Module development and code questions

Hello,

I'm new here ( yes a newbie ) and I try to use the node-example module.
I found nothing about to use and see working in my Drupal site.

I made the file "node-example.module" with the file 1.11 found here:
http://drupaldocs.org/api/head/file/contributions/docs/developer/example...

but I don't know what to do after selecting it in the administration page.

I'm writing an encyclopedia module, and am having a little difficulty... I'm trying to upload an image from the node/x/edit but seem to not be able to. I'm using Konqueror, so I can see the "Are you sure you want to upload these files" dialog come up-- verify it's working you see. But I can't seem to figure out the file_ hooks... can anyone help please?

I'm running 4.6RC, which e-commerce should I use: CVS, the one in the sandbox, or 4.5? I tried to wait for the release but I need to get some stuff set up now.

I'm trying to update a module (my first time trying something on the code level of PHP). I think I have almost everything working (after searching other posts, etc.). The exception is found in the following lines of the site_map module:

$result = db_query('SELECT DISTINCT t.tid, n.nid FROM {term_node} t '. _node_access_join_sql() .'INNER JOIN {node} n ON t.nid = n.nid WHERE n.status = 1 AND '. _node_access_where_sql());

$result = db_query("SELECT DISTINCT t.tid, n.nid FROM {term_node} t, {node} n ". _node_access_join_sql() ." WHERE t.nid = n.nid AND n.status = 1 AND n.type = '%s' AND ". _node_access_where_sql(), $type);

I have replaced the "node" with the "_node" and tried adding in a "db_rewrite_sql()" statement to each of these lines according to the patch discussion I found at http://drupal.org/node/17666. My knowledge of PHP syntax (or anything PHP, for that matter) has prevented me from success. My attempted patch is:

$result = db_query(db_rewrite_sql('SELECT DISTINCT(n.nid), t.tid FROM {term_node} t '. _node_access_join_sql() .'INNER JOIN {node} n ON t.nid = n.nid WHERE n.status = 1 AND '. _node_access_where_sql()));

$result = db_query(db_rewrite_sql('SELECT DISTINCT(n.nid), t.tid FROM {term_node} t, {node} n ". _node_access_join_sql() ." WHERE t.nid = n.nid AND n.status = 1 AND n.type = '%s' AND ". _node_access_where_sql(), $type));

I'm working on a module (discusspoll) which I'm testing at OurOpinion.com

My question is, where should I look, in terms of documentation, to get started for implementing/setting things up so that I can feed "discussion polls" to other sites via RSS? I'm assuming that my module output has to be XHTML compliant for this to work.

i mean, specifically, the "->"?

i don't see that in PHP documentation, nor anyplace in the drupal documentation i can find.

it's not exactly easy to search the forums on that string ;)

thanks,
--derek