by Daniel Thomas.
Thank you so very much Ken and Howard for your kind response!
For some reason, the whole mysqli package is missing; for example, the output of phpinfo(); doesn't show the word mysqli in any place...
The problem might seem to be in the respository?
What happens is that when I try yum search php53-mysqli, or either yum install php53-mysqli, the package is not found...
apparently everything else was updated indeed to PHP 5.3.3
might there be some repository that I might try adding, in case it helps?
PURA VIDA
(Costa Rican Greeting)
Daniel Henry