Hello,
Someone I know told me that they thought SQL Server Express was what I am looking for. Before I get in over my head I need to know from people who use it if this is really for me.
I have build my own web site using very basic HTML and CSS. Nothing fancy I am very new to this.
What I want to do is have a customer able to enter their email address, once they have hit submit, I want the email address to go to a database (which I believe this software is going to help me set up?) and a document sent to them. I was thinking of a PDF attachment to an email since I have not figured out yet how to send an email that looks like a web page.
I now have a customer inquiry form on my site that is sent to a perl script in my cgi bin on my server. (The hosting company had to walk me through setting that up.) Will SQL Server Express work the same way?
I have no programming experience at all. Sorry for the bold but I need you to understand this. I need my answers in very plain concepts. Will I be able to use this software easily? It seems in the forum that there are alot of problems most of which I didn't understand the question or the answer.
I also have one website right now. I am planning on splitting it into three soon to pinpoint the market on each area better. Will I be able to use this software for more than one site?
I am using a PC running windows xp pro. I don't know any specifics for my hosting company's server.
Any information or help you can give to me would be greatly appreciated.
Robin
Hi Robin,
SQL Express is more than you need.
If all you need to store is an e-mail address, you should consider making things real simple and just using Excel or a text file. Unless you have a burning desire to learn how relational database systems work, the amount of time you invest in learning SQL Express would be very large compared to what you're actually trying to do.
You might want to consider hiring someone to do this work for you. It seems like you are trying to get something done for your business. Unless you're business involves creating web hosted databases, it would be a better investment to pay an expert who could do the job in a couple days than to spend weeks of your own time that could be better spend doing what you're an expert at. There are many companies who have reasonable rates to help you set up web sites for your business. Just a thought.
Mike
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Hi Mike,
At this point in time I want to gather emails and send an autoresponse to those people. I am a "print" graphic designer and am putting together my own site. At some point down the road I would like to build websites. I'm trying to gain this knowledge slowly as I put things into my site. As odd as it may sound, I thrive on learning anything computer related, I need to learn this for myself.
Before I dive into SQL Server Express I just want some educated advise to be sure this can help me. Down the road I want to add ecommerce and probably a search to my site and anything else that I realize as I build that I need. There are just so many programs and ways of doing things I just didn't want to download this and spend a few hours to find out that it isn't actually the type of program I needed.
Having someone do this for me is the easy way out. It also would make it so that I can't make changes anytime that I want to. I may end up asking a lot of questions but if this is for me than it is certainly worth my time to learn it.
Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it.
Robin
|||HI,
I see that alot of people are viewing this post. Is there anyone out there that could answer my questions?
Thank you,
Robin
|||Hi Robin,
SQL Express is still more than you need, but I applaud your willingness to learn. 
The first thing to get straightened out is what SQL Express does. For you're purposes, SQL Express is just a database, it just stores stuff. All the various things you've mentioned you want to do, e.g. send e-mail, search, e-commerce, etc., are done using a combination of programs. You can use SQL Express to store e-mail addresses, keep customer information, store your catalog and keep track of orders that come in. All of the things that surround that, such as forms to forms for requesting information, pages showing the catalog, scripts to send e-mail, the shopping cart, etc are all implemented using a programming language. This type of functionality is not provided by SQL Express. If your web site is a car, SQL Express is the trunk.
If you're serious about learning all that functionality, I'd recommend you download Visual Web Developer Express, which is an entry level tool for building ASP.NET web sites. There is a bunch of content to help you learn how to use ASP.NET, and a number of pre-built projects, called Starter Kits, that help you learn how to make specific things. For example, there is an e-commerce Starter Kit. VWD and SQL Express can be integrated fairly easily so that the sites you build can store information in SQL Express.
Good luck and have fun.
Mike
|||HI Mike,
Thank you for the info on Visual Web Developer Express, I was looking at that as an option. I am actually also looking at a hosting company that happens to have almost everything I want to do as part of their package. I just need to hook it all together. They are all setup to incorporate OScommerce and I have Access and they seem to have a great support team. As long as the support team is still great once I am signed up with them it seems that I'm on the right track.
Thank you so much for your time and help
Robin
|||It's probably wise to go with a company that has all the "parts" pre-built for you. It gives you a chance to get things set up more quickly while still having some control over the design, and learning from the pre-built parts at the same time. Happy learning...
Mike
|||Thank you,
Robin
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