A good place to start learning any web language is W3Schools.com. Its got such a simple method of teaching, that picking up the basics is incredibly easy.
i only know basic stuff, but i would suggest before u even try to know what the things are to get a good understanding of the way its written i cant think of the word but like the way its punchuated if that makes sense
and then basic if/else and $_POST and $_GET and that kind of thing
and just look at php scripts
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The main problem with the online tutorials is that there's a lot of bad advice / teaching out there, so you have to be really careful about what you learn from (so that you don't get taught bad practices). Matt's book is quite a gem, and in general books usually provide a more reliable source.
Obviously the potential drawback is that books become outdated before they're even published...
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I threw myself in at the deepend and tried to edit a PhpBB forum - not a clever idea lol. I'd agree that w3schools is a great place to start, although I havent read any of the PHP Ebooks myself so I cant comment on those.
do not know how to search google !!! 
