Passing Parameters To Or Invoking A Method Of An Activex Control In Asp

I wrote a simple client/server chat program and the client runs as an
activex control within an asp page. I have the users logging into
the page using widows authentication and I'm using
Request.ServerVariables("AUTH_USER") to get the users name. I'd like
to pass this name to the activex chat client thru the page but I'm
having some difficulty. I tried passing it as a parameter to the
"Tag" property within the <OBJECT> element like this:

<%
username=Request.ServerVariables("AUTH_USER")

username=right(username,len(username)-instr(1,username,""))
' remove the domain or machine name from the username

Response.Write "<PARAM NAME=" & chr(34) & "Tag" & chr(34) & " VALUE="
& chr(34) & username & chr(34) & ">"
%>

When I do this the ActiveX control doesn't appear on the page. Is
there a better way to do this? I also tried creating a public sub in
the activex control and calling it as a method from within the page
but I can't seem to get the syntax right. I keep getting "Object
Required" errors.