Scenario: You want to retrieve specific data or feedback from your customers, but you don't have the in-house scripting expertise for a Web-based form. While you likely offer an e-mail address for comments and contact information for real-world communication, you may believe that more sophisticated solutions, such as a survey or online interface for comments, are beyond your programming capabilities. After all, a form requires not only knowledge of HTML form elements, but also an ability to program the "back end" so that it can handle the form data.

If you're not likely to develop the scripts on your own anytime soon, there's another solution--outsource it. Solutions range from free to well-paid, and which you use will depend in part on how relable you need the solution to be and how professional it needs to appear. But options abound that can help you gather information almost immediately, if you're willing to try.

What we're talking about is a hosted script, a script that actually resides on another server but does the script processing for a script that you create on your site. One place to start researching hosted scripts is http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Remotely_Hosted/ where you'll find links to various pre-built scripting solutions, including some that can handle form data. Click the Form Processing category, for instance, to see a variety of solutions for processing your form data through a third party.

Standouts in this arena include Freedback.com, FormBuddy.com and FormSite.com, although there are many other. Both Freedback.com and FormBuddy.com are simple script hosts that retrieves data from the forms that you post on your site. Freedback.com helps you build the forms, then gives you the HTML code to paste into your pages; responses are mailed to you. With FormBuddy.com you create your own form and the results are mailed or archived. Both are ad-based services that offer premium ad-free options.

FormSite.com enables you to create more complex forms that are hosted on the FormSite.com servers. It's also aimed at a higher-end need, with solutions that focus on customer surveys and the manipulation of the data—FormSite.com, for instance, will integrate forms with your databases, will allow you to license their software and will custom develop the tools. There's a range of prices and the services are well-suited to the needs of businesses with significant Internet traffic.

Before leaping into any Internet outsourcing, of course, it's important to consider the security and privacy implications, including a look at the script host's policies and the safeguards they have in place for your customers' or visitors' personal data. If you're taking personally identifiable information from visitors, you should at least consider an in-house script. For more basic needs, though--response forms, polls, demographic surveys and so on -- a script host is a handy shortcut for adding a professional service to your site.