Webmaster Resources | Website Hosting Tutorials | PHP & MySQL Web Hosting

Many websites on the internet these days are not static sites anymore. They are developed using a programming language with content stored in a database. The main reason is to reduce the amount of work when updating websites. You don't need to open up a website editor software like Frontpage or Dreamweaver to create new web page, or edit existing pages. All you have to do is logging in administration area of your website and create new page with a WYSWYG online editor.

PHP & MySQL have become a favourite combination for many webmasters. There are many reasons why php & mysql are so popular comparing with other programming languages & database system. Firstly, both php & mysql are open source, hence reducing the cost of website hosting or dedicated server rent. Secondly, PHP & MySQL have proven to be effective and reliable to develop dynamic content websites. Last but not least, there are many open source scripts based on php & mysql available on the internet that can be used freely by web beginners or experienced webmasters. It's so popular that you can get help easily with php programming issues from internet communities.

What is PHP?
PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor and is a general purpose and open source scripting language that can be embedded in HTML and used widely in Web development. PHP web pages are treated just like regular HTML pages and you can create and edit them the same way you normally create regular HTML pages. The latest release is PHP 5 and if you look through its key features, you'll see that it has a MySQL extension named MySQLi for developers using MySQL 4.1 and later, proof of how closely it is associated with MySQL.

How about MySQL?
MySQL is the world most popular open source relational database management system that relies on structured query language (SQL) and is developed, distributed and supported by MySQL AB. MySQL provides consistent fast performance, high reliability and ease of use. MySQL runs on more than 20 platforms including Linux, Windows, OS/X, HP-UX, AIX, Netware, giving you the kind of flexibility that puts you in control.

Since both php and mysql are open source, an added value of choosing a PHP-MySQL combo for your site is a huge amount of tutorials and free scripts available on the Web.
Some examples of online tutorials:

* FREE Webmaster Help.com -- PHP/MySQL Tutorial
* Binary Data + MySQL + PHP How to Store Images Directly in the SQL Database

Ready-to-use scripts meanwhile are available at the following sites:
* phpfreaks.com
* HotScripts.com