I'm trying to design a program or software that is an email system like hotmail with most of its cool functions, so I wish to know which database program, books will be most suitable for me. Mind u, I'm a rookie with database and I've done only a little C++ programming in college.

Any SQL database should work. Probably MySQL is your best bet since its Open Source.

Thanks for response Scott,
I've played with SQL database a little before, but I thought SQL is not just an independent database programme rather it's used in the database programme ASP as an ASP's data handler. I don't have have a clue about MYSQL, but maybe I need to check it out, but I hope it can help me design an email system.

SQL stands for Structured Query Language. ANY relational database that support SQL is considered an SQL database. Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, MySQL ans others are all considered large scale SQL databases.

As a database novice which, so one do u think would be most appropriate for me to accomplish my objective. I actually go the website: www.w3schools.com (http://www.w3schools.com)
That's where I've actually be exposed to SQL ASP , so using that website how do u think that I can pull off my objective.

You need to talk with your WEB host service. They would be better able to advise what they support.

Chochocho,

I think you are going about this the wrong way. Are you considering storing the emails for each user in a database? If you are writing a web based email solution, you don't want to do this.

Emails are stored on mail servers. What you would need to write is an application that will access this mail server (using a protocol like IMAP, POP3 etc). You would then just simply query what's on the mail server and display this information to the user. If they want to do anything like delete a message etc. you'll have to delete the message from the mail server. Basically, forget the database - you don't need it. You will need/have a mail server that will take the place of what you are thinking of as a database.

For my final year project at university, I wrote a webmail application like you want. I did it using JavaServer Pages but if you want some more advice on your project, I'll try to help. In the meantime I'll see if I can find some info to help you.

*** Edit ***
Well it's not looking good for writing an email system in ASP. Both the tutorials I found said that to be able to access a POP server, you need a third party component and those weren't free. I'll keep looking for an open source one.

http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/092201-1.shtml
http://www.quiksoft.com/newsletter/issue003/

LT,
I don't believe that majors like Hotmail, Yahoo, GMail etc use POP3 as the mail store. I'm pretty sure these WEB based e-mail services use proprietary databases for the mail store. That's why they don't offer POP3 service without a fee. If you want to access the mail store using POP3 (or IMAP) an interface needs to be setup for the account.

That being said, I think your suggestion to build a web based interface to a POP3 mail store might be a better solution for choc.

Thanks for your suggestions Scott.
Actually, This is like a private project that I'm embarking on, so doesn't need much data storage, but I just want it to have all the email features embedded with the email systems like Hotmail which includes features like save, reply, Mail, Attach, Send , etc. it'll be fine with me with this project if initially I can use two directories to simulate sender and receiver of emails on my computer if possible.
About the POP3 mail store, I'm not familiar with it, but I need to understand how it works first before I can use it:confused: .