Greetings dudes and dudettes. A few questions for ya...

1)
I am fairly new to programming.  I am currently learning C, Perl, SQL somewhat.    

I need a good amount of SPECIFIC and general information on how to
write a program that can either be DOWNLOADED FROM THE WEB, or FROM A
CD.  Anotherwords, a program that can be installed on a random
computer probably running windows.

Which languages, books, side of the brain, etc, should I need to
complete the task professionally (A decent itinerary).  I am not
experienced past generic implementations of a program on DOS.  I need
you to talk to me as though I am the tin man.(Was he the one that
needed a brain?)

2)
One other pseudo-question with similiar format:
 
How to write a program(s) that can receive text files at a fairly high
volume over the internet and parse it into a database securely. (a
program that would run all the time).  And, Is it possible for this
database to be viewed in realtime over the internet?

Sorry, I wrote this with some haste.  Give me your best shot(s)!

Is this what you are looking for specifically in Q.1 ?
www.nairolf.net/dev-setup.asp
www.thefreecountry.com/programming/setup.shtml

you could also use Microsoft's Package and Deployment but that i guess
it creates setup for visual studio applications only.

ty jaspree, but looking more for a step-by-step itinerary as though
moving from idea to finished product---Just to have it so when I learn
a language well, I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks for the comment buddy

I apologise but what exactly do you need. Sorry for asking again. do
you need some ideas for building up an application or ?

QUESTION 1
 
Say I have an idea for a program.  The only knowledge I have is ANSI
generic C.  What other languages, technology, etc, do I need to have a
COMPLETE program for a PC that can be downloaded from the web or from
a cd.  Say, for example, how does I-tunes or Google Earth make it
possible (generally speaking with some specifics) to click a link and
download that complete program with ease--I need an itinerary of what
is involved. (installation utilities, set-up utilities, etc) So, yes,
I need a general "map" on how to build a complete professional
application.

QUESTION 2
Same goes for Question #2.  Can you get an itinerary in lay-man's
terms for the hypothetical mentioned in #2. What tools do I need, and
what path do I take(Not for a PC however, but for a server)

Thanks for the detailed explanation:

Well you can create a executable program in ANSI-C and package it as a
seup program which can be downloaded from the Net / CD. Let us go step
by step:

1. Write a very basic program in C. 
->Hello world, just to give an example
2. Compile and build an executable for this program. 
->Remember though you need a c-compiler for your platform that is you
may need to compile and build this program on the platform for which
you want it to be downloaded. That means if you want this executable
program to be downloaded on windows platform you need to build it with
a compiler on windows platform. You could use VC++, VC.net, DEV++,
etc.
If you want this program to be downloaded by people and want the
executable to work on a unix platform you need to build this program
on unix. Or you could have used cygwin to get a unix enviornment on
windows. Lets leave the cygwin part for now.
3. Assuming you passed step 2, execute this progam on your PC.
4. Use one of the links I mentioned above to build a setup program for
your application.
5. Copy this to a CD or upload this to the internet on your homepage
or on a geocities.com free web-page.
6. download / copy back the setup on another drive and run the setup
to have an executable ready and try double clicking again on it to see
if you were right or not.

while making a setup package, you can also specify your comments and so on.

Let me know if this did not make any sense. Happy building a setup package. :)

The #2 on your list is the one I need elaborated.  I was told I can't
write only generic C on VC++, VC.net, DEV++, etc.  I have to derive
from MFC (which is more C++ than C) and add headers to have a program
work with windows....
I am using a free compiler now and when compiling, I basically choose
"Win 32 Console program(EXE)" to build a project.  There are other
options like Win32DLL, and Win32Program, Win32 Static Lib, WinCe
Pocket, etc etc.  When I choose any other of these, generic C returns
multiple fatal errors during the build--Even for a simple "Hello,
World" program.  Is there anyhting out there that can easily tell me
how to tweak a generic C program to work on windows? How different
does a generic C program look from a Windows program?

A generic C program can run under Windows if you make it a console
application.  If you want it to have a graphical user interface, you
can do that using just C.  You don't need C++ or MFC.  The classic
book on doing this is "Programming Windows" by Charles Petzold.  You
can't easily tweak a generic C program to be a Windows GUI program. 
You have to use the Win32 application programming interface, or some
framework or toolkit on top of it, neither of which is likely to be
simple.

No it is not necessary to derive from MFC to have a program in VC. You
could Win32 API programming but then in that case you would have to
write your own WinMain() which is 15-20 lines long.

What I would suggest is that if you just have knowledge of C, go for a
simple compiler like Dev C++ (freeware) or one of the compilers from:
www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/cpp.shtml

If you want to run your program as an executable you would need to
choose "Win 32 Console program(EXE)" in your compiler options. Also
there is no need to use MFC to have graphics interface in your
program.

However I would again suggest to start with a basic plain compiler
like Dev++ to build a small application and then move forward.