christopher. i can start you off with the way i do it with my sites but should be the same for phpr. create a table which holds your user table. like thus
[codebox]CREATE TABLE `user_usr` (
`id_usr` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`idcode_usr` varchar(99) NOT NULL,
`idcom_usr` int(11) default NULL,
`name_usr` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
`ntries_usr` smallint(6) NOT NULL,
`password_usr` varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
`username_usr` varchar(15) NOT NULL,
`active_usr` tinyint(4) NOT NULL,
`level_usr` tinyint(2) NOT NULL,
`email_usr` varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
`random_usr` varchar(32) NOT NULL,
`disabledate_usr` date NOT NULL default '0000-00-00',
`bill_address_usr` varchar(150) NOT NULL,
`lastlogin_usr` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
`logincounter_usr` int(11) NOT NULL,
`ip_usr` varchar(25) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id_usr`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=18 ;[/codebox]
the 3 main fields are: id_usr, username_usr and password_usr. the email field is for the forgot password option. you also have level, which i user numeric but you can use, user, admin etc. in another table say products, you will have one of the fields which will be foreign to the user table. say, idusr_pro for the product table. this will tie in with the id_usr of your main table. this should give you a start. if you need any help, just shout and i'm sure w'll chip in. good luck.