This assignment is intended to provide an introduction to developing 3-tier web applications, with a browser frontend, a database backend, and a server-side script. It requires knowledge of basic HTML and styles. It is not about learning PHP, but it is about learning to write applications using a server-side scripting language (which happens to be PHP here). Secondary objectives include a theme of addressing basic security issues for applications including: user authentication, data cleaning and resource limits, best practices like HTML standards validation, appropriate use of software tools to better understand a problem (like Firebug or Firefox's Live Headers add-ons) or to facilitate your work (IDEs such as Komodo Edit, also available for Mac), as well to gain experience in planning and developing projects, and adhering to a development schedule.