MySQL + PHP + Aspirin [View all]

I haven't set foot in the coding waters for years. My last experience was in VB6 and Excel VBA, and nothing a professional would point to on a resume. A couple of us have been tasked with creating an inventory database for lab supplies, with a strong preference by the boss toward MySQL. He actually used the phrase "you can learn it in five minutes". That, plus "anything but Access".

Both of us are more familiar with a soldering iron than a schema, lol.

The total volume of the database would be quite small, probably close to what a mom and pop bookstore might need. I'm quite familiar with SQL syntax, but creating a MySQL database and implementing it on the LAN via PHP is stretching my capabilities.

I have installed MySQL and have begun playing with table design in MySQL Workbench, which looks like a pretty friendly tool. The importation of data from tables in our present MS Access would follow. There appears to be more than one way of doing that.

The where to store the db on the LAN, using what kind of connections, security, etc., and how to present things to the casual user via PHP are more likely to be a greater challenge. Quite a few freeware and low cost tools exist for the PHP-webpage creation, so that may help. But I'm not even a bit familiar with the networking and administration side of this, and no help is available from our IT department (this is at a very large hi-tech company, but oh well).

Is there an easier set of tools for doing this (SQLite, maybe?), and an easy to follow roadmap for setting things up on an intranet?