Well, I'm posting here in the hope that someone will give me some pointers as to what to do! Please forgive me if it is a long post, and English is not my native language so bear with me :)

Basically, I've been trying to find out what I need to learn in order to make a paid website that has a list of clients of mine, with some information submitted by them. I want to be able to retrieve that information, analyze it and send it back to them.

I'd like to know, is learning ASP.NET 2.0 enough for me, or should I get books on other subjects too? (I have developed pages in HTML before)

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On other notes:

I have acquired a book from Microsoft Press, and it appears I have made a bad choice. The first lesson is this: I'm supposed to turn a regular HTML page with some text into an ASP.NET page, just by changing the extension to .aspx and adding a line at the top <%@ Page Language="C#" %>

I have installed IIS, created the virtual directory, etc... But I still get an error saying "The XML page could not be displayed. It's not possible to show the XML entry using the XSL stylesheet. Correct the error and click on the Refresh button or try again later. A name was started with an invalid character". And then it shows the first line, with the <%> tag.

What am I doing wrong here?

I really appreciate any help and advice. Thank you for taking your time to read all of it :)

Sincerely,
Bruno

Hi Bruno,

Besides learning ASP.NET 2.0, you may want to pick up a book about SQL Server if your web site requires database access (most web sites do).

Beginning SQL Server Programming (http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTit...764584332.html) might be a good choice but it won't be out until February 2006. From the same author, there is Professional SQL Server Programming (http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTit...764543792.html), which is a great book, targeting SQL Server 2000.

Depending on how "HTML" your previous sites were, you may also need to understand a bit more about JavaScript and CSS.

With dynamic web sites, a good understanding of client server technology would be useful as well.

Regarding your error: did you add that line before anything else? That is, even before stuff like a doc type? Can you post the source code for the page?

Cheers,

Imar
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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

Imar,

Thank you for your reply, it turns out the problem was actually in the IIS config! The code is working just fine now.

Also, thanks a lot for all the advice and the books you indicated. I'll try to get a hold of them!

Have a merry christmas!!

Cheers,
Bruno

You too have a Merry Christmas.

Cheers,

Imar
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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.