second time grow

this is my first post here.this is my second time trying to grow i have a few questions,but first,the first time i grew weed it was a female then it turned male how did that happen?did i leave the light on to long when it was flowering?ok now this time i found a 24 hour timer but its not working so my question is,is it all rite to have more dark houres than lite/i mean its hard for me to get the hours exact so if one day gets a few more hours of dark than another will that mess it up or does it half to be perfect hours?im still trying to get that timer to work its an old piece of crap.this one is female its about 3ft tall now and it just started flowering/white hairs how big do you think it will get?and how much bud do you think it will harvest,and from flowering start how long till harvest normaly.i all ready read about day,night houres but could you tell me again ok heres a few pics,whats the differance between a short bushy plant and a tall lanky one?this may be a dumb question but can any one tell what strain os weed this is or do u wait for the buds to tell,damn to many questions

picture 1 looks good.. but picture 3 looks very stretched... You will need to FLOWER now.. or clone now..

either way.. you will need the light to be MUCH MUCH closer...
when you move the light closer, make sure it does not burn your plant... are you using a fan?

THE PLANT needs 12 hours of UNINTERUPTED darkness every 24 hours... THIS is called FLOWERING

and NOW you KNOWM

BTW-I suspect that plant is male... yikes

iloveyou

well i moved the lite so i could take the pics there are 2 lites in there the fan is above in the roof/attic pannel so its getting fresh air. and the 12/12 lite/darkness does that change to be like to 14 hour dark?or just 12/12 till harvest.i seen people talking about wierd lite times so i didnt know how much it changes.i thought more dark the better? it is female the white hairs just started 2 days ago its more tall than bushy thats why i asked that question is a tall plant good?or they should they be small and bushy.i though the taller the better.but i dont really know about that

ok here are few new pics tell me what you think if it looks good or bad.my brother thinks the the buds dont look full/thin or spaced out to much/i will see what you guys say.i think the top is to big and the bottom is to thin but its still basicly my first grow so live and learn any tips for flowering/plant food for it? that would be nice