Run don't walk to www.west-wind.com and read all the articles. Think about getting his book too.

>I'm about to plunge into ecommerce with a non-technical friend (she's got the business expertise and contacts, I'm the geek)
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>I need some advice on how to set this puppy up. It's basically a catalog which will make a nice hierarchical database searchable by a number of keywords in a number of categories.... Simple really, could even do it in A**ess :-)
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>How do I get it out on the 'net? Write it in VFP, add in some Java applets to handle forms &c, then just dump it onto my friendly neighborhood ISP's server? Or do I need to learn some new arcane techniques here? We're looking at around 10K items eventually (but we're starting much smaller) The individual records will be quite small except for the pictures....
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>I have no clue where to start with this... All recommendations, cautionary tales, and words of wisdom welcome.
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>Jen
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>P.S. In case you're wondering where I've been.... I've been taking a break from VFP for the past 9 months or so and been doing field service, desktop support and PC/Mac repair. Got my A+ certificate and all. I'm now in the process of doing my MCSE and want to do this ecommerce app in my "spare" time to finance my self-employment.....