
Learning PHP, MySQL & JavaScript will teach you how to create responsive, data-driven websites with the three central technologies of PHP, MySQL and JavaScript - whether or not you know how to program. This simple, streamlined guide explains how the powerful combination of PHP and MySQL provides a painless way to build modern websites with dynamic data and user interaction. You'll also learn how to add JavaScript to create rich Internet websites and applications, and how to use Ajax to handle background communication with a web server. This book explains each technology separately, shows you how to combine them, and introduces valuable concepts in modern web programming, including objects, XHTML, cookies, regular expressions and session management.
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.
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.