Technical Terms

Short for customer relationship management. CRM entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer, whether it be sales or service related. Computerization has changed the way companies are approaching their CRM strategies because it has also changed consumer buying behavior. With each new advance in technology, especially the proliferation of self-service channels like the Web and WAP phones, more of the relationship is being managed electronically. Organizations are therefore looking for ways to personalize online experiences (a process also referred to as mass customization) through tools such as help-desk software, e-mail organizers and Web development apps.

A category of hardware and software that enables people to make telephone calls via the Internet. Voice signals are converted to packets of data, which are transmitted on shared, public lines, hence avoiding the tolls of the traditional, public-switched telephone network (PSTN).

VoIP applications can generally be used with a simple microphone and computer speakers, but IP telephones or VoIP boxes can also be used, providing an experience identical to normal telephoning. In the past year, the quality and reliability of VoIP technology has improved to the point that vast numbers of users have abandoned their standard telephone contracts entirely, in favor of VoIP.

To copy files to a second medium (a disk or tape) as a precaution in case the first medium fails. One of the cardinal rules in using computers is back up your files regularly.
Even the most reliable computer is apt to break down eventually. Many professionals recommend that you make two, or even three, backups of all your files. To be especially safe, you should keep one backup in a different location from the others.

You can back up files using operating system commands, or you can buy a special-purpose backup utility. Backup programs often compress the data so that backups require fewer disks.

(1) The act of backing up.

(2) A substitute or alternative. The term backup usually refers to a disk or tape that contains a copy of data.

Short for File Transfer Protocol, the protocol for exchanging files over the Internet. FTP works in the same way as HTTP for transferring Web pages from a server to a user\\\'s browser and SMTP for transferring electronic mail across the Internet in that, like these technologies, FTP uses the Internet\\\'s TCP/IP protocols to enable data transfer.
FTP is most commonly used to download a file from a server using the Internet or to upload a file to a server (e.g., uploading a Web page file to a server).

A device that forwards data packets along networks. A router is connected to at least two networks, commonly two LANs or WANs or a LAN and its ISP’s network. Routers are located at gateways, the places where two or more networks connect.
Routers use headers and forwarding tables to determine the best path for forwarding the packets, and they use protocols such as ICMP to communicate with each other and configure the best route between any two hosts.