I really need help with the following: I have dreamweaver 8 and have made html pages...uploaded them to my site but....now i want to use the database and am clueless as to how to make a connection. I did realize that I have to choose which language I'm going to use......ASP or PHP.....php seems to be the easiest. I have Windows Vista on one computer and Windows Xp on another...

Can anyone give me step-by-step instructions? If I'm not clear please email and I will tell you all that I have done so far. Also...I've downloaded Xampp...not clear as to what that's suppose to do...and a host of other things...Any help would be appreciated.

I made some progress (or so I think)...with an .asp and got this error message:

<Microsoft JET Database Engine error '80004005"

c'\inetpub\wwwroot\db\examples.mdb' is not a valid path.. Make sure that the path name is spelled correctly and that you are connected to the server on which the file resides.

/Untitled-13.asp line 19

Kind of a mouthful for all in one question, isn't it? A few answers in no particular order...

1) XAMPP is not needed unless you want a full-blown server on your own machine for testing purposes... it's the Windows version of the acronym LAMP, which stands for Linux (the operating system), Apache (the web server), MySQL (the database server) and PHP (the scripting language). The X is for XP in this instance, and the extra P is that Perl or perhaps Python is auto-installed as well (it's been a while so I don't remember which). NOTE: If you're installing a server to become better acquainted with configuration and debugging, then I highly recommend installing each of these packages separately rather than together... it will help you with troubleshooting in the long run. Install MySQL first, then Apache, then PHP (and opt for the MSI Windows installers for ease of configuration).