If you're running a PHP application on a shared host, it's common to have trouble creating folders and uploading files to them. You may get the following error, but this code will get you past it:

"Warning: chown(): Operation not permitted in /home/username/public_html/test.php on line 45"

"Warning: move_uploaded_file(): SAFE MODE Restriction in effect. The script whose uid is ### is not allowed to access /home/username/public_html/images/testdir owned by uid 33 in /home/username/public_html/test.php on line 47"

Basically, When safe_mode is on, PHP checks to see if the owner of the current script matches the owner of the file to be operated on by a file function or its directory. So if your script runs as 'nobody', or as 'root' and you create a folder with that script, you won't even be able to upload to it!. So you need to create the folder with your userid, and the only way to do that is with FTP. Here's the code:

function ftp_chmod($ftpstream,$chmod,$file)  {
    //you dont need this at php5, only at php4
    $old=error_reporting(); //save old
    error_reporting(0); //set to none
    $result=ftp_site($ftpstream, "CHMOD ".$chmod." ".$file);
    error_reporting($old);//reset to old
    return $result; //will result TRUE or FALSE
}

//create a directory with correct permissions and ftp-user:
function ftp_makemydir($dirname) {
    $dirname = "public_html/images/".$dirname; //start at the right place
    $host = "127.0.0.1";
    $user = "your username";
    $pass = "your password";
    $conn_id = ftp_connect($host);
    $login_result = ftp_login($conn_id, $user, $pass);
    if ((!$conn_id) || (!$login_result)) {
          //insert error text here;
    die;
    }
    ftp_mkdir($conn_id, $dirname);
    ftp_chmod($conn_id, 666, $dirname); // read & write for everyone
    ftp_quit($conn_id);
}