OK, the BASIC issue is this:
The author needed to make a distinction between two concepts for which there is no really good pair of commonly-used words that are unequivocal and unmistakeable. Because the concept is specific to the IT industry.
SO...
s/he ARBITRARILY PICKED the two closest words to the concepts in question and assigned a "localized" definition for the purposes of discussion. The pick was not TOTALLY arbitrary because the industry has adopted this distinction and some authorities now use these words for the purposes as noted. It is now up to the author to CONSISTENTLY use the two chosen words for the remainder of the article or book.
This special usage has become a "JARGON" issue - in the sense that in the computer industry those words have different meanings than they do in cocktail-party conversation. Oh, how much easier it would be if this never happens - but it does. LMCC, live with this unusual use of language.
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OK, the concepts are trickier, and it is NOT possible to truly simplify them without losing a lot.
Data - in the usage suggested by this author - is any incoming element that, taken in isolation, has no obvious meaning or no meaning beyond "the thing speaks for itself."
Information - in the author's usage - is what you get when you apply some type of effort to analyze, correlate, or otherwise perform work on a set of data. Information is usually derived from comparisons, summarizations, sorts, and other types of actions performed on sets of data in an attempt to identify patterns, contents, trends, etc.
Time to return to my medicine. Let's see... shall I use the 86 proof prescription or the 100 proof presciption?
