ver 2.3.3. PHP code in a page doesn’t work anymore

Hello, long time not visisting this forum, cause everything was working just fine.

Now, my server was upgraded to PHP 5.x and suPHP. I’m using wp since version 1.2. However my last ver was 1.5.3 so taking the oportunity I upgraded to 2.3.3. That was fine BUT, I got some plugin problems.

I use the following plugins:

Include Page 1.0 by Brent Loertscher (updated to 1.2)
Jerome’s Keywords 1.5 by Jerome Lavigne (updated to 1.9)
Last Post since 1.0 by Tino Beirau
PHP Exec 1.7 by Priyadi Iman Nurcahyo
Search Pages 0.1 by David G. Nagle
Static Front Page 1.0.2 by Denis de Bernardy (deleted)
Google Sitemaps 2.7 by Arne Brachhold

In wp 2.3.3 Static Front Page is not needed anymore so I deleted it, but to be honest I don’t understand the concept of the new “A static page” option at Options/Reading. The purpose of Front Page is obvious but what’s the purpose of “Posts page”?

My Front page contains some PHP code that doesn’t work anymore. Maybe plugin “PHP Exec” is obsolete and that’s why my source code is displayed on the screen instead of the expected result.

What I’m trying to display as a front page is the last post without limiting the number of posts displayed to just one.

The code at my “Home” page included:

<h2><phpcode><?php _e(‘ Some title here ‘); ?></phpcode></h2>
<p><phpcode><?php query_posts(‘posts_per_page=1&category_name=general’); ?>
</phpcode>
</p>

Any help please?
Thank You