HTML with Access or MySQL?

[scott04]

Hi everyone,
I apologize if this is the wrong place to post this question but i am in
need of some help.
I am looking to build my own website and one of my pages I'd like to design
basically collects data from my order, name address email ect. I would like
to have a submit button bring me to my paypal account but before going to
paypal i would like to have the info they entered submitted to a database.
My questions is I have experience in Access but not in MySQL and it appears
most of the webhosts support MySQL but not access. Can someone please give
me some guidance to see if what I would like to accomplish is possible. I am
new to the website design and any feedback is appreciated. I do apologize if
this is in the wrong forum.

 

[S.Clark]

Don't know a thing about MySQL, but you could use an Access database for data
storage on the website. You would have to add the .mdb/.accdb to the files
that are published to the site (I did this back in the ASP 3.0 days, so I
assume it is still possible today.) then perform ADO calls to it. Not ideal
or secure by any stretch, especially if you're dealing with PayPal info.

There is probably tons of MySQL info via a google search.

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

If it wasn't possible to do this with MySQL, most webhosts wouldn't support
it. Beside the choice of the backend database (MS-Access, MySQL,
SQL-Server), a more important question would be the choice of the dynamical
HTML platform: PHP, ASP Classic (deprecated) or ASP.NET. You'll have a lot
more work to do to learn either PHP or ASP.NET than to learn about the
differences between MS-Access/JET and MySQL.

Honestly, you have some homework to do before going any further.

 

[scott04]

Sylvain,

Thank you for your honest feedback. Where would you recommend I go first?
My desing plans for the site are rather small with only between 4 to 5 pages.

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

I would suggest you to start with the beginning and to do some homework /
testing. This is especially true if you are planning to sell over the
internet and to collect personal information in the process. Saying that it
will only be 4 to 5 pages means nothing in this case scenario: the number of
pages is not a measure of the difficulty of building a commercial web site
(or of building any other interactive web site).

 

[Mark Andrews]

I would check to see if Paypal's shoppping cart would handle your needs? I
only use basic Paypal ordering for my site but for a tiny site if you can
avoid a database all the better.

If the volume of ordering is not too high you could always use a more manual
approach of having the website collect data and send you emails that you
would get into your access database. Probably other ways of handling it
(make text files and import them etc...).

Learning the ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, Javascript etc.... coding will be the harder
part (if you haven't ever done any web development).

Stay with the Microsoft path and use SQL Server (if you go for the database
driven web site)!

Mark
RPT Software
http://www.rptsoftware.com