a few questions. I am thinking making a career of database management. I have only used php/myadmin. besides that im pretty clueless as far as software. i understand i have a lot of learning to do, but im ready to get started. what is the most powerful database software?? does myadmin compare to the more powerful tools?? how do i go about learning to use the more powerful but very likely more complex programs?

Use MySQL, it easierly plugs into php, and has all the power of top range databases. If your on
a linux system, you'll probably find it already installed.

SQL Programming Feed @ Feed Distiller

Mysql no doubt if you are a web developer

phpmyadmin as far as I know is pretty straight foward, easy to use, and help you a lot if you are new to it.

As for database type, MySQL is free and does what it needs to do. Unless you think about having MASSIVE amount of information I would not bother about using anything else.

As for bigger database and database management, I know people talk a lot about Oracle, but I do not know much about it here goes their website

If you want to go in the professional way, but staying in the open source / free domain, then drop mysql, and use postgresql.
It's way more oriented enterprise than mysql (but still, not at the same level).

As for the tools, forget them.
Use the cli (command line interface) and try to get down on subselect, outer joins, and complex query predicaments.

I started as a web developper 8 years ago, and today works as a DBA for an ms sql server pool, and it's an amazing job.

But you need to know how a db works, whyt type of indexes, sp, functions are to be used, and how the query planner works to take the most advantages out of it.

Mysql is a playground toy, just a bit better than nothing, but I would not base my future on it.

Oracle is a big guy, and postgresql is really close to it, in term of functionnalities (at least, if you don't go to far).
There is an stripped down version available too, so you can play with it, if you want.

Ms sql server is pretty good to.
And there too, you have the "express edition" that is free to use, although it hase some limitations.

In the end, the queries are mostly the same on each server, SQL helped a lot to normalize that.
After that, it's up to you to choose the one you want to pick.
The 3 big players in the db world are Oracle, IBM db2, and ms sql server.
Take your pick, and dwelve.

Ya phpmyadmin is very easy to understand and very useful also. Mysql is also good one.