Urgent Help with Date and then email in ASP

Question

Hii,
USING ASP AND ACCESS
I am implementing a classified section for my website and I
am displaying
everything successfully.
When the user posts the classified he selects how many days
he wants his
POST like 10 days, 20 days or 30 days and i can successfully
show the posts
So if the user posts on says 1st of July 2006 and selects 10
days for his
post to be showed on my website
THEN
8th July 2006 an email shud go to him saying if he wants to
keep his POST
for another 10 days, 20 days or 30 days with 3 links
and IF YES the 1st july 2006 date must be changed to
Date of Post + Number of days selected initially + Number of
days selected.
I am using two columsn in the DB for this date thing one is
the strPostDate
and strAddDate
So basically the number of days selected for the post to be
shown on the
website keeps adding up each time the user clicks on the link
for 10 days,
20 days or 30 days with 3 links
please help need it badly :-)

Answer 1

I have to disagree with my colleages above - this isn't that
hard at all. I have done it a number of times successfully. It does
depend on a "trick", but who cares as long as it works.
Basically, the "trick" says that your site will receive a
visit once in a while! It better, or why have the site!
In ASP, use the global.asa file. In the "Session start"
section of global.asa, which is fired off every time a new comer
arrives, you have an opportunity to:
1. check if it's ok to check who needs an email (in other
words, you don't want to be checking EVERY time someone comines on
board every last listing on your site. So what i would do is allow
it to do the full check once daily, say after midnight.
2. If its ok to check who needs an email, do so, and send the
emails out.
3. After sending out emails, fix it so you will not be
resending uptil teh next time window. You could also set "flags"
for any lister where you sent an email 1st round email has been
sent.
The above is one way.
Sometimes i do the very same thing, but i simply tie the
checking routine into the home page.
Both schemes work as long as you have a single visitor once
in a while. if you never had a visitor to teh site, not even one,
then the emails would never be sent. But as i said if you go days
without a visit, better start looking for a new vocation!
www.brunswickdowntown.com is a site i did that has a
sign-up-to-stay informed email system, its been running for a year
just fine, all automatically, using the method of #1 (but for
asp.net, same difference!)
Rick