The Network Glossary:
How to Talk the Talk

By DON CLARK

No matter what your business -- big or small, high-tech or low -- there's virtually no escape from computers anymore.

That doesn't mean the jargon has become any easier to understand. In some cases, the same term is used by techno-jocks in different ways in the same sentence. Some terms also change in meaning over time, or become closely associated with the propaganda of one company or group.

To help you talk intelligently about computing, or at least nod knowingly, here's a guide to some essential geek-speak:

Application: This can mean any way a piece of technology is applied. But application usually refers to software designed for a specific purpose. A spreadsheet is an application that adds up numbers; a database is an application that stores data.

Bandwidth: Communications power. Often this is measured by how many thousands or millions of bits of data can be transferred over computer networks in a second. A pipe for data is another useful image -- the bigger the diameter, the faster images or other large data files can pass through.

Bit: The smallest unit of information, which means a one or a zero in the digital world. Eight bits make a byte, the equivalent of a character in a word-processing program. Something that operates at 100 megabits sends 100 million bits of data a second; a gigabyte is a billion bytes of stored data.

Browser: A piece of software that allows PC users to cruise the Internet's World Wide Web. The most popular browsers are made by Netscape Communications Corp. and Microsoft Corp.

Client: A computer used to make requests for data from a larger computer. Clients most often are PCs, but they can also be laptops, handheld machines or hefty machines called workstations. Confusingly, the term is also applied to the software that runs PCs.

Client-server: A corporate computing trend that is gradually replacing the old way of conducting business -- large mainframe computers connected to terminals. In the new arrangement, company software applications run on a midrange computer (the server) that is connected over networks to PCs (clients). (See server.)

Enterprise: A synonym for business, mainly big business. The enterprise computing market is typically the corporations that buy hardware and software and use them to run their operations.

Extranet: One of the newest entries in the lexicon, believed to be a coinage of network pioneer Robert Metcalfe. Using the common format of the World Wide Web, companies, their customers and suppliers exchange data electronically rather than sending paper-based information back and forth.

Intranet: The corporate equivalent of the Web. Companies are storing key forms and documents on Web sites inside their operations, making it easy for employees to find information using standard Web browsers, not special-purpose database programs.

IP: Short for Internet Protocol. Protocols are the technical language and ground rules that form the basis for computerized communication. The Internet is all networks that speak IP (more formally known as TCP/IP).

Java: A programming language from Sun Microsystems Inc. that broke on the Web scene last year. Java makes it easier to create programs that are written once and then can run on any computer (so long as it has a special piece of translating software, called a virtual machine). Java inspired ''applets'' -- tiny application programs that are electronically downloaded to PCs or other devices as needed.

Legacy: An adjective that refers to technology associated with old corporate programs, such as those on mainframes. Increasingly used as a put-down, the opposite of cutting edge.

NC: Short for network computer. Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison popularized this term for a simple device connected to the Internet that can do many tasks associated with PCs, but for a fraction of the cost.

Open: The most loaded term in corporate computing. As the opposite of ''proprietary,'' open refers to software and hardware made from published specifications that anyone can copy -- so customers have choice among multiple suppliers that compete on price and innovation. Most high-tech companies define it so their products are open and their rivals' are closed.

Operating system: The software that handles fundamental housekeeping chores for computers, such as storing programs and printing.

Platform: Another word with many meanings. A platform can be a chip, a computer, an operating system, an application -- or any combination of them. But it usually refers to a collection of technology that software companies use in making new products.

Server: A midrange computer that stores files and programs used by other machines, or clients. Again confusingly, server is also used to refer to the software that runs on such computers.

Solutions: Equally abused and ambiguous. Solution is used by companies when they want to make it sound like they are selling an ingeniously integrated collection of hardware, software and expertise that solves a corporate problem. An airline reservation system could be called a solution -- or a bunch of computers and programs.

Structured: This adjective describes how data are stored and used at companies. Travel agents, for example, type information into designated spaces on electronic forms on their computer screens that are connected to database programs. That structures, or categorizes, the information so it can be searched and sorted using such criteria as a customer's name or destination. The Web, in contrast, stores data in an unstructured way that limits the kinds of searches that can be performed.

--Mr. Clark is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau.

Copyright © 1997 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.