4) Is their a recommended book to get to use MySQL?
I am also fairly new to mySql, coming from MS SQL Server.
I have found the following two books invaluable. First start
with "MySQL Tutorial" by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson
(Sams). It is great for that introduction material and getting started.
It covers a lot of the basic sql syntax you will need. It may be a bit
different than you are used to. Once you are up and going get the
"High Performance MySQL" by Jeremy D. Zawodny & Derek J.
Balling (O'Reilly). With just these two books you should be up
and running in no time.