Let’s take a look at some recent e-mail questions I’ve received.

Q: I read about CRM and CM (content management systems) online. What’s the difference between the two? A: CRM stands for customer relations management and is intended for businesses looking for a central approach to dealing with support issues, sales opportunities and so on. Salesforce, Zoho Free CRM and others approach this online, while programs such as Act and Goldmine center their activity from the desktop.

CM, or content management, refers to a system that organizes documents, audio, video or any content presented online. There are solutions in both the business and personal space that do this job quite well. Free blogs such as Wordpress, Typepad and others offer very effective ways to approach this, and some offer paid versions that give even more power to the user. Highend free solutions such as Joomla and Drupal are incredible in their scope and can be used for professional Web sites as well.

Q: What is the best way to get high-quality sound from music played from the computer?

A: First of all, rip or encode your music in the highest-quality format your hard-drive space will allow. MP3s are fine when played back on small speakers, but you’ll get the best quality by encoding in a format such as FLAC or as Wave files. Wave is the default standard for CDquality audio files on a Windows PC, but these files are quite large. FLAC is a lossless codec, meaning that it sounds close to CD quality but is around half the size of a Wave file. You’ll need a FLAC player such as the free VLC media player to listen to these files.

Next, you need either selfcontained high-quality speakers that connect directly to your computer, or you could consider playing your music through a stereo or Surround Sound receiver or amplifier.

If you choose to run from the computer to a receiver, you will need to purchase a cable or adapters that will enable this. Most computers output sound via a 1/8th-inch plug from the sound card or onboard sound device. You must have a cable with this type of plug on one end and usually RCA jacks on the other to plug into your receiver. Buy the best cable you can afford as cheap cables tend to be noisy. For the same reason, keep your cable length as short as possible.