Have not looked at the hack, but either way you would have to edit the main template which I assume would be 'home' as you did and you can basically add all of the data there, but if you're trying to get $daily to return the contents of the template home_daily then you need to place this line of code in the index.php or whatever the main file is called.
PHP Code:
eval ( '$daily = "' . fetch_temlate ( 'home_daily' ) . '" ;' ) ;
Place the line before the eval of the home template preferably not in any conditionals, but perhaps right above that line.
Hope that helps some.
Cheers,
g-force2k2