Try to write small programs to access database (MySQL) and display. Your
first program can be online contact list management - multi user
environment. To begin you can use the Microsoft Outlook's schema - so that
folks can import their address books.
For examples of working programs - check out Hotmail's addressbook, Yahoo
addressbook, www.plaxo.com or some thing like that.
Use:
Apache
MySQL
Tomcat
Windows/Linux