Help with connecting to MySQL db via ASP

Hi there

I'm hoping someone can help me. I have recently joined with an ISP that assured me they supported ASP (which I'd like to use to create my new site). I have created a MySQL database on the ISP server as a test case to see how I can retrieve and display data using ASP, however I'm having issues trying to connect to the database at all.

The connection strings I am provided with by the ISP are for Perl and PHP, and no matter what I try with ASP, I can't seem to get it working. The ISP has advised me that they aren't able to help me.

Connection strings they've given me are:

Connection Strings

Perl$dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:theguide_TESTDB:localhost","theguide_SYSADM","<PASSWORD HERE>");

PHP$dbh=mysql_connect ("localhost", "theguide_SYSADM", "<PASSWORD HERE>") or die ('I cannot connect to the database because: ' . mysql_error());
mysql_select_db ("theguide_TESTDB");

I've tried various connection strings (DSNless as I don't believe I can create a DSN on their server), such as:

conn.open "PROVIDER=MSDASQL;driver={MySQL ODBC 3.51 Driver};server=localhost;uid=theguide_SYSADM;pwd=<password here>;database=theguide_TESTDB;OPTION=3"

strconn="PROVIDER=MSDASQL;DRIVER={SQL Server};"
strconn=strconn & "SERVER=localhost;DATABASE=theguide_TEST_DB;"
strconn=strconn & "UID=theguide_SYSADM;PWD=<password here>;"
conn.open strconn

but none of these seem to work.

I'm not getting any error message. Either the page displays as though it is a blank html page, or all of the server side code displays on the screen as if the file is pure text.

I would appreciate any ideas, as the ISPs suggestion of "using trial and error" is not helping me at all!

Thanks in advance.

Nikki