My localhost version of MySQL is: Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.5.27, for Win32 (x86)

My webhost provider version is: Server version: 5.1.56-log

Databases and table identifiers should only contain letters, numbers, and the underscore (no spaces should be used!)

They should be treated as case-sensitive.

• Text (otherwise known as strings)
• Numbers
• Dates and times

Both of these types store strings and can be set with a maximum length. The primary difference between them is that anything stored as a CHAR will always be stored as a string the length of the column, using spaces to pad it. (The spaces are removed when you retrieve the stored value from the database. )
In a VARCHAR column, the strings will only requre as much space as the string itself, plus one byte for a terminator. This requires less storage space.
Larry mentions that databases are normally faster with fixed-size columns. This is an argument in favor of CHAR.

The general categories of text, number of date/time are the first order determination. The subtypes are selected according to the anticipated requirements of the data to be represented. For example: integer values, subtypes range from TINYINT, which occupies 1 byte, limiting it to a range of -128 to 127 for signed values, or 0 to 255 for unsigned values, then increasing in size with SMALLINT, MEDIUMINT, INT, which are 2, 3, and 4 bytes respectively, and finally BIGINT, which is 8 bytes. His guideline is that the size of any field should be restricted to the smallest possible value, based upon the largest possible input.

Some properties that are available: NOT NULL, to require a value for a field. You can specify a default value, as in this example:
gender ENUM('M', 'F') default 'F'
Number types can be marked as UNSIGNED, and ZEROFILL. AUTO_INCREMENT is used to indicate that the next highest value is used for a row that is added to the table.

A primary key is a unique way to refer to a particular record. It is almost always a number value, it must always have a value, the value must never change, and it must be unique for each record in the table.

The username and password vary, but they must be values that are established in MySQL as a valid user during the setup procedure, or as an administrative action.