A better way?

[susandennis]

Years ago I set up a web page to post book recommendations.  I put the recommendations in a tiny Access data base and built an ASP page http://www.susandennis.net/books.asp to slice and dice and present the data.

For a variety of reasons, I'm wondering now if there isn't a better, newer, easier, cheaper way.

• The database is really crude.  Two tables - Books has 5 fields and 640 entries. Authors has 4 fields (but if the data base was designed correctly it would only need 2) and 323 entries. 
• The web page currently offers
  • by author
  • by type
  • by when I read
• I'd love to add some kind of Alpha by title
• I'm paying a hosting company $17.00 a quarter just for this silly book database. (10,000KB basically for the page and the database)
• I use two other hosting companies but neither offer asp pages and I'm not smart enough to figure out how to use PHP or any other database besides Access.
• My ideal would be to have someone build me a page that replicates what I have and adds the alpha by title AND gives me the ability to easily add books either via a website or even manually that would enable me to get rid of this hosting company.

Anybody out there have any ideas? Anybody up for taking on a truly simple database/website redo project? Maybe build it up, help me get it onto one of my other hosts and severed up?  I'd be willing to pony up a year's worth of the hosting fee I'm paying now to move over to something that is a better deal.

Or anybody have any other ideas on how to present the recommendations of nearly 700 books on a webpage?

Comments

[jimcarson.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy to host it for you.

What kind of timeframe are you on? I'd be happy to host it for you, but I don't have any time to do coding until the end of January. (Nanowrimo this month; tradeshow hell until mid-January.)

This is something I put together a couple of years ago for bike rides: http://www.northwestcycling.com/

[susandennis]

Seriously??!! My timeframe can easily be Whenever You Get To It!

There is really no driver except I'd like to dump this hosting company eventually.

I was thinking last night of also maybe slapping my puzzles into a database and building those pages out automagically, too. That would be simpler - no user selection - just splat the stuff out on pages. I could build a data base of images, URLs to the exe, name of picture taker.

I looked over Craigslist possibilities last night but I'd so rather wait for someone I know and trust. Would you please pencil me in for q1/q2 ish?

[jimcarson.livejournal.com]

Seriously. If the librarything doesn't work out, I'd be happy to do it.

I use a different database, but it can import/export in CSV format.

[susandennis]

No worries, mate... if I use the library thing, I'm going to morph your offer into helping me build my puzzle pages on the fly.

The library thing bears some investigation. I'm not entirely sure I want to looking 640 ISBN nums... but, maybe.

[nezbitthecat.livejournal.com]

Have you checked out this? (http://www.librarything.com/)

[susandennis]

Holy crap on a stick!! That's amazing! I never saw this before. It really bears some checking out. Thanks so much!!

And... thanks for the great postcard! It now has a proud place on my postcard wall!

[susandennis]

crap, it has to have ISBN's. I don't have ISBN's but, it might be worth looking them up. hmmmm