Hi there,

I'm currently doing my last year at college where I need to do two projects. The major project has to be developed either in VB, VB.NET or Java. The minor project can be done in HTML with the use of dynamic elements.

I've also been working for a company that currently does leave management manually. The HR gives out forms to employees, who fill it up, get it approved by their superiors and then submit to the HR. The HR then fills them out manually into an excel sheet for further processing.

I plan to computerize this process...

The users will fill an online leave form, the data gets stored in a database and the superior gets an e-mail notification. The superior will then need to log in and approve/deny the leave. The HR can do tasks like create/edit/delete users, view records etc. Pls note that since all PCs are connected via LAN, i'll be using Intranet for connectivity since it'll be easier and more secure.

I had originally planned to create the entire project web-based, but since my college needs one part to be done in VB/.NET/Java, I've decided that I will computerize the above said process using browser-based as well as a software-based interface. The employees will get the web-based interface while i'll create a software-driven (VB or VB.NET) for the HR.

Now my questions are: which software do I use with respect to my scenario. The creation of this project needs to be as simple as possible (I know that's a lot to ask, but I've got a lot of theory to study too!) and while maintaining functionality. Since all people in my office use Windows, there's no problem for platform incompatibility.

I've heard VB.NET is a bit more functional than VB. Also, for the browser-based interface, what will I need to use for database connectivity (haven't figured out which database to use, but people have recommended me not to use MS Access).

Thanx a lot