// convert a date into a string that tells how long ago
// that date was.... eg: 2 days ago, 3 minutes ago.
function ago($d) {
 $c = getdate();
 $p = array(\'year\', \'mon\', \'mday\', \'hours\', \'minutes\', \'seconds\');
 $display = array(\'year\', \'month\', \'day\', \'hour\', \'minute\', \'second\');
 $factor = array(0, 12, 30, 24, 60, 60);
 $d = datetoarr($d);
 for ($w = 0; $w < 6; $w++) {
 if ($w > 0) {
  $c[$p[$w]] += $c[$p[$w-1]] * $factor[$w];
  $d[$p[$w]] += $d[$p[$w-1]] * $factor[$w];
 }
 if ($c[$p[$w]] - $d[$p[$w]] > 1) { 
  return ($c[$p[$w]] - $d[$p[$w]]).\' \'.$display[$w].\'s ago\';
 }
 }
 return \'\';
}
// you can replace this if need be. 
// This converts my dates returned from a mysql date string 
// into an array object similar to that returned by getdate().
function datetoarr($d) {
 preg_match(\"/([0-9]{4})(\\\\-)([0-9]{2})(\\\\-)([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2})(\\\\:)([0-9]{2})(\\\\:)([0-9]{2})/\",$d,$matches);
 return array( 
 \'seconds\' => $matches[10], 
 \'minutes\' => $matches[8], 
 \'hours\' => $matches[6], 
 \'mday\' => $matches[5], 
 \'mon\' => $matches[3], 
 \'year\' => $matches[1], 
 );
}