Web Application Development With ASP - Step 2 - Setting up your Virtual Directory

Creating Virtual Directories
If your Web site contains files that are located on a different drive than the home directory, C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\, or on other computers, you must create virtual directories to include those files in your Web site. To use a directory on another computer, you must specify the directory’s Universal Naming Convention (UNC) name or alias name and provide a user name and password to use for access permission.

To create a virtual directory
1. At the Computer Management window, select Default Web Site to which you want to add a directory.
2. Click the Action button, and then point to New, and select Virtual Directory.
3. Use the New Virtual Directory Wizard to complete this task.

4. Give an alias name to your directory.

A virtual directory has an alias, a name that client browsers use to access that directory. Because an alias is usually shorter than the path name of the directory, it is more convenient for users to type.

An alias is more secure; users do not know where your files are physically located on the server and cannot use that information to modify your files.
Aliases make it easier for you to move directories in your site. Instead of changing the URL for the page, you change the mapping between the alias and the physical location of the page. This name is used later on the internet explorer to access your web site. i.e. http://localhost/mypage/. where "mypage" is the alias name of the directory.

Web Application Development With ASP - Step 1 - Setting up your IIS Web Server

Installing IIS on Windows 2000 or XP
Internet Information Services (IIS) is a powerful Web server that provides a highly reliable, manageable, and scalable Web application infrastructure for all later versions of Windows operating systems. IIS helps organizations increase Web site and application availability while lowering system administration costs. IIS is Microsoft's entry to compete in the Internet server market that is also addressed by Apache, Sun Microsystems, O'Reilly, and others. With IIS, Microsoft includes a set of programs for building and administering Web sites, a search engine, and support for writing Web-based applications that access databases.

You can install IIS, add optional components, or remove optional components for IIS by using the Add/Remove Programs dialog box in Control Panel and selecting Add/Remove Windows Components. You will be guided during the installation and you may require to reboot the system after installation. After the installation.. you will need to test if it is working.. in my next posting I will teach you how to create virtual directory..

Note: You may need your Windows 2000 or Windows XP CD during the installation.

If you need the detail steps... Just drop me a request. =)

Web Application Development With ASP - Building Blocks of Web Application

The building blocks of an web application includes.

1. A Web Server

2. Server Side Scripting Pages

3. Database and SQL

I will be covering a brief overview of the role of each of these building blocks so that you will have a clear picture how each of them plays a part in a web application.

A Web Server

The web server plays a critical role in an web application. It hosts the web directory, handles the requests by clients, processes the server side scripting and returns an output to the client. The web servers also acts as the front line defends against attacks to prevent any compromising of the databases. As such other supporting softwares are included into the server.

Depending on the type of server end scripting used, the web server will need to run different "engine" to be able to read those scripts. For example, you can run an Apache to read php scripts or java scripts and for ASP or ASP.Net you will need an IIS, Internet Information Services for your server.

Server Side Scripting

Server side scripting are scripts that are run at the back-end, by a web server. The other scripting language is run at the client's PC itself, example are html, vbscript and javascript.

There are many server side scripting which includes php, java, perl, ASP, C# and of course ASP and ASP.Net. All these scripts are written by web application developer, like myself, to perform specific functions, example a guest book or a shopping cart. This the "brain" of the whole web application where it will direct actually how things should works and flow... which data to extract, insert, edit or delete. Security checks, password authenication and many other processes like exceptions handling must be included in these scripts to ensure the integrity of the application and databases.

I will be covering the ASP scripting language in my furture postings.

Databases and SQL

A database completes the whole picture for an web application. It holds data and information of the business processes. At anytime, the integrity and the security of the databases should never be compromised. SQL are used to manipulate data. If you are familar to SQL queries it will be a plus for you.

A simple database can be created by using Microsoft Access, other database like mySQL which is free is well like by many web developers. So the choice of a database really depend on preferences, cost and the size of the database. For a beginner I would recommend, MS Access which is readily available and easy to implement.

Web Application Development With ASP - What is Web Application?

To begin.. Let's define what is a Web Application?

A Web Application is different from a Static Web Site.

Static Web Site
A static web site can be easily created by using simple HTML coding in a text editor or any web authoring tools. These static pages are first uploaded into a web server and upon a request from the client browser the server will send the pages to the client-end. The client’s browsers will display the pages.

A static web site is usually,
§ Designed to encourage browsing and exploring.
§ Provide information that has been pre-built and can be stored in a static HTML files.
§ User can navigate from one page to another using the hyper links in the pages.


Web Application
Web applications are programs that are built to perform a specific task or purpose over the internet or intranet, usually interactive. Examples are on-line shopping, electronic banking, gaming and course registration and etc.

Server-side scripting language, e.g. ASP, ASPX, PHP, JAVA, Perl and etc is required to control the different responses depending on end-user’s request. Features includes,

§ It is developed to suit a specific user. Examples are on-line shoppers or system administrator.
§ Authentication and tracking of a user is normally required for security reasons.
§ Dynamic (serves up-to-date information, not static HTML files and responses.)
§ A backend databases are normally required in an application.

Web Application Development With ASP

I am Web Application developer using ASP. Been into this for more than 5 years.

To date under my profile, I have done undertaken a number of projects and had successfully implemented them. Through this blog I wish to share my expertise in this field and hopefully get people who are new to ASP to start off their very 1st web application.

And for those who are not new to ASP, feel free to share, post questions and exchange ideas.

So watch out for some of my up coming postings...