Overview
Getting started building a Web site is simple enough-the hardware is cheap, the software is easy to install, and the market of potential visitors is huge. If it's a company Intranet site, you can even run it over the corporate network; with no need for expensive cabling and ISP connections. The problems come as your site starts to grow and mature. Web sites are supposed to be enticing and exciting (so as to attract new visitors), and contain ever-changing content (to make those visitors keep coming back). How do you maintain and keep control of a fast-growing and ever-changing site, while still keeping it informative, accurate, and error-free? The answer is automation; and the combination of Windows NT Server, Internet Information Server, a server-based data source, and Active Server Pages, makes it possible to design your site so that it's easy to manage and maintain. They even make it easier to add regular new content, and keep the site looking fresh. Do you know how many visitors your site gets, and who they are? How can you tell which topics your visitors are most interested in, and which areas of your site get the most traffic-and even what times of day are busiest? How do you implement secure access to certain areas, so that you can charge for premium content or prevent access to administration pages? This book tackles all these topics-under the three general headings of controlling, maintaining and monitoring your Web site. You won't see pages of setup information for Windows NT and SQL Server, or a tutorial for ASP or SQL. What you will see is down-to-earth discussion of the issues that webmasters have to face daily, and real code solutions. If you are building or administering a Windows NT-based Web site, this book should be on your shelf.Editorials
Ray Duncan
Vale of Tiers
Every developer of web applications based on Microsoft's Internet Information Server and Active Server Pages needs to have certain essential reference books on hand: O'Reilly's HTML: The Definitive Guide, WROX Press Ltd's Professional Active Server Pages 2.0, O'Reilly's Essential Windows NT System Administration, Microsoft's Internet Information Server Resource Kit, and Addison-Wesley's How to Set Up and Maintain a Web Site: Second Edition -- to name a few. But these books, in a sense, sit at the edges of the information space traversed by the would-be IIS webmaster. They describe all the pieces, but not how to put the pieces together into the type of interactive application we see on the web every day.
Professional ASP Techniques for Webmasters sits right at the center of the web application information space, on both the strategic and tactical levels, and will save its purchasers from hours of painful struggle and experimentation. The major sections describe dynamic web page generation, site navigation, browser compatibility, remote administration, and gathering information and creating reports about site visitors. A final "plug and play" chapter includes a number of tricks and traps that didn't fit in logically elsewhere, ranging from the creation of pop-up windows to configuring the IIS SMTP service. The book is supplemented with downloads, errata, and feedback forms on the WROX web site.
We've come to expect high standards of quality from WROX Press, and this book is no exception. Professional ASP Techniques for Webmasters is clearly written and carefully edited, with a clean design, program listings that actually work, appropriate use of screen shots, and a minimum of fluff. This is not the kind of book you'll want to read from cover to cover, but its practical advice and example code will come in handy over and over again.
— Ray Duncan, Dr. Dobb's Electronic Review of Computer Books