Intranet

ASP.NET can definitely be used for an intranet application but all depends on your requirment. If your application is a CPU intensive app or requires rich GUI then Win Forms Application is your way.

As you know, there are two ways to distribute a program through a browser. You can use the web forms web client, or you can use Win forms and send it through the web.
Using windows forms has a lot of advantages over using web forms. Win forms are more robust and are a lot more flexible by nature. However, being more robust also means a
lot more overhead.
Therefore, while win forms via the web have more to offer, they also take longer on the initial load time as well as being more processor intensive AND they require software to be loaded on the client machine.
Web forms are Very thin clients in that all you need is a browser.
So, my recommendation is that if you are creating a web based program in a controlled enviornment (at work, or some other local area network) then I would probably go with the Win Forms
and just make sure that the appropriate software is distributed to/installed on all the users machines.
If on the other hand, you are creating a web app for the world to see, keep it simple, functional and fast and use web forms.

Read more code articles and download source code here

Alright, great!

The intranet will mainly be used for nothing more than document retreival, such as viewing the employee handbook. But I do want to be able to implement a timesheet program and other applications.

Based on your requirement ASP.NET is the best option. You can go ahead with that.

do i need to know asp.net before i use ajax?

Well If you plan to use AJAX in ASP.NET then yes you have to know ASP.NET. Iam infact working on a tutorial on ASP.NET and VB.NET which will be available on my site soon.

Ah ok. Do you know of any good books I could purchase for a begginners guide to ASP.NET?

What would you prefer as the codebehind language? VB or C#?

Well I'm just now learning .NET; I would prefer C# (since it uses C++), but I am not familiar with it at all.

Should I learn C# and then ASP.NET?

Yes that's actually the right approach as C# is the language and ASP.NET is a technology.

So go with C# first and then implement in ASP.NET.

alright excellent! Would you agree that using C# as opposed to VB.NET would be the more powerful way to go?

Couple notes:
1) C++ and C# are almost completely unrelated.
2) C# and VB are equally suited for web development with ASP.NET.
3) You can learn C# and ASP.NET side by side. Of course, you'll only be using a small part of what C# can do, but not bad at all.
3) For using AJAX, look into the toolkit (found somewhere on http://asp.net/ajax) or wait for the next VS release (which will include AJAX).
4) If you're just looking for a collaborative management site, you might consider looking at Sharepoint (Windows Server 2003 required I think...).

If you want to learn ASP.NET and C#, you can check this site: http://www.asp.net.

You can download the video tutorial part and it will help you learn thru a step-by-step visual tutorial.

There is not diff. in C# & VB.NET in context to what functionalty can be achieved. Both can perform the same. But it is upto you as per your comfort level which one to pick. Mostly a Java or C++ transitions quickly to C# as compared to a VB6.0 Developer to VB.NET. Its all about the what are you comfortable to work with.