>>oShell = CREATEOBJECT('Shell.Application')
>>oShell.Open('Mailto:esmoore@flash.net')
>
>What does 'shell.application' refer to? Could you point me to an example or article?

Shell.Application is an OLE automation server provided by SHDOCVW.DLL, which is installed in most Win32 environments by default, and is always installed by IE 3.x or later. It provides a number of useful functions that can be accessed through the automation objects methods.

See the MSDN documentation on "Shell Object" for more details.