quick question about server side development

[AluminX]

Hi, i would just like someone to explain me the server-side concept thing when it comes to games/chat rooms ect.
Lets say i would like to make a a very simple function - every x seconds a random sentence from an array would echo like so.
1. hello adam.
2. Banking by handset, navigating ...
3. location-based searches are just a few of the exciting

but this function should run on the server regardless of any calls made from the client's agent. i.e if user A goes to someserver.com/run.php and sees 3 sentences and leaves the page. When User A comes back to someserver.com/run.php some minutes later the server has run the function 10 more time since the last time and now he/she sees 13 sentences.

My question is how is this accomplished? like what is the concept?
Thanks

[TheRave]

You can use CRON jobs to execute server-side scripts if necessary.

Otherwise the script will only run when it is accessed by the client.

[AluminX]

Thank you. i actually had a talk with my boss and the conclusion was that there needs to be at least 1 user making requests to the server, thus keeping information updated. That users can act as an admin an his browser should always be on.
All i wanted to know really, was how can i make a flash movie play on the server over and over and all the users that visit that page see the same scene no matter when they login to the page

[TheRave]

That's more related to media streaming than php.

I haven't done much work with streaming media, such as flash, so I'm not sure how you would go about it.

I know that it is possible to stream media semi-live, so when new users join the stream they are at the same place as users who joined before.

[bsmbahamas]

you can probably have a script that calculates the time the new clients logon,
and have it forward or start the movie clip based on the time they login.

so if the movie is say 3 hours long, and started at 10:00am and the new visitor logs in at 10:25am, it would calculate him as 25 minutes late, and start
the movie playing from 25 minutes onwards.

javascript can porbably do that, but php would be better for cross browser compatibility.

i'm not certain how to start the movie at any point, but i'm pretty sure it can be set to start at any point in the movie.