NT or UNIX?

Is there a reason why you need both ASP and PHP/MySQL? Almost anything that can be accomplished with one can be handled with the other and for the cases where that's impossible, Perl can fill in the gaps. I don't think you'll have any luck with having one domain served from 2 different hosts, so that idea probably isn't worth persuing.

It is possible to run ASP from a Unix box. There's a program from ChiliSoft that makes it possible, although I have no idea how well it works. Also, it's pretty expensive, so most hosts won't have it available. And you can run PHP on Windows NT, but I'm not sure if it works on NT Server. Again, even if it is possible, actual results may be worse than anticipated. Your best bet is to choose either the ASP/SQL7 or Access combo or go entirely with PHP/MySQL. Pick one and commit.

I agree. Go with either PHP or ASP. I'd suggest PHP, but that's just my preference. BUT, if you absolutely have to have both available, then I'd go with a Linux server since they're better at handling both PHP and ASP.

I need the ASP for a main part of the site. Goes like this: People will get a homepage for their cat. They'll put in the details (name, description, breed etc.) and send a picture over. It'll all go into a data base and ASP pages will be created. The ASP will also be used to conjure up pages with thumbnails of the pictures that will let you see 20 pages together (you can search for all longahired white cats and you'll get a page with 20 thumbnails of such cats, each leading to that cat's homepage.)

The PHP3 & MySQL are needed for the forums. I bought a Vbulletin forum (same as TWF) and they run on PHP + MySQL.

I don't know any PHP or ASP myself. I have an ASP guy for the homepages thing and I'm using Vbuletin's forum program.

It's such a mess... As I understand, the PHP forums are better than ASP, but what am I going to do with the homepages? Is PHP very difficult, or do you think I can learn it by myself? I have very little experience in programming, almost none (I learned Pascal when I was young, but you're probably to young to remember that...)

Life seems very difficult...Are you sure that 2 servers will be that terrible. I'll contact DIS again - they have both NT and UNIX servers and maybe I can have two accounts and one domain with them.

Any other ideas?

Anat.

If Chad can pull off some sort of server voodoo to have 2 different boxes handling the same domain, go for it. But since that's pretty unlikely, some other ideas are...

1) Get 2 different accounts for 2 different domains, like http://www.mydomain1.com and http://www.mydomain2.com and link back and forth. They can easily be on different machines, so the Unix/NT won't be a problem. But, it would cost twice as much.

2) Get a Unix host that has the Chilisoft ASP software installed.

3) Dump the whole idea and just go with PHP/MySQL. You might need to learn a new language or hire somebody to do it for you, but everything you want your site to do can be handled in PHP and MySQL. For instance, you might want to take a quick look at something I whipped up a while back for a forthcoming members area on my site. It does something pretty similar to what you're looking for. Each member gets a page to share their personal info, likes, dislikes etc. All members pages are templated and created on the fly from the database info and it'll do most of what you want. About the only thing it's missing that you want is a file upload/search for the pictures (my members didn't want that feature) but that's easy enough to implement. It's still pretty rough since I got sidetracked mid-project, but the core functionality is there. If that's sort of what you have in mind, you're welcome to use the source code.
http://www.montypython.net/members/memberindex.php3

Oh, and it's not a live feature yet, so you can play around without getting stuck in the directory. The DB will be purged before it goes live.

Hey, I didn't know that Chad was from DIS (and the CEO at that )

Well they say that it's possible even with the same domain name so I guess I'll go along with that. I don't want to start all over with PHP and my ASP prorammer might do it for free, in return for shares in my company (well - that's not really free but it's convenient just now).

Thanks for the offer anyway. I might just take you up on that one someday, if and when I have the time to learn PHP!

Anat.

Hey everyone!

I just want to explain a bit what we offered to do for Anat.

We will basically be setting her up with a subdomain as her second domain. She'll have http://www.domain.com and something.domain.com. We can set these up as two completely seperate domains (which the system won't recognize as actually being related) with seperate IP addresses, allowing her to open two seperate accounts (yes, it will cost her twice the money) on NT and UNIX.

If the only thing that she'll be using the UNIX side of things for (PHP and mySQL) is her VB forums, than she could use the subdomain for it - something like forums.domain.com and her users would honestly never even know plus, it makes sense...

[edited for a gender based assumption]

[Edited by Chad Simper on 10-13-2000 at 11:06 PM]

Hi Chad,

Anat is a "she"...

Anat is a Hebrew name. It is the biblical name for an ancient godess of love and fertility. I sometimes go by the name of Anne when talking to English speakers to avoid mistakes. I'll be Anne Moss on TheCatSite.com...

Thanks for the explanation, anyway. I'll definitely contact you after I finish setteling things with my ASP person.

Anat.

I’ve setup and used similar configurations to what Chad is suggesting, as well as ChiliSoft (ASP on UNIX) and PHP on Windows NT. What Chad is suggesting works great and no one will be the wiser. However another option that hasn’t been mentioned is to scratch vBulletin and go completely NT. There are quite a few ASP bulletin board systems and the simplicity of having one account and one platform can makes things a lot less complex. Take a look at http://www.aspin.com/home/webapps/bbs for some ASP bulletin board programs.

Anat,

Please accept my apologies. Sometimes making assumptions isn't the best I have however remedy my mistake. Once again, I do apologize.

No problem Chad - it's a common mistake and I'm quite happy with it actually. It's sometimes more convenient to be taken for a Mr...

Anyway, my ASP guy phoned me today. He wants 1500$ for the job, or quite a lot of the company. I'll have to discuss that with my spouse who is currently trekking in the Himalayas. I'm not sure I can afford that right now. Maybe I'll just give up on that idea for now and integrate it in a later stage. Does anyone know if people can upload photos to a Vbulletin forum?

Anat

I do not believe you can, but you can link to them on another server. For example take a look at http://www.webmaster-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=12474

$1,500 doesn’t sound extremely excessive, however I have no idea what your doing. You may want to try posting in the Job & Barter Forum.

Also, take a look at some of the pre-made scripts. You may find something that does what you need in a freeware or low cost pre-developed application. Or at least something that’s close that a programmer can customize (this usually lowers the development cost).

http://www.aspin.com is one of the best ASP program archives, http://php.resourceindex.com is great for PHP, and http://www.cgi-resources.com is great for Perl and some other CGI capable languages.

Good luck.