I know you asked for links, but I have to say that Larry Ullman’s two PHP / MySQL books are what really got me going with PHP:
[PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites](http://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Dynamic-Web-Sites/dp/0321784073/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1360664985&sr=8-2&keywords=php+larry+ullman “http://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Dynamic-Web-Sites/dp/0321784073/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1360664985&sr=8-2&keywords=php+larry+ullman”)
[Effortless E-Commerce with PHP and MySQL](http://www.amazon.com/Effortless-E-Commerce-MySQL-Larry-Ullman/dp/0321656229/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360665052&sr=8-1&keywords=php+e-commerce+larry+ullman “http://www.amazon.com/Effortless-E-Commerce-MySQL-Larry-Ullman/dp/0321656229/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360665052&sr=8-1&keywords=php+e-commerce+larry+ullman”)