but we're changing hosting companies and site. we had the section of the site that i will be maintaining redone by a consultant and now there are many .asp pages where i'm accustomed to see htm pages.
if i am just making textual modifications, can i just download the .asp page, edit in frontpage, save it as .asp and upload it again? what should i look out for. in 10 words or less.....what does .asp do/mean anyway. (i know what it stands for! )
thank you for any and all comments

Yes you can edit the text in FrontPage.
ASP is used for server side scripting same as PHP.
This should help you out:
http://www.w3schools.com/aspnet/aspnet_intro.asp

You can do the Text changes in the same way to change text in .htm just take care of the ASP code as It is a Server Side Scripting Language so dont touch the ASP Code which can be found in these forms

<%

''''''''''''' between these two symbols called ASP Delimiters

%>

<script language="VBS or JavaScript" runat="server">
</script>

rest is up to you and you can change any text at all in a .asp file using dreamweaver of frontpage. Try learning ASP by starting at

http://www.w3schools.com/asp/default.asp

not the

http://www.w3schools.com/aspnet/default.asp

Hope it will Help.