Business Glossary

transmission of data between computers at different locations. Data are typically sent over telephone lines, but radio waves and satellites are also used. A computer with a communications board (RS-232C Serial Port), telecommunications software, and modem are needed for communication; a terminal may also be used. Software is required to communicate between computers within the firm, for timesharing situations, and for accessing commercial data bases. Software also aids in the manipulation of information coming over the modem. Communications packages usually reserve some of the computer memory as a buffer. Information is placed in the capture buffer, awaiting future disposition (saving to disk or printing the information). Alternatively, one can load data from a disk into the buffer for uploading to another computer in ASCII if a synchronous communication is used. Information handling functions are the core of the telecommunications program. Some communications programs do error checking of information received (i.e., XModem Protocol). Communications software permits CPAs in different geographic areas to communicate with each other by electronic mail or to transfer data files and documents between offices. Bulletin boards can be established by CPAs to share up-to-date accounting and auditing information with their clients.

transmit a file or program from a central computer to the accountant's computer. The accountant can retrieve information to be used in an application package such as spreadsheet, file information from a subsidiary, or file data or program from an on-line data base. A bufferis the temporary storage area holding information.

a protocol for transferring files from one computer to another by modem without going through the Internet. Kermit is also the name of a program (distributed free by Columbia University) that implements this protocol.

Kermit makes an exact copy of the original file even when transmitting over a noisy line. All data packets are error-checked, and erroneous packets are retransmitted.

a standard way of transferring files from one computer to another on the Internet and on other TCP/IP networks. (See TCP/IP.) FTP is also the name of any of various computer programs that implement the file transfer protocol.

When you connect to a remote computer, the FTP program asks you for your user name and password. If you do not have an account on the computer that you have connected to, you can use anonymous FTP to retrieve files that are available to the general public. In that case the procedure is to give anonymous as your user name and then type your e-mail address in place of the password. Also remember to use the command binary if the file you are transferring is anything other than plain ASCII text. Figure 119 shows an example of an anonymous FTP session.

You can also retrieve files by FTP using a web browser. For example, to retrieve the file whose name is filename in directory pub/directoryname on host ftp.cdrom.com, give the URL as:
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/directoryname/filename
If you need to specify an account name and password, do this:
ftp://userid:password@zzzzz.com/directoryname/filename
Most browsers will prompt you for the password if you leave it out.

Ordinarily, FTP does notwork through certain routers and firewalls. For the solution, see passive FTP.

One of the most popular FTP sites, offering large amounts of free software, is ftp.cdrom.com.

transmit a file or program from a central computer to the accountant's computer. The accountant can retrieve information to be used in an application package such as spreadsheet, file information from a subsidiary, or file data or program from an on-line data base. A bufferis the temporary storage area holding information.