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.

Many companies understood the customers need for mobile shopping and has been and are answering these needs. Some of these companies are: Yahoo! – Yahoo launched its beta version of Mobile Shopping last September 2005. Mobile Shopping is just the mobile version of their Yahoo Shopping and enables mobile users to comparison shop for free. However, they still haven’t found means to let customers actually buy products from their phones. The mobile version of Yahoo Shopping only allows customers to compare product prices and access product information through their phones. Google – Google SMS is a service that allows user to do more than just search and shop. Mobile phone users can get phone book listings, movie showtimes, weather, facts, dictionary definitions, product prices from Froogle, and more using Google SMS. Like Mobile Shopping of Yahoo Google SMS doesn’t allow purchases to be made just yet but offer comparison shopping only.

Smarter SMS – Smarter SMS allows users to learn the lowest price of computer and/or electronic devices and parts online. The service is free and is aimed at helping customers inside retails stores figure out how much they could save by buying the equipment they see in the stores online instead of in that specific store. Slifter - Slifter is both a web and mobile application wherein users can search for products and brands from online and retail stores. Slifter lets users search for products by either price or proximity and shows results which includes detailed descriptions and images of the product and the store(s)’ location and phone number. Slifter also has promos and discounts available for different retailers. To avail of the promo mobile users need to show or type in the promotional code given by Slifter to the product retailer. However, again even Slifter is not able to let users buy directly from the mobile phone but is used for comparison shopping only.