Database for Beginners

Hi,

I have recently started to take an interest in databases. I have never worked with them and was looking for some free resources online to learn right from the very basics. Basically if you like it the ABC of databases. Could anyone give me some pointers as i have not been able to find any such material. I am looking to perhaps have a grounding in say Microsoft access that i have locally on my pc. Which has got a user interface which i believe would be easier to interact with at first and give me an understanding of what is going on. Would this be recomended? Then moving on to MySQL as i have access to a webserver running MySQL.

Thanks in advance.

Dan

Ps. I am willing to learn and dont want all the answers without putting in effort but do need some help to get me started.

If you have PHP you can also have a web interfact to mySQL using phpMyAdmin.

As for MS Access, I have mixed feelings. I guess it depends on what you're using the databases for. If you're going to use them for the web, skip Access altogether and go straight for mySQL or PostgreSQL. If you're going to use it for personal purposes, say, home inventory or something like that, Access can be nice b/c you don't need a web server running to use the forms and such.

It's not going to hurt to have some knowledge of MS Access, but you'll be able to get a lot more help (at least from us here at DevShed) using mySQL. I also think you'll understand more about what's exactly going on if you're using mySQL.

I would recommend you, reading a bit about the theory, learn about the concepts.
A great collection of ERD's can help you:
http://www.databaseanswers.com/data_models/index.htm

for your personal examples you might start using MS Access, but in any case I would recommend to have a look at MySQL and probably SQLite.
http://www.mysql.com/
http://www.sqlite.org/

ohh yeah, and keep reading this forum.

hope that helps

Philipp