What Is an ASP File? Files created with Active Server Pages have the extension .ASP. This story is an example; take a look at the address above. With ASP files, you can activate your Web site using any combination of HTML, scripting such as JavaScript or Visual Basic?

Is It Hard to Use? I don't know about you, but whenever people start talking about doing things on the server, I start to get nervous. I think a lot about threading issues, synchronization, and generally stuff without a user interface. I assume it's going to be hard to do. Well, using ASP is about as easy as anything I've come across in years.

Aw, Mom. Not Another Object Model! I really hate doing this to you, but I'm going to have to use that overused and overcomplex term "object model" again. Here's how it works. When a browser requests an ASP file from your Web server, your Web server calls Active Server Pages to read through the ASP file, executing any of the commands contained within and sending the resulting HTML page to the browser.

You may be wondering what a shopping cart script is, could it be a script for a movie about shopping carts – not likely. Scripts track what a consumer chooses to buy from your online store. The scripts will track their choices all the way through to the checkout process. Often online consumers think that the shopping cart is a neat little icon that holds all their purchases until they are ready to checkout – just as they do in a real store but this is not the case. The shopping cart icon is used as the first part of the financial transaction. Then a gateway will send the information to the area where the customer will pay for the items that they have chosen. This process is completed through a secure connection.

The payment gateway will then send the requests, which have been processed thus far along with various other transfers throughout the financial networks as necessary. This includes the Internet merchant account that your bank has with the online store. When this is completed, the gateway will then send confirmation or denial to the shopping cart software. How do you know which shopping cart package is appropriate for your business? There are literally hundreds of packages to choose from, searching through them all can be time consuming as well as confusing, and then it may become more difficult to determine what is best for your online business.