Hi guys! I currently use Dreamweaver for making websites. I love it. However, I'd like to become more advanced and *eventually* be able to do a wondeful site like UDZone. I know thats not going to happen over night but what I was wondering is what you, the people who made UDZone and the people who use Ultradev, prefer..Active Server Pages or ColdFusion? My first thought was go for ASP since that is probably the second most common extension on sites i see, besides HTML ofcourse. Is ASP a better technology than ColdFusion. The reason i'm looking into ColdFusion is the fact that Macromedia & Allaire just merged so I dont know, have a feeling Ultradev might become a ColdFusion tool. Anyways, if you guys could tell me which you prefer, ASP or ColdFusion, and why it'd help me out a lot. Now for my second question, I dont have much database experiance. But obviously I need a database tool to make database driven sites. My initial thought was to learn Access since I have it on my computer (and just never used it). I wanted to get the Sams Teach Youself Ultradev in 21 days and they focus on MySQL. That kinda made me think that maybe Access isnt powerful enough for database driven sites? Then I did a search on Monster.com and noticed most people who want websites done either want access and/or microsoft sql, not many want MySQL. At Microsofts website they say that Access is good to learn because it can be easy changed to SQL. Is this true? What do you all think? I'm thinking ASP with Access at first and then maybe after I get Access maybe I'll eventually learn SQL? Is there any UD books that focus on ASP & Access? Any help would be great!

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Hi, 1. the difference between Cold Fusion and ASP is in fact not that much alone that CF is an much easier language to learn (and I think its more stable but needs all the recources from your system), by the way a cold fusion licence cost about $1500.- (dont't try an illegal version, I heard CF server sends out signals to an allaire server to check serials !!!) so I would go for ASP, 2. Acces is a nice dbase envirnoment but... its not fast and stable enough for big websites you could use MS SQL server for that (costs about $2000, you could use illegal version <img src=icon_smile_dissapprove.gif border=0 align=middle> ), but why dont you go for MySQl its fast its stable and its free (check out mySQl.org)

succes

Hey! I picked up the Sams book for Ultradev. The first week was great. I am convinced ASP is the way to go. I dont have any database experiance and MySQL is just too complicated. I know i'd like to learn SQL eventually but Access *will* do for now. I know its much easier to learn and is pretty functional for the web as well. My question is, is there any UltraDev 4 books that focus on ASP & Access? The Sams book was great but it is kind of worthless because past the first week its almost all focused on SQL. Any books that focus on Access and not SQL for the projects? Any suggestions you can give me would be great. Also: If you know of a good Microsoft Access 2000 book (preferbly one that talks about databases for the web) let me know! Thanks again!

What do you think is difficult on MySQl the core is the same just building tables and stuff you dont need SQL to do that (you'll need that in future) try and take a look at www.phpwizard.net and do the demo for phpmyadmin and see how ease your MySQL dbase can be (even easier than acces) if you have any questions feel free to contact me @

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Just to add my 2 penneth worth. I was in the same position as blakeweb. I eventually bit the bullet and installed the PHAkt extension for UD, bought a book called PHP & MySql web development and I have never looked back. I can thoroughly recommend the PHAkt, PHP and MySql development method.
Mike.

I vote for ASP. All three technologies (ASP, CFML, PHP) are good enough. They all have some advantages and disadvantages. What's more important, in my point of view, is support. ASP has best support and finding solutions for it is piece of cake (forums, knowledge databases, components...). PHP lacks support in UltraDev itself. CFML... look at number of post regading Cold Fusion on this site and you'll understand. I think that Macromedia's connection with Cold Fusion will not last for long. Anyway, my advice for you is to use ASP.
You don't need to rush using SQL Server. For sites you'll make in the beginning Access is good enough. Once you decide to move to next level and start using SQL Server, you'll see that's pretty much same logic. Yes, there is big difference between SQL Server and Access but only for big sites with large number of visitors.


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Hey! I picked up the Sams book for Ultradev. The first week was great. I am convinced ASP is the way to go. I dont have any database experiance and MySQL is just too complicated. I know i'd like to learn SQL eventually but Access *will* do for now. I know its much easier to learn and is pretty functional for the web as well. My question is, is there any UltraDev 4 books that focus on ASP & Access? The Sams book was great but it is kind of worthless because past the first week its almost all focused on SQL. Any books that focus on Access and not SQL for the projects? Any suggestions you can give me would be great. Also: If you know of a good Microsoft Access 2000 book (preferbly one that talks about databases for the web) let me know! Thanks again! <img src=../images/dmxzone/forum/icon_smile.gif border=0 align=middle>
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Come on... you suggest that info and support is hard to find for PHP. just look @ php.net and sites like phpbuilder.com all the info is there maybe even bigger than the MSDN section of M$ but anyway not hard to find <img src=../images/dmxzone/forum/icon_smile_approve.gif border=0 align=middle>

Blake another thing to find out is what kind of server is your site going to be hosted on. If its on a linux box then you might not want to use ASP because you'll need a program like ChiliASP which is a lot of money.

I've gone through ASP, JSP and PHP and I like PHP the best it has a lot of better extensions(imo) and its help is unbelievable.

Keith Slater