A PHP and MySQL development environment (the first lesson in the course walks through installing the Wampserver software, which provides a full PHP and MySQL development environment in one package. You download Wampserver for free from http://www.wampserver.com/en/); Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Vista (Wampserver does not support either Windows 98 or Windows Me); Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader). ; Note: Macintosh users can't use the Wampserver software and must provide their own PHP and MySQL development environment. Prior HTML coding experience is helpful, but not required.