using mysql and php

[markdevoll]

does anyone have a website that explains what they are for and how to use them for someone that has to ask that question? i know i can use them but not why and how.

[felgall]

HTML is a markup language - it is used to specify what the content of your web page is - headings, paragraphs, lists etc. When you create a web page using HTML you create static content.

PHP is a programming language that can be used to dynamically generate HTML. By passing different values into the PHP you can generate web pages that look different depending on what those passed values are. This means for example that you can have visitors fill out a form on your web page and then have a program written in PHP that takes the values they filled in and generates a new web page based on what they entered.

mySQL is a database. It is a place that PHP can store data that makes it easy to retrieve individual entries as required without having to read through the content of a huge file just to get to the one small piece of information required.

Unless you are a programmer you are unlikely to write code for either of these yourself. What is more likely is that you will use one of the thousands of scripts already written by someone else to add az function to your site that is performed using PHP and mySQL. Some examples of such scripts are blogs, forums, a content management system where you just enter your content and it generates the web pages for you, form to mail processor, guestbook, and so on. For a selection of some scripts that can perform some of these tasks for you take a look in Fantastico.

[Basil]

http://tizag.com

[markdevoll]

i found wordpress for a fourm. any advice on do's and dont's?

[felgall]

There are two ways to install Wordpress at BlueHost.

1. Install via Fantastico - this will install a slightly older version and save your having to create the database yourself first.
2. Download the latest version from wordpress.org and manually install it yourself - not much more difficult that the Fantastico way and gives you more control on how you install it. Basil has written a tutorial on how to do a manual install that can be found at http://www.bluehostforum.com/showthread.php?t=10935

The most essential plugin for anyone just starting out to have installed can be obtained from http://techie-buzz.com/wordpress-plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade-plugin.html
This plugin makes it extremely easy to install any upgrades to Wordpress itself in order to keep it up to date.

Another really useful plugin for those who start to get lots of visitors is http://mnm.uib.es/gallir/wp-cache-2/ which generates static copies of the pages for people to view and only dynamically generates them once every few hours instead of once for each visitor.