Magento Related

Resource Model
$resource = Mage::getSingleton('core/resource');

Read Connection
$read = $resource->getConnection('core_read');

Write Connection
$write = $resource->getConnection('core_write');

Get Table Name
$table = $resource->getTableName('catalog_product_entity');

Get Table Name from Entity Name
$table = $resource->getTableName('catalog/product');