Module development and code questions

I have installed the 4.6 inline.module
When I try to view a node with an image I get an error saying

getimagesize(http://path to file) bad file descriptor. I don't understand why this happens. This only happens when I open the site from an outside adress, not when I work on my local network.

When I change $filepath in function theme_inline_html in the inline.module to the relative path to the file everything works allright. Like this:

$f_dim=getimagesize('files/picture.jpg');

I had problems with restoring the password, after I installed mass_url.module and as a result of this 404 appeared.
I found out that the form of address was mistaken. In order to restore the password (user/password), you have to find the following lines:
else if ($url_username == ('password')) {
user_page();
return;
}
and to replace
user_page();
with
user_pass();

Two questions here really. You can look at my module's output at http://ouropinion.com/?q=node/5 to see an example of what I'm working with. To see an screen snapshop of the "edit" & "results" tabs, see here.

In developing a module, how can I make other modules it relies upon show and become enabled as 'required'?

After looking at the e-commerce module there seems to be a hook_install() function I can implement, except it doesn't seem to be included in the drupaldocs anywhere and I can't get it to work - it seems just to be ignored.

In addition to this I was wondering is there a drupal IRC channel of some kind where I can talk live with drupal developers? I'm working on a complex project and could use some Q&A assistance from the gurus..

Is there a move to add a default selection to forms for select elements? I need to present an alphabetical list where the most common selection is not the first. I would like to preselect, as the default, one value. If select elements had a default field added then I could specify the default.

I installed the forms module and found I had to run some SQL by hand. Then I had to edit the SQL to place the drupal_ prefix in the table names. Perhaps the Drupal module installation process be improved so that the table creation process can be in a standard function that is run when the module is first enabled in admin.

The SQL could be conditional to create the table if the table does not exist. The existing SQL function would automatically supply the table prefix.