Questions on what database I should run for my website?

Odesk and freelancer are both freelancing sites. They allow freelancers and firms to bid on projects which are posted by people such as you. The freelancer section on here can be used as well but you get much less exposure.

Also not sure on which tristate area you're talking about, but I'd still say no. I'd recommend googling for "[location] web development firm" and then looking at the portfolio. See if the websites they make are mostly informational (for companies) or dynamic (for businesses.) For you, you need someone a company that is good with html, css, javascript (jquery/mootools/prototype), php, mysql and a language that can handle many threads such as c, c#, c++ or ruby. I wouldn't recommend java as that can get bogged down fast and isn't as platform agnostic as the Cs.

zapdos you have been more than a helping hand. this is the information I've been searching on the web for the past 4 months and got all my questions answered in a matter of 2 days. much props to you
thank you

Don't try to reinvent the wheel... use MySQL

Apologies for posting in the old thread, however WinstonOBoogie was the one who resurrected it.

Just wanted to say if you'd consider to use some modern frameworks like Django or Ruby-on-Rails, your life could be simplified a lot by using postgres, not mysql. Using the latter might run you into trouble eventually since tools like South operate on postgres much better.

For PHP.. it's mysql
For .NET it's Sql Server/MySql/Oracle