Dynamic lists and searching

[si992]

Hiya,
more than likely im being a bit simple about this but im pretty new to asp/sql so please forgive me!

Im making a search page for the database im working on which is fine if i want to search single fields or two fields but where im stuck is if i want to search accross all fields but be able to leave some blank, ie search by author and company but not project name. At the momment i have to select something from each.

The other problem i have is that im using dynamic lists to populate the search fields (a couple of the fields have about 300 items in them) but when i come to view it everythings ok except it displays the last item in the list. How would i go about making it so that it displays blank or "please Select" as the default?

hope someone can help and thanks in advance!
Si

[lesleindotcom]

At the top of the select tag you would just have an option like this

HTML: Select all

<option selected="selected">Select a Choice</option>