Looking for advice for 2 issues

[bnd10706]

First off I want to state, that I am not really sure where to put this topic. So I apoligize if its in the wrong spot, and maybe someone can point me to a better place to post. Ok. I have 2 issues, that I am looking to fix. I currently work in a government office and I manage the internal website. This internal website is the central hub on our intranet where everyone goes to get data. We store everything from links to certain pdfs, to excel documents, to website links. Really its just a hub that makes it eaiser for people to pass information. Before I took over a few months ago everything was done in publisher. now my web design background is all self taught, and I consider myself a begineer. I know CSS/HTML and javascript fairly well. The internal website is on our server. The issue with out server is that its government controlled. I cannot add, remove edit do anything but store my files on it. its governed and controlled by people in DC and you cannot just call and say "hey do this". On that note, no exe files, or anything else can be loaded. We are forced to use what we are given. That being said, We ALL use IE6. Sucks I know, but its what I have to work with. Our internal website works ok. I just want it to be better. Here is what im looking to do. 1. I want to develop a phone database. The biggest request I get from the 500 or so employees in my building that uses this internal page is they are tired of using the printed excel phone book and they want to be able to go to the website and just type in a name / business and it display the results. Ok great. If i had my own server I would use php, mysql and wayla have a nice phone book. The server i am 95% sure does not use Apache, or support php or sql. I cannot open a php file in IE so im pretty sure no php support. Right now, I have created a really nice javascript live search with CSS "contact cards" its pretty nice, as you type it narrows the results down. The BIGGEST draw back from it. its all written in HTML. with 5000ish different contacts, I wish there was another person who can help me. Aside from teaching the 2 idiots I work with really simple HTML. i was wondering if there was ANY way to have a databse with excel, or access or anything like that. Really my biggest concern is not now, but its a few years when I leave, I want anyone to be able to add or remove phone numbers as needed. I dont want "Jill in accounting" to call me or e-mail me information, when I could have her go to a page, fill out a form, and boom its added to a nice directory. ANY help with this would be great. I am pretty sure it cannot be done, buit im hopefull. I THINK our server supports ASP, but im not sure, and I have NO clue how to use it. 2. The next thing I really am looking for I think can be done, but I am not sure how. The head of our building wants to be able to have a dedicated person change the terror level. (I do to because Im not there every day). Basically we have an internal terror threat level that ranges in the form of numbers 1-30 with corresponding colors. I justt want somone to be able to go somewhere type in the number in a form, and then its saved and displayed until the next person changes it. This is a bit eaiser, but again, just dont know how. If anyone is willing to help, please let me know. I can e-mail if thats eaiser. Thank you! Brandon

[boen_robot]

You can find the web server for certain if you have Firefox with Firebug and inspect the headers in the Net tab.Anyway, the web server is probably IIS of some sort, in which case you should be able to use ASP.NET. To use ASP.NET, you need to know a .NET language, such as C# or VB.NET. I'd personally reccomend C#, as it is much closer in syntax to PHP (compared to VB.NET I mean).There are many tutorials for C# on the internet, including one from MSDN.Chances are that there is a database available, but it's in MSSQL rather than MySQL. You might want to get familiar with that as well.Once you can do that, and make a prototype of what you'll be doing, I'm sure you could contact the DC admins and they'll let you do it. Personally, if I was on their place, I wouldn't let you touch the server without a prototype, because in being a beginner, you'll likely mess things up. Having a working prototype I can mess around with would assure me any damage would be minimal.

[justsomeguy]

You should really find out what the server supports before doing anything. Contact the admins and tell them what you want to do and ask them what tools are available on the server to help you do that. You'll waste your time if you go off and learn C# and develop your application to use MSSQL only to be told later that you should be using Perl and Oracle. Don't assume anything that you aren't certain of, if you're not sure then ask someone who knows the answer.