Please Help - Login page needed

[joshkin20]

Hello everyone,

I was elected to be the company "IT guy" at a printing company aside from my day-to-day job here (lucky me), and have done a minimal amount of coding (HTML, ASP), but could definitely use some help on this project.

We have some large clients who insist on being able to order business cards by entering their info on our webpage through forms. Not a big deal. The big deal here for me, is having a page they can login to for security. so they should have a username and password, (doesn't need to be dynamic, I could control the username/password info., unless there's an easy way with a database technology)

After they login, that specific login should point them to their own page where they will see a generic business card, enter proper info in the fields, and have the form sent (again, form mailing is not a problem for me).

Can someone at least point me in the right direction, do I need to get into SQL for this? If so, where do I start? What do I need to know? We host with godaddy, so I think that's compatable with SQL, but I'm not sure if that's the best way, and I really need to get moving on this. (damn stingy boss!)

I appreciate any input!

Josh

[trudge]

Unless your company plans on saving the order data for future use, a database is not necessary for this. Which is not to say you shouldn't log attempts to log in with date/time stamp, IP address, domain name, attempts, etc. You may also have to add a CAPCHA image.

A simple order form in the language of your choice would do. A word of advice on passwords: don't allow users to pick their own, and insist on a minimum length of about 6 characters, spanning alphanumeric sets.

Also, if you are hosting client data, I would strongly suggest to move away from godaddy as quick as possible. They are a 'freebie' site, and your clients have to put up with advertising. Also, they have a reputation for 'overbooking' their servers. Which means if you get close to your disk limit they may lock you out.

[joshkin20]

Thanks Trudge, just a question on godaddy and the advertising my clients will have to put up with. Advertising in what form? Pop ups? I'm not sure I've ever had a problem with that so far, just curious. Good stuff to keep in mind though.

[trudge]

If you are paying for your disk space then you shouldn't have a problem. However, my understanding (from others) is that any freebie host has to get revenue from somewhere, so they place ads on their client web pages. My advice, especially if you are going to be responsible for client data, is to move it to a paid hosting site.