Yep, i was figuring out that myself ;-)

I think it's faster in a way, thanks Xenon! But i can't really tell the difference though, because the server load changes every second on my page.

Here's the current result:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Query: SELECT count(*) AS posts FROM post INNER JOIN thread USING(threadid) WHERE post.dateline > 1077229208 AND thread.forumid NOT IN (16, 54)
Time before: 0.49642205238342
Time after: 0.50070309638977
---------------------------------------------------------------------

that looks fast enough ;)

Enough?
I think you know better than that, because it's never ever fast enough.
And my sorry ass is depending completely on your scripting skills LOL ;-)

*gg* well but 0.01 sec is ok ;)

How would you make this query also give you the amount of new threads since last visit along with the posts?

[sql]SELECT count(postid) AS posts, count(DISTINCT threadid) AS threads
FROM post
INNER JOIN thread USING(threadid)
WHERE post.dateline > '1077204189'
AND thread.forumid NOT IN (16, 54)[/sql]

but it doesn't give you the new threads, just the UPDATED threads

How would you get new threads started with that?

well it's doable in one query, but it would reduce the speed of the query alot, so you better devide them up in two queries ;)

also don't use the above query if you do not want to restrict forums, as it's not nessesary for just getting the new posts ;)