A few technical definitions for the non technical (and humor)

• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a company-wide computer software system used to manage and coordinate all the resources, information, and functions of a business from shared data stores
  
• Customer relationship management (CRM) consists of the processes a company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers. 
• Linux (commonly pronounced /ˈlɪnəks/ in English; variants exist^[3]) is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel.
• SQL (Structured Query Language) (pronounced /ˌɛskjuːˈɛl/)^[1] is a database computer language designed for the retrieval and management of data in relational database management systems (RDBMS), database schema creation and modification, and database object access control management.
• A database is a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system. The structure is achieved by organizing the data according to a database model. The model in most common use today is the relational model. Other models such as the hierarchical model and thenetwork model use a more explicit representation of relationships.
• Operating system (commonly abbreviated to either OS or O/S) is an interface between hardware and user; it is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the limited resources of the computer. The operating system acts as a host for applications that are run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating system is to handle the details of the operation of the hardware. This relieves application programs from having to manage these details and makes it easier to write applications. Almost all computers, including handheld computers, desktop computers, supercomputers, and even video game consoles, use an operating system of some type. Some of the oldest models may however use an embedded operating system, that may be contained on a compact disk or other data storage device.
• A computer network is a group of interconnected computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics. This article provides a general overview of some types and categories and also presents the basic components of a network.
• The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers, enabling users to share information along multiple channels. Typically, a computer that connects to the Internet can access information from a vast array of available servers and other computers by moving information from them to the computer's local memory. The same connection allows that computer to send information to servers on the network; that information is in turn accessed and potentially modified by a variety of other interconnected computers. A majority of widely accessible information on the Internet consists of inter-linked hypertextdocuments and other resources of the World Wide Web (WWW). Computer users typically manage sent and received information with web browsers; other software for users' interface with computer networks includes specialized programs for electronic mail, online chat, file transfer and file sharing.
• 3G is the third generation of telecommunication hardware standards and general technology for mobile networking, superseding 2.5G. It is based on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) family of standards under the IMT-2000. 3G networks enable network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency. Services include wide-area wireless voice telephone, video calls, and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. Additional features also include HSPA data transmission capabilities able to deliver data rates up to 14.4 Mbit/s on the downlink and 5.8 Mbit/s on the uplink.            Unlike IEEE 802.11 networks, which are commonly called Wi-Fi or WLAN networks, 3G networks are wide-area cellular telephone networks that evolved to incorporate high-speed Internet access and video telephony. IEEE 802.11 networks are short range, high-bandwidth networks primarily developed for data.
• GSM (Global System for Mobile communications: originally from Groupe Spécial Mobile) is the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world. Its promoter, the GSM Association, estimates that 80% of the global mobile market uses the standard.^[1] GSM is used by over 3 billion people across more than 212 countries and territories.^[2][3] Its ubiquity makes international roaming very common between mobile phone operators, enabling subscribers to use their phones in many parts of the world. GSM differs from its predecessors in that both signaling and speech channels are digital, and thus is considered a second generation (2G) mobile phone system. This has also meant that data communication was easy to build into the system.
• Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) is a mobile telecommunications technology, developed by Motorola, which provides its users the benefits of a trunked radio and a cellular telephone. iDEN places more users in a given spectral space, compared to analog cellular and two-way radio systems, by using speech compression and time division multiple access (TDMA).
• Frequency Division Multiple Access or FDMA is a channel access method used in multiple-access protocols as a channelization protocol. FDMA gives users an individual allocation of one or several frequency bands, or Channels. Multiple Access systems coordinate access between multiple users. The users may also share access via different methods such TDMA, CDMA, or SDMA. These protocols are utilized differently, at different levels of the theoretical OSI model.
• Code division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method utilized by various radio communication technologies. It should not be confused with the mobile phone standardscalled cdmaOne and CDMA2000 (which are often referred to as simply "CDMA"), which use CDMA as an underlying channel access method.
• Time division multiple access (TDMA) is a channel access method for shared medium networks. It allows several users to share the same frequency channel by dividing the signal into different time slots. The users transmit in rapid succession, one after the other, each using his own time slot. This allows multiple stations to share the same transmission medium (e.g. radio frequency channel) while using only a part of itschannel capacity. TDMA is used in the digital 2G cellular systems such as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), IS-136, Personal Digital Cellular (PDC) and iDEN, and in the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) standard for portable phones. It is also used extensively in satellite systems, and combat-net radio systems. For usage of Dynamic TDMA packet mode communication, see below.
• IEEE 802.11 is a set of standards carrying out wireless local area network (WLAN) computer communication in the 2.4, 3.6 and 5 GHz frequency bands. They are implemented by the IEEE LAN/MAN Standards Committee (IEEE 802).
• Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems.^[1] Its use for retrieving inter-linked resources led to the establishment of the World Wide Web.
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a network protocol used to exchange and manipulate files over a TCP computer network, such as the Internet. An FTP client may connect to an FTP server to manipulate files on that server.
• The Internet Protocol (IP) is a protocol used for communicating data across a packet-switched internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite, also referred to as TCP/IP.
