Dear Dr. Website®: I don't understand very well what it takes to have a database published on the Web. Access, for example is a database, right? And Oracle and Sybase are too? So what is Oracle database server? Can't I just use my database and leave it on my Unix server? Why would I need a database server? And can I use a database server different from the database I am using? Why is database software so expensive? Is there any hardware I'll need in all that database stuff?
Putting the data from your database online is a bit different from publishing a Web page.
It's not as simple as just placing your database within your Web directory (on your Web server).
The Web server gets a request from a Web visitor to view your database data. It can't directly view the contents of your database, so it contacts the database server, which reads your database and "translates" it to the server, which then sends it out to the visitor's Web browser in a format that the browser can understand.
There are many packages that enable you to put your database on the Web, and they vary in price from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand dollars (such as Allaire's ColdFusion, Bluestone's SapphireWeb, and Sun's NetDynamics). No hardware is involved beyond what you currently use for Web publishing, unless you need a separate physical database server for performance reasons. Some database software is intended to be very easy to use, while some packages are scalable up to millions of transactions per day without changing a line of code. That, as well as the speed and robustness of a commercial database program, is what you're paying for, as well as the vendor's support in standing behind the product.
The programming knowledge required to use these packages also varies. Some require the user to be familiar with HTML and SQL (Structured Query Language), while others benefit from a knowledge of C and/or C++ programming.
If you search through internet.com's Web Developer channel of sites, you'll find many articles that will guide you through the process of getting your data on the Web.
Dear Dr. Website®: Is there a way to link to a page in a framed site without loading the entire frameset? And is it possible to prevent a page from being loaded into another site's frame?
If in your first question you're asking
if you can load the frameset with a specific (non-default) page within the frames by means of a link, the answer is no...not without the use of additional script within that framed content. If you simply mean "can you make a link from your site to a particular frame on another site," the answer is generally yes. If you put your cursor on that frame using Internet Explorer, right-click, and then select "copy location," you'll have the exact URL of that frame on the clipboard, and you can use that for your link.
To avoid getting "framed," use this code:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--//
if (parent.frames[1])
parent.location.href = self.location.href;
//-->
</SCRIPT>
Dear Dr. Website®: I have seen buttons to CLOSE a window. I have a need for such a button. What HTML code or JavaScript do I need to accomplish a simple window close?
A: This is short and sweet:
<form action="javascript:close()" method=POST>
<input type="submit" value="close"> </form>
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