Registration and database management for an online business.

Orikaeshigitae

I'm starting a business over the summer. I want to have a form to fill out on our website that customers will be able to access in order to register their spot in the program before paying. Once they pay (by cash or cheque) I want to be able to flag them as paid manually.

I have a feeling that mySQL is the way to go with this, but I don't know.

So:

1) Is mySQL the best way to handle this situation? If not, what is?

2) How do I go about learning how to build and maintain this relatively simple database?

I have two years of a CS degree under my belt (though i'm about to graduate an English major) so I'm confident I can grasp this right away.. I just don't know where to start.

Echo

Look at a simple PHP tutorial that uses an SQL backend, like a guest book or something other stupidly simple. Then keep building from that.

Tomanta

I'm going to add reading up on database security to what Echo said. It is stupid easy to mess up a database if it isn't coded to protect against an injection attack, but those are pretty easy to protect against, too.