It's surprising how difficult it is to get a straight answer sometimes. For example, on the PHP download page it never actually explains that PHP has to be installed on a server. And it's difficult to find out what exactly a server is, how to get one running, etc. - I found a lot of the information, particularly that on the Apache website, pitched too high. MySQL was no better. A straightforward hand-holding installation guide was almost impossible to find. Which is why I'd like to make this Apache/PHP/MySQL quickstart guide as widely known as possible, because it's brilliant!

I now have an Apache server running on my home computer. My dreams of self-hosting my website were instantly dashed when I realised how appallingly slow my internet connection is (NTL throttles uploads to a tenth of what they should be, the fools) and underpowered my personal PC is for server work. However, what I can do is quickly and easily make files available for other people to download. Hoorah!

Now, to master MySQL.