the side bar the block is in becomes deformed one way or another and I've traced it to this problem specifically.

So before I made a special function to truncate the title to 25 characters I was wondering if there was one in drupal or different solution to this problem.

In my new module I've created a page with a callback like module_callback() and in most circumstances this trick has been working when combined with the relevant menu items. However I'm now trying to implement local tasks to a single callback like those on a node with urls of the format ?q=module/pagename/[id]/localtask etc.

I searched the PHP documentation before posting. What exactly does the t('string') function do? I couldn't find it in the PHP Docs and it is used extensively in the Drupal code.

Thanks.

I have a module which inserts fields into the registeration form the hook_user(). I am however finding the data always ends up in the table. Anyone have any ideas as how to make it not save any of the data in the user table from the specific hook implementation?

Terminated request because of suspicious input data.

Trying to post some sample code for an emailsearch module I hacked out of the search.module. Anyone interested in seeing it? http://www.unicoischools.com

Hey all -

I'm currently working on a module (for 4.6) that requires some information to be inserted into form tags after the Submit button. The module is an implementation of WebHashcash (http://www.davidsj.com/webhashcash/), an anti-spam mechanism for the web.