cron task

How would i tackle timed tasks. eg. emailshots, db maint. etc

I haven't actually done this, but I would try something like this:

Make a RunBasic application that does the things you want to do, prompted by the state of a textbox when the default link is 'clicked'

Then, use a scripting language to connect to that application and manipulate the page to get things done.

Since you mention Cron, I assume you're using Linux, and there are many suitable scripting languages like Python or Perl that could be triggered by Cron, and have tcp/ip built in or available in an extension.

In windows, you could use LibertyBasic with Mesock to do the same thing.