Open a browser and type in the address of your server followed by the location of PHPMyAdmin:
- on XAMPP this will be http://localhost/phpmyadmin
- on your own server it might be a local IP address (e.g. 192.168.0.3/phpmyadmin)
- on a hosted server you may be able to use a similar address (http://www.fred.com/phpmyadmin), a sub-domain (http://phpmyadmin.fred.com) or you may need to use the provider's control panel to access PHPMyAdmin or check their support for the address to use
Once the page is loaded you should see a log in page. You now need to type in a user name and password. MySQL (which is what you are logging in to) has one user by default - the root user. Try to avoid using this except to create new users (root is all-powerful and could kill MySQL). If you are using a hosting company then they will not let you use root anyway. Once a user has been set up use that to make new databases and administer them.
