Teach Yourself Active Web Database Programming in 21 Days is a comprehensive guide to the collection of technologies offered by Microsoft for accessing data via Web pages. The book's four authors do an excellent job of taking the reader through the underpinnings of today's Web, although the writing from chapter to chapter differs a bit, no doubt a result of its team authorship. Assuming the reader has a general knowledge of Visual Basic programming, the book lays out the foundations of HTTP, Web servers, browsers, and page delivery through HTML and CGI scripts. The center of the book outlines three major Microsoft technologies: Active Server Pages (ASPs) based on VBScript; ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), for getting to databases and generating Web pages dynamically from data; and the new Advanced Data Connector (ADC) technology, which allows Web pages to access live data. Though they occasionally slip into advertising mode for Microsoft's solutions, the authors are careful to show why each technology offers distinct advantages for Web developers. They do a particularly good job at explaining the underlying architecture of each technology, and include careful diagrams. The book also contains reference material covering the properties and methods for the scripting objects used in each of the technologies presented. Simple source code snippets, as well as numerous screenshots, will help the reader throughout the book. Working examples for several data-driven Web sites are also included. A handy appendix with online sources for all the necessary tools rounds out the book. For Microsoft-based Web developers, this title will surely be a very useful tutorial and guide.

Teaches the fundamentals of Visual Basic script, HTML, HTPP, ActiveX, and databases, and progresses to such topics as creating dynamic Web pages from the server using ADO and the ADC. Original. (Intermediate)