I am looking to create a social network. I've done some googling with results leading towards either using a free client, which seems alright but lacks customization, or paying for a premium package upwards of $300. I noticed all the places I looked used mainly php and began searching for some tutorials. I found that my fair amount of c++ knowledge is quite useful for the majority of the tutorials that I read however I have some more specific inquiries.

I have basic html knowledge, so I am quite lost in the whole web developement field. I really want to get this project underway, so any advice or websites you can recommend would be appreciated. I know absolutely nothing about servers, outside of the fact that I need to store data on them lol...

http://w3schools.com <= where I learned everything I know about PHP. It's very good.