Inventory Management

Probably the most annoying thing right now that's preventing me from accomplishing anything really significant at work is my lack of programming training in specific, web-oriented languages, namely Javascript, and to a lesser extent, CSS.

Our inventory management software at work is a mess, and I've been going over my HTML/XHTML and CSS O'Reilly books, trying to get myself back into the webpage coding mindset, which only helps as much as the time I devote to working on this, which is sadly lacking as the LSAT approaches and my studying time for that decreases. However, I've finally started slicing apart the code of the old management website, and realized that Javascript plays a much higher role in the application of the site than I had thought.

The main issue is that I want to be able to populate the "option" code in the HTML with elements from a database file (namely users, computer types, and so on), which I forgot is not how it works.

Another solution I am considering is creating an executable in Visual Basic or C++ that will let us do the exact same thing as the current page, but I fear that would cut down in usability, as it would not be easily accessible from any IT-affiliated terminal; as the inventory management is currently accessible via a secure hyperlink, only those with IT credentials can access the inventory, but can do it from anywhere (helpful if we've forgotten to log the serial number off a new machine).

In addition, I'd like to set up a database that will let me trackback via links (similar to Mac OS X's Finder) between computer names, types, serial numbers, rooms, and so on, enabling the manager to quickly find out exactly what type of monitor, printer, laptop/desktop, and who is using what computer in what room.

If anyone has any suggestions on pre-existing software (so I don't have to write it from the ground up), that would be great. Otherwise, it looks like it's going to be a bunch of late-night coding with some caffeine :)