You forgot to query the database!
You need to use mysql_query() to retrieve data from your DB server, then loop through it with a while() loop.
Also, you can't use quotes inside quoted strings - it breaks the string, meaning you'll get a syntax error with the SELECT ... line. You don't actually need to quote database fields in queries, so the following should work fine:
<?php
mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "");
mysql_select_db("cede") or die("Couldn't find database");
$query = 'SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY DATE DESC LIMIT 8';
$result = mysql_query($query); // Query the database.
// Loop through each returned row
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
print_r($row); // Prints the current row
}
?>
To show any errors that PHP reports, put these two lines at the top of your script.
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', '1');
They will output any errors you get, making problems much easier to solve.