idgas, I am right now sitting on a major PHP project...no, I am not the expert on this but we will discover this as well.
There are some pretty good books around, onne is called Dynamic Websites and written by Milan Krizanek ISBN 3-908491
It has a CD with it and you find samples as well as all required software on it, good and easy to read.
Download the lastest MySql server and read the instructions, search for PHP and find some most helpful guides and instructions, get a good editor (someone mentioned a couple of days ago a good link) and most of it is actually free available.
Check your host for providing the necessary gadgets and simply try and do.
There are free bulletin boards, guestbooks to use...newsgroups and PHP discussion boards are also around and provide a lot of help, much more than I can do.
Good luck