user login: where is the best place to put the form?

I am currently writing a blog/personal website using MySQL, Apache, and PHP. I want users to be able to log into a site with a user name/password. What is the best method to do this: having user name and password fields displayed on the header of each page (similar to the search form on the top of devshed) or simply placing a link for users to login which would link to a different login page (similar to ebay)? I have seen both styles before, I am curious to what everyone else's opinion is.

i would have thought that you would put the login at the front/main page and set sessions/cookies, and then on each page check if there are sessions and if not then redirect them to the login page.

I personally like it available to me on all pages in a corner or along a sidebar. This way, whenever I decide to log in, the option is there. When I log in, I like it when the form disappears, and displays my basic user information in its placed, or a link to it.

Just my preference.

Using PHP you could do both very easily
I like the login form in the corner idea

ebay has both

you might want to make a page for login as well as the login section corner thing in case people try to do member activities without being logged in

Can you do login without cookies, I thought of doing it with a database but that would be a lot of extra queries

what u would have to do is create a login script.

query = select email, pass from wherever where email = $POST[email]......

run query

if !result {
redirect the user
}


create the form
}
then place this login script wherever he wants this!

what u would have to do is create a login script.

query = select email, pass from wherever where email = $POST[email]......

run query

if !result {
redirect the user
}


create the form
}
then place this login script wherever he wants this!

I believe PHP's sessions use cookies, but in the case where a user has disabled cookies in his/her browser, PHP will pass session ID's through the URL.