to use includes and requires you need to do it like this:
PHP Code:
<?
require("/path/to/file.ext");
?>
but you will find that including a file is much better the requiring it:
PHP Code:
<?
include("/path/to/file.ext");
?>
And yes, there is a difference in requiring or including a file, requiring will check to see if the file exists before including it, while include will attempt to include the file whether or not it exists... you may want to look into include_once() and require_once() if you only need to include the file once...