Mark,

>Someone told me there are applications in use that access data from websites. For instance, a loan application: The data entry person enters a person's name and address and clicks a button. The program sends the info to a website which returns credit info, which is filled into fields on the program.
>Is there a name for this technique? The person who described this to me also said there is no real modification needed to the application, that it can be configured to get certain fields from external sources.

You've just given a perfect example for what MS is promoting as Web Services, which will be accessible over the web from Web Browser or Desktop apps (or other Web Services) via SOAP/XML.

You can do it now by using a tool like wwIPStuff from www.west-wind.com, which includes a HTTPGet method to pull down data from a website by specifying a URL. If the site returns HTML, you can save that into a variable, then parse it for the info you want.

http://www.west-wind.com/webconnection/docs/wwipstuffhttpget.htm

However, more and more, sites will be capable of returning XML, which can be displayed in your IE5+ browser like this:

http://wc.wikis.com/wc.dll?wc~RecentChanges~&mode=xml
http://wc.wikis.com/wc.dll?wc~RecentChanges

Or, you can use an XML parser and XSL to format it in a browser, or use West Wind's wwXML class to turn it into a Fox cursor or ADO recordset for use in your desktop application. Supposedly the entire world will be speaking XML before long.....