I went crazy too trying to learn everything. Everyone had the same advice: just use the Internet.

Try this book. it is phenomenal. Learning PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites http://www.amazon.com/Learning-MySQL-JavaScript-Step---Step/...

After you are done with that, try this book: PHP and MySQL Web Development http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dst...

And after you are done with it. Beef up your css with this one:CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dst...

Once you are done with that, get your jQuery groove on with this: jQuery: Novice to Ninja http://www.amazon.com/jQuery-Novice-Ninja-Earle-Castledine/d...

then you can go on to jQuery cookbook and Professional JavaScript for Web Developers

Personally I love ruby for rails (ror) rather than php. But for development/sys admin and the developer community, I would stick with php. I have used cakephp which is ok. Not like RoR (which I pine for). But the development community is much nicer. If you decide to learn RoR go with: Head First Rails and Agile Web Development with Rails. There are some others that I have not read but are have good reviews in Amazon.

Oh yeah - stay away from Dreamweaver. What a piece of crap.

When I decided I wanted to learn coding, this is the first book I purchased, and I can't recommend it enough:

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-MySQL-JavaScript-Step-Step/dp...

It goes through a good amount of material while still being a beginner's book, assuming only that you know a little html. It's very thorough in what it does cover, and should give you enough confidence to decide what you want to learn next, ie, more in-depth PHP, another language, etc.

I was in the same position as you a few months ago. I had an idea for YComb!, and I didn't know any technical guys well enough to be a technical co-founder, so I decided I was going to be the technical co-founder.

I would recommend picking up SAMS Teach Yourself HTML and CSS in 24 Hours: http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Hours-Coverage/dp/... and O'Reilly's Learning PHP, MySQL, and Javascript: http://www.amazon.com/Learning-MySQL-JavaScript-Step---Step/...

Do the SAMS guide first, then O'Reilly. Do the examples, do the examples, do the examples. That's the most important part. Even if you only have a few spare hours per day, you can get through 3-4 chapters of HTML/CSS, but I would recommend only doing one chapter of the O'Reilly book a day, since it's a bit more to learn than the SAMS book. So, it should take you about 3 weeks to work through both of those, and have at least a competent grasp on web dev. From there you can probably make your own decisions about where you want to go from there.

I applaud your efforts, but those tutorials are old and crusty. Please get a good book or two.

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-MySQL-JavaScript-Step-Step/dp...

http://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Web-Development-4th/dp/06723...

Don't buy both, too much overlap. Just pick the one you like. The latter is long, but worth it. I've got more recommendations if you're interested.