I am an absolute idiot when it comes to the subject of databases, so please bear with me.

Now that I have learned how to make a form in Dreamweaver and have it submit via cgi formmail to my email address, I would like to move on to the next phase of my plan: to have the form submit to a database.

I am a graphic designer, not a programmer. Please forgive my ignorance. Any information would be very useful.

I work on a MAC in OSX using Dreamweaver MX and my host is valueweb. On the host's site I learned that they offer only UNIX servers in conjunction with MYSQL. And that's everything I know on the subject so far.

Basically my question is as follows:
Given the platforms that are available to me, what are the simplest/least costly tools that I need to get going. I only want to make a simple database that I can import into Excel. Also: What is the relationship between the database that I might make(and the software that I might use to make it) and MYSQL on the server?

If someone could explain the fundamentals so that I know what direction to take my research, I would greatly, greatly appreciate ti.

Thanks!

Your in the wrong forum. This is the ASP forum, and since your on a Unix server, ASP is not available to you. You will need to use PHP to submit your form to a mySQL database. Dreamweaver may be able to assist with this, but I am unsure as I have not used DW for much of anything.

There are many many tutorials on this subject. Try searching google for 'php form database'.