Hallo!
If anyone is interested, here's how I have dealt with my problems outlined in my first two posts:
1. I de-installed and re-installed using other documentation and the problem was resolved.
2. I have installed both Lucene and Nutch and will pursue my route to find an appropriate spider or crawler initially with these and explore what can be done with PhP in this direction.
Thanks for listening even if you could not respond.
Regards, Patrick.