Help needed. Database creation

iwb

I am completely at sea with this project. I have virtually no experience with programming but would like to make my site live. It is a fairly simple job (I think) but I don't have the cash to pay someone to do a lot of work.
Any of you guys or gals out there want to help me on a reasonable hourly rate or just because you want to help out someone with a worthwhile project?
I want to do a comparison of two or three products on the page, as picked by the surfer. There are about twenty fields in the comparison. It would be something like shopping for a pc or camera online where you can select the three you are most interested in and compare them side by side.
I have most of the data in a MS Access database. My hosting is PHP though, so there are two potential problems for me.
Thanks in advance for any help, iwb.

Talliesin

Originally posted by iwb
just because you want to help out someone with a worthwhile project?

And what makes this project worthwhile?

iwb

Good question. The project is to help people in Ireland understand broadband and its benefits. The database is one of all broadband products available in Ireland today.

Karoma

is this of commercial interest to you? (ie: what's in it for you?!)

iwb

The honest answer to the question is that I would eventually like to get something out of the site, at least recoup my costs, but fundamentally, I want to do this because it needs to be done and it will help. So far, I have no idea how to make any money from the site and don't intend to charge anything for its use. It has cost me a fair bit to date and it still isn't live.

Karoma

"it will help"
how? whom?

iwb

Karoma, I would have thought it was obvious that it will help the Irish punter. I can't give you names or demographics unfortunately.
Now, this is getting very off the point. If you guys aren't interested in helping for the sake of it, that is fine. I fully understand. I would rather not have a protracted conversation about the altruistic nature of the site or not.
I am prepared to pay for some help as stated above. I just can't afford to put many hundreds of euro into it.
Thanks for your interest, iwb.

casper-

Originally posted by iwb
So far, I have no idea how to make any money from the site and don't intend to charge anything for its use. It has cost me a fair bit to date and it still isn't live.

Just out of curiosity; your site says "live on Oct. 1" ... how much has it cost you so far? Any reasonable hosting place shouldn't have charged you more than 50 or so by now assuming you registered the site back in August/September.

Talliesin

Originally posted by iwb
Karoma, I would have thought it was obvious that it will help the Irish punter. I can't give you names or demographics unfortunately.
Now, this is getting very off the point. If you guys aren't interested in helping for the sake of it, that is fine. I fully understand. I would rather not have a protracted conversation about the altruistic nature of the site or not.
I am prepared to pay for some help as stated above. I just can't afford to put many hundreds of euro into it.
Thanks for your interest, iwb.

Relax, I'm just checking that you aren't trying to sneak a recruitment advert past the recruitment advert policy.

Why not do this in association with Ireland Offline, I imagine they would be interested in providing this information to the consumer, and some of their members would have the skills needed.

Karoma

that's what i was aiming at: are you doing it as a useful service (in which case: work with IOffLine or similar), or are you doing it to make a profit..

iwb

My 'need' to get this site up is more than a year old now. I originally saw the need to educate people about broadband when I was trying to get DSL for myself. I firmly believe that education is a large part of the process of getting people online.
Also, if you wanted to know what is available in the country and how the options compare, it would've been a fairly involved process. A year later, some of these concerns have been somewhat alleviated but there is still a lot of work to do.
I have had some help from an IOFFL member but he is currently unavailable and I wanted to keep the ball rolling.
I really don't want to spend a lot of time justifying this. My time would be better spent working on content for the site. I would appreciate any offers of help as mentioned above.
Regards, iwb.

Karoma

as stated b4: i'm game for specifics. i just have my suspicions about a lot of posts for help: just wanted to make sure this wasn't something that you were gonna sell on for profit.
g'luck!

iwb

I have published the site. It is very plain to see in the Pricing and Information section that something is needed to help present this data. I have found someone who will do the database programming for a very reasonable hourly rate which I am happy with.
Now that the site is up, hopefully you can see that it may prove useful to broadband punters and potential punters. There is huge potential for this site to flourish and as I said before, I have no objection to it paying for itself one of these days or even making a few quid from it. However, my motivation for it has always been altruistic and remains so. As the content becomes better and easier to use, I believe it will help many people who don't have the time to chase up information which altough is available, is widely dispersed.
Any suggestions or feedback you may have is greatly appreciated. See also this post in IOFFL forum. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129740
Regards, iwb.

skipn_easy

looks like a great site iwb