Am Reading the book, PHP & MySQL Web Development for Dummies, and it says to download phpmyadmim from www.phpmyadmin.net. Saved the download and was unable to open or unzip the file. Any advice would be much appreciated!
Try unzipping it with 7-Zip or as stated above try using Wamp or XAMPP. Of course in the long run it's better to get the experience of being able to install and configure it yourself so it's well worth keeping at it.
Be careful with phpMyAdmin. It has a history of exploits, but even if its code base really is cleaned up, for it to really work it requires you have a database user with create and drop privileges that can connect from a web app, and that's dangerous. I understand it can be a beneficial tool while learning DB admin but it really is not a good idea to have a DB user with those kind of privileges that can connect from a web app. Such powerful DB users should only be allowed to connect from from shell of host the DB is running on. If you want to run it, protect it by using .htpasswd or equivalent to require server level authentication to do anything with it (preferably over SSL).
Getting everything properly configured can take 20-30 minutes, so make sure you have enough time set aside before beginning the installation.
Download XAMPP or WAMP for windows. That the easiest thing. U don't even need that book to install this.