Secure database connectivity?

Hi people, I'm setting up a database to collect email addresses on my web site, but I want to avoid using the insecure connection method: mysql_connect("host", "user", "pass") as this obviously displays my username and password to anyone who wants it. So I need a secure method for PHP to access a MySQL DB - I expect there's a million different ways of doing it, and I doubt any of them are simple...! Cheers.