Encrypting passwords with PHP for MySQL

passwords.php

<?php
// this is a partial, nonworking file

$salt1 = "qm&h*";
$salt2 = "pg!@";
$first_name = "Bill";
$last_name  = "Smith";
$username = "bsmith";
$password = "secret";
$token    = hash('ripemd128', "$salt1$password$salt2");

$query  = "INSERT INTO users (first_name, last_name, username, password) VALUES ('$first_name', '$last_name', '$username', '$token')";

?>

Resource:

http://php.net/manual/en/function.hash.php

Code derived from chapter 12, "Cookies, Sessions, and Authentication," in:
http://lpmj.net/4thedition/