Okay, it looks like the problem is that the code for both of those scripts is invalid/obsolete. Way back with php3 (1999 or so) you could start a php code block with "<?" alone instead of "<?php" like all versions since have used... they've offered an option for backwards compatibility with that option, but by doing so, it breaks any pages that also have XML in them. As the new xepher.net site is written to be (almost) XHTML compliant, it's now become impossible to run with that option. The solution is to do a search/replace in all the php files, changing "<?" to "<?php" Be careful to only do that once though, or you might end up with "<?phpphp"
As for the newsbox... no, I'm sorry, the old one doesn't exist any more. I know I can't please everyone all the time, but more people seem to like the new one, including me. (And my vote counts for a bit :-P ) Keep in mind that it will look better once the ugly text placeholder images get replaced by users uploading their own images. A quick scroll through
http://www.xepher.net/sitedirectory.php and you can see a few people have already put up much nicer images. The newsbox is optional now though. I do ASK that you display at least some form of it, as I think it's good for the community, and will both help get more traffic for your site (from other sites) as well as attract new sites to xepher.net itself. It's up to you if you want to use it or not though. But keep in mind, as is explained at
http://www.xepher.net/help.php your banners won't be in the rotation on other sites if you don't have a newsbox or banner on your own site.
As for the hit counter, yes it's gone as well. For one thing, it wasn't very accurate. The new newsbox actually does keep some basic stats though, mainly that I use for determining if someone's currently running a newsbox on their page so they can be added/removed from the banner rotation if needed. I'll soon have the web stats system back up and running through, which can give you much more detailed information about your site traffic. (If you didn't see it before, it has charts and graphs and everything.) Or you could install one of dozens of PHP hit counters that do the same thing as the one on the old newsbox. In fact, if you want, I can give you the code for the old one and you can modify it for your own use if you feel up to the challenge.
