login authentification ?????

guys ... im stuck as usual ..... im making a login-passward page to allow login to my site ...... now i have read a bit about SSL ... client/server authentication ... n the works .... now guyz .... help me pleez ..... i dont know how to do it ...... i mean how can i authentify a user against his id and password stored in the database .... and im tryin to do this with xml ... which again is a terrable problem as i have just started on it aswell ..... guyz pleez .... do tell me somethin ...... i'd be in your eternal debt ...... stuck bad ..... toby ..... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com