• In computer networking and computer science, digital bandwidth, network bandwidth or just bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bit/s or multiples of it (kbit/s, Mbit/s etc).
• A central processing unit (CPU) or processor is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage. The term itself and its initialism have been in use in the computer industry at least since the early 1960s (Weik 1961). The form, design and implementation of CPUs have changed dramatically since the earliest examples, but their fundamental operation has remained much the same.
• A hard disk drive^[1] (often shortened as "hard disk"^[2] or "hard drive"^[3]), is a non-volatile storage device which stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters withmagnetic surfaces. Strictly speaking, "drive" refers to a device distinct from its medium, such as a tape drive and its tape, or a floppy disk drive and its floppy disk. Early HDDs had removable media; however, an HDD today is typically a sealed unit (except for a filtered vent hole to equalize air pressure) with fixed media.
• 'Random access memory (usually known by its acronym, RAM) is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allows the stored data to be accessed in any order (i.e., at random). The word random thus refers to the fact that any piece of data can be returned in a constant time, regardless of its physical location and whether or not it is related to the previous piece of data
• A personal computer (PC) is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator.
• A workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term workstation has also been used to refer to a mainframe computer terminal or a PC connected to a network.
• A thin client (sometimes also called a lean or slim client) is a client computer or client software in client-server architecture networks which depends primarily on the central server for processing activities, and mainly focuses on conveying input and output between the user and the remote server. In contrast, a thick or fat client does as much processing as possible and passes only data for communications and storage to the server.
• A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system. Early terminals were inexpensive devices but very slow compared to punch cards or paper tape for input, but as the technology improved and video displays were introduced, terminals pushed these older forms of interaction from the industry. A related development was timesharing systems, which evolved in parallel and made up for any inefficiencies of the user's typing ability with the ability to support multiple users on the same machine, each at their own terminal.
• Server (computing), a server application, operating system, computer, or appliance
• Application server, a server dedicated to running certain software applications
• Communications server, carrier-grade computing platform for communications networks
• Database server, see file AB2
• Fax server, provides fax services for clients
• File server, provides file services
• Game server, a server that video game clients connect to in order to play online together
• Home server, a server for the home
• Print server, provides printer services
• Proxy server, provides database IT server in services
• Sound server, provides multimedia broadcasting / streaming.
• Standalone server, an emulator for client-server (web-based) programs
• Web server, a server that HTTP clients connect to in order to send commands and receive responses along with data contents
• Web Feed Server, a server that distributes, manages, and tracks internal and external RSS feeds in an enterprise
• Client-server, a software architecture that separates "server" functions from "client" functions
• The X Server, part of the X Window System
• Peer-to-peer, a network of computers running as both clients and servers
• Catalog server, a central search point for information across a distributed network
• Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow anybody to access them. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. The service is free to use over the Internet, but using SMS may incur phone service provider fees.
• A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.
• A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
• A web browser is a software application which enables a user to display and interact with text, images, videos, music, games and other information typically located on a web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network. Text and images on a web page can contain hyperlinks to other web pages at the same or different website. Web browsers allow a user to quickly and easily access information provided on many web pages at many web sites by traversing these links.
• A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the owner. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types ofmalware, adware, and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability. A true virus can only spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive. Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer
• A network hub or repeater hub is a device for connecting multiple twisted pair or fiber optic Ethernet devices together and thus making them act as a singlenetwork segment. Hubs work at the physical layer (layer 1) of the OSI model. The device is thus a form of multiport repeater. Repeater hubs also participate in collision detection, forwarding a jam signal to all ports if it detects a collision.
• A network switch is a computer networking device that connects network segments The term commonly refers to a Network bridge that processes and routes data at the Data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model. Switches that additionally process data at the Network layer (layer 3 and above) are often referred to as Layer 3 switches or Multilayer switches. The term network switch does not generally encompass unintelligent or passive network devices such as hubs and repeaters.
• A router (pronounced /ˈraʊtər/ in the USA and Australia, /ˈruːtər/ in Canada, the UK, and Ireland, these last two making a pronounced distinction with the tool used to rout wood) is a networking device whose software and hardware are usually tailored to the tasks of routing and forwarding information. For example, on the Internet, information is directed to various paths by routers. Routers connect two or more logical subnets, which do not necessarily map one-to-one to the physical interfaces of the router.^[1] The term "layer 3 switch" often is used interchangeably with router, but switch is a general term without a rigorous technical definition. In marketing usage, it is generally optimized for Ethernet LAN interfaces and may not have other physical interface types. In comparison, a network hub does not do any routing, instead every packet it receives on one network line gets forwarded to all the other network lines. Routers operate in two different planes ^[2]: Control plane, in which the router learns the outgoing interface that is most appropriate for forwarding specific packets to specific destinations, Forwarding plane, which is responsible for the actual process of sending a packet received on a logical interface to an outbound logical interface.
• RSS (the most common translation is now "Really Simple Syndication") is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.^[2] An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed",^[3] or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's URI, often referred to informally as a "URL" (uniform resource locator), althoughtechnically the two terms are not exactly synonymous, into the reader, or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.