This is going to be a bit specific. I'm not prepared to pay for CA signed certificate I'll be signing my own. I trust me, I don't trust them and I can't see how my certificate will be any less secure.
I'm pretty certain that my Host provides SSL (I'm checking on that). I'm just wondering how I'm supposed to use SSL in order to secure a login page and perhaps a couple of folders, who knows. I can't find one tutorial that doesn't involve VeriSign or some other ridiculous organisation.
Thanks
SSL is not a function of PHP, but rather a function of your web server (most likely Apache).
As a side note: self-signing a certificate does not make it less secure in terms of its encryption (so long as you are extremely careful with your private key). However, every visitor to your website would see a warning before they load any of your content stating that your certificate is not trusted.
This is because you are not a valid CA, and your "root certificate" is not installed on the average computer. SSL is supposed to be as much about identity verification as it is about encryption, and the notice is basically one stating that you are not authorized to verify the identity of yourself.