Everything you need is FREE!!!!
What you need to do is
Set up a server, then PHP and maybe MySQL.
You can download a free server from
http://www.apache.org/ It is not only free but a top of the line most used world wide server. Besure to read all installation structions for your Opperating System
This is kinda complicated so follow me here. You can do 1 of 2 things
You can either install appache, then install php then MySQL....
Or you could download and instll PHP triad.
This will give you a complet PHP server environmet on a windows system
get it here.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phptriad You can get what you need here
http://www.php.net/downloads.php Link above will get you the downloadable full version of PHP PHP 4.2.3 zip package
http://www.apache.org/ Link above will take you to the home of the most used open source free Server program. Download it and install it.
http://www.mysql.com/downloads/index.html You can download MySQL Database program from the link above. This is also open source and free. If you plan to Learn PHP might as well learn MySQL
th 2 play together so well. Myself or Scallion can help you out learning the 2.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phptriad This puppy might be where you want to start
PHP Triad installs a complete PHP server environment on Windows platforms.
If all that fails
A DNS name cost $15 a year
Pro Hosting costs about $15.00 a month
that will give you
www.your_site.com you will have
Perl
Python
ASP
PHP
MySQL
also
*nix Shell
Pop3
SMTP
about 250 mbs of space
etc etc etc
Hope this helps
Rember, you need to have a server up and running, then configure PHP to work with that. Usaly PHP scripts need to be saved as
*.php
but sometimes depending on how the server is set up
*.phtml
*.php3
*.php4
Let me know if you need any more help. I trust you already know HTML?
Newbies who ask stupid questions are inevitably flamedAlso
I would call this far from newbie. Unless you know a bunch of newbies setting up thier own servers and configuring server side scripting languages to run on them so they can learn to develope in that language. If that is the case.... WOW YOU MUST be 1337 But that isn't the case...