I just ordered the PHP MySql for Dummies manual as I know um... squat
about that and have never used it. Years ago I used several database
programs such as Dbase4, PCFile, Access and of couse the one in MSworks
for work and home use. Was pretty proficient in a couple of those.

I just have not had the need for MySQL until now. Are there any good
online beginner tutorials about getting set up? I use cpanel for all my
web sites and those that I manage for other folks and played with it on
one of my accounts but um... it did not do me any good. I didn't get it
(understand it).

Help if you can. I am a true dummie on that and have no clue where to
begin. I use a program to build web sites (I don't know if I should
mention the name or not) that is very good and use that same program to
upload pages and packages. So am a real dummie otherwise... I do know
HTML up to a point though. That probably does not help much with MySQL.
I looked around in google but did not see anything that looked EASY.

Online Tutorials?

Verb

Well if you are looking for help to learn MySQL I would look on their
website it is located at http://mysql.org/ they offer full documentation
on it. If you are looking to learn PHP which is a programming language
widely used on the web and can be used to interface with MySQL
databases I would stick with the books published by O'Reilly

Most people stick with phpmyadmin to do their database work and most
webhosts offer that in their control panle as well although it may be a
version of it that has their logo on it for more info on phpmyadmin
check out http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/index.php

I agree with Kevin on using phpMyAdmin — very nice interface and
provides for 95% of the most common DBA tasks you'll need (at least to
start).

The book I used to get started (several years ago) with PHP / MySQL is
"PHP and MySQL Web Development" by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson. The
book is currently in its 4th edition, covering PHP5 and MySQL 5. I
found the book to be a very good and thorough introduction, without
talking down to the reader (as is often the case with the "Dummies"
books, which I find to be a bit too cursory to be very helpful).

Additionally, I've found the following site to be invaluable to me as a
reference:

http://www.phpfreaks.com/

Good luck delving into PHP/MySQL. I'm sure you'll love it after you get
some of the basics mastered.

:)

Thank you gentlemen. All suggestions are taken (and welcome) and I will
peruse all the links provided.

This is great! My books are here now and I have online help too.

Have a great day all,

Verb

Hey Verb,

I would stay away from PHP 5 for now deal with PHP 4 version 5 was
released before its time and most web servers will not even install it
as it is not very stable.

The Learning PHP 5 book published by oreilly is a total waist of money
and time.

PHP is a great language if you get good at it you will probably never
look back. You should be sure to know your HTML and CSS very well prior
to learning PHP. You should also consider learning JavaScript if you
don't already know it as well.

Another thing most people are unaware of if you put a .htaccess file on
your web server with a handler you can make your .htm and your .html
files parse on the php processor on the server and then output HTML to
the browser. Basically you can add the power of your PHP programming to
your htm and html pages without a need to change the extension to .php
that is a wonderful thing.

People do not need to know what technology you use to create your pages
as long as they look good and promote the product or information your
trying to promote with the web page in the first place.

Dynamically generating pages from a database is an awesome poer though.
Think about it in about two hours last week I put up an Amazon store
with 3 million dynamically generated pages for the search engines to
crawl.

Today I actually had a visitor from a google search on my site looking
at a product on my online store.


It must be working.

I think the problem with PHP5 has been not the release itself, but the
guides that were hastily written in its wake (and for all the positive
press the O'Reilly books get, I've found them to be hit-and-miss at
best). I've used PHP5 for a couple of years now and find it to be
stable and feature-rich, containing all the functionality of PHP4 and
then some.

The approach to OOP has been much more complete in v.5 than in v.4. For
almost every script I write, I prefer procedural programming for web
site scripting — but there have been some tasks where the use of objects
has been a real time-saver. PHP4 had OOP support, but it was heavily
criticized as being pseudo-OOP or too lightweight.

If you need to do much XML parsing, PHP5 has a nice set of library
functions that make quick work of it. I don't have to do much work in
XML, but the addition of SimpleXML is useful when a job calls for it.

I haven't had the chance to use the embedded SQLite yet, but I'm looking
forward to using it for some small projects that don't require the power
(or the overhead) of MySQL, PostgreSQL, or MS SQL Server.

For the most part, what you learn for PHP5 will be applicable to PHP4 —
so I wouldn't be too concerned about wasting your time, especially
getting started with the basics.

I agree with Kevin that—if you haven't already—you should learn HTML,
CSS, and some JavaScript. I try to avoid using much JavaScript
(although it's usually not possible to go 100% JavaScript-free) because
there are so many browser dependencies. If I can accomplish the same
task using PHP without significant loss of functionality or usability, I
try to do it in PHP exclusively. With the rise in popularity of Ajax,
you can perform many complex tasks that otherwise would have relied
solely on JavaScript (but be careful of using Ajax, as there have been
reports of vulnerabilities that allow browser hijacking). Even so,
having a handle on Javascript basics is extremely helpful.

Allowing .htm and .html extensions for PHP scripts is a matter of
personal taste. For me, I don't mind either way. It won't be any more
secure changing the directive to include .html or .htm extensions, but
some may find it to have an aesthetic appeal. You can use the .htaccess
file as Kevin suggested, or you can change the server's PHP directives
to include .html, .htm, and any other extension you'd like to include.

Funny thing about the Oreilly book Learning PHP 5 it failed to cover any
OOP and that was thelargest difference between PHP 4 and PHP 5.

It is great to see anoother coder in here though were few and far
between.