Simple commands don't work

Hello-

I am new to Postgres, but I am very experienced with Sybase, Oracle,
and MySQL. I am trying to use some simple commands, but they do not
seem to work.

First I wanted to give myself a password. I read in the online docs
the command was this:

phis=> alter user larry set password = 'XXXX';
ERROR: unrecognized configuration parameter "password"

Then I read somewhere else it is:

phis=> ALTER USER larry WITH PASSWORD 'XXXX';
ALTER ROLE

But then it still let me log in without one.

Then I checked with pgAdmin and it showed I did not have any password.
I set one there, but it still lets me login without one.

Then I went to do a select from a table, and I got permission denied.
But the table is in a schema (the name is "public") that is set for
"GRANT ALL TO ALL"

According to the docs this would be the command to grant access to all tables:

phis=> grant select on all tables in public to larry;
ERROR: syntax error at or near "public"

But it doesn't like that. The I found this:

phis=> grant ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE phis to larry;
WARNING: no privileges were granted for "phis"

From pgAdmin I was able to grant myself select access, but why don't
the command line commands work?

Thanks!
-larry