New to PHP & MYSQL looking for mentors :)

go to somewhere like firepages.com.au and download a php/mysql/apache bundle - designed for windows (pick the version closest to your hosts version).

If you get the same version you should be able to create/design on your laptop and upload to your site without making any changes.

As for mentors, we have some gurus here, asking questions is always a great way to learn once you get stuck, but there is also php.net (and mysql and apache have their own manuals).
Word of warning, most books cover php3 or php 4, hosts are starting to upgrade to php 5 which has some great new features (sadly my web host is slow off the blocks).

Welcome to your new addiction

The books I got are for PHP 5

I downloaded XAMPP from ApacheFriends, comes with APACHE,PHP,MYSQL,PHPMYADMIN and all the other bells and whistles.

I did install it all myself - probably because I didn't know any better

It's quite a useful experience to install it all yourself, but there's a bit of messing around, so if you want to jump straight into coding install that XAMPP thingamy.

SSL? Secure Socket Layers? You probably wont want to bother with this, especially not yet. You can worry about that when you start building e-commerce apps.

Ok how do I find Apache's root folder? Its been a couple days and Im no further ahead than when I started learning this stuff LOL... ME = LOST Im not so sure this XAMPP bundle thing is helping me any. I dont know where anything is. Im tempted to get rid of it and install this stuff myself.

check out your httpd.conf file. do a search in your computer for httpd.conf file and open it with notepad and find for DocumentRoot. you will see your root folder there

I deleted the program and I'm installing the stuff myself.

Alright ran into a tiny problem installing PHP.

The book says to move the PHP.ini.recommended to my windows folder renaming it php.ini

then it tells me to uncomment the following 3 things. in the PHP.ini file
extension=php_mhash.dll
extension=php_mcrypt.dll
extension=php_curl.dll

after doing the rest of the setup up stuff it says to restart apache. I do and I get error messages saying it cannot load the 3 things I un-commented.

Any ideas?

In my php.ini the 3 you mentioned are commented.

if you want to run those 3 .dll's make sure you have them, do a gobal search or look in your php folder, under dll for them. If you can't find them, you'll have to try find and download them - try use without first.

You have to restart apache every time you 'edit' the php.ini file for changes to take effect

Im following the instructions in one of the books I am using, so I'm guessing they want me to uncomment them for some purpose in the book. So I'm not to worried about it I guess.