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What you should already know
Before you continue you should have some basic understanding of
the following:
· WWW, HTML and the basics of building Web pages
· A scripting language like JavaScript or VBScript
What is ASP?
· ASP stands for Active Server Pages
· ASP is a program that runs inside IIS
· IIS stands for Internet Information Server
· IIS is a part of the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack
· The Option Pack can be downloaded from Microsoft
· PWS is a smaller - but fully functional - version of IIS
· PWS can be found on your Windows 95/98 CD
ASP compatibility
· To run IIS you must have Windows NT 4.0 or later
· To run PWS you must have Windows 95 or later
· IIS is integrated as a standard part of Windows 2000
· ChiliASP is a technology that runs ASP without Windows OS
· InstantASP is another technology that runs ASP without
Windows OS
What is an ASP file?
· An ASP file is just the same as an HTML file
· An ASP file can contain text, HTML tags and scripts
· Scripts in an ASP file is executed on the server
· An ASP file has the file extension ".asp"
How does it work?
· When a browser requests an HTML file, the server returns the
file
· When a browser requests an ASP file, the server calls ASP
· ASP reads the ASP file and executes the scripts in the file
· Finally, the ASP file is returned to the browser as a plain
HTML file
What can ASP do for you?
· Dynamically edit, change or add any content of a Web page
· Response to user queries or data submitted from HTML forms
· Access any data or databases and return the results to a
browser
· Customize a Web page to make it more useful for individual
users
· The advantages of using ASP instead of CGI and Perl, are
those of simplicity and speed
· Provides security since your ASP code can not be viewed from
the browser
· Since ASP files are returned as plain HTML, they can be
viewed in any browser
· Clever ASP programming can minimize the network traffic
How to Run ASP on your own PC
You can run ASP on your own PC without an external server.
Microsoft's Personal Web Server (PWS) is normally not installed
on your PC. But if you look in your Windows 98 CD, you will find
it hidden in the Add-ons folder.
You can install PWS and run ASP on your own PC following these
steps:
1. If PWS is not installed with Windows98, find the Add-ons
folder on your Windows98 CD, open the PWS folder and
run the setup.exe file. If you don't have a Windows 98
CD, go to Microsoft's Web site and download IIS.
2. An "Inetpub" folder is now created on your harddrive. Open
it and find the "wwwroot" folder. Create a folder, like "MyWeb",
under wwwroot.
3. Use a text editor to write some ASP code, save the file as
"test1.asp" in the "MyWeb" folder.
4. Open your browser and type in: http://localhost/MyWeb/test1.asp
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