Amazon.com Review
Much of advanced Web development involves database access, and one of the best tool sets around is Microsoft's Visual Studio. Building Web Database Applications with Visual Studio 6 offers hands-on training in this development platform and gives readers the techniques to build powerful and elegant applications, as well as a solid understanding of the IIS architecture.

Author Dan Rahmel puts his years of Visual Basic experience to good use in this targeted yet comprehensive book. The focus is database access, which translates into in-depth coverage of ActiveX Data Objects (ADOs), but it also explores such important topics as browser capability detection and security. The book begins with nice overviews of IIS, VBScript, and ADO. Code examples immediately illustrate how to establish connections and access data. To explore the various techniques you'll need to use in real-world development, the author walks the reader through the construction of a drill-down interactive report. This example, which enables users to search for orders and view order details, is applicable to almost any commercial Web site.

This isn't just a nuts-and-bolts title, however--it also shows how to design sites smartly by using Visual Modeler and Database Designer. Advanced topics such as distributed computing and DHTML intranet development give it real depth. Anyone venturing into the wooly world of database-driven Web development should consider this book. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered: IIS overview, VBScript overview, ActiveX Data Object (ADO), ADO application design, interactive drill-down reports, sessions, browser capabilities, Database Designer, CDO e-mail, security, ActiveX DLL design, IIS applications, DCOM, MTS, Visual Modeler, DHTML, Windows 2000 Active Directory, advanced ADO data types, Java-based charting, SQL primer, and team development.