PIER System Support | Selected Industry Terms
November 2, 2010 1:48:36 PM PDT

Term

Description
API
Application Programming Interface. Contrasted to the User Interface. An API allows programs to interact with a system apart from a regular User interaction
Breadcrumbs
This is a special gateway customized to send information from PIER to an Alertus system.
Browser
An application used to view information on the Internet. Examples are Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, Safari, Chrome.
Cache
“Keep handy" storage of data that may be costly in gathering or useful for a wide audience.
Captcha
A set of characters displayed in a distorted fashion that is not detectable by robots. Captcha's are usually designed so that the human eye can make an abstraction of the display an recognize the characters. Captchas were created to filter out robots (programs designed to find, enter data and submit online forms with the purpose of disseminating unsolicited information, a.k.a SPAM).
Cookie
Common to many web based systems, these are small collections of data that help maintain "who" information between the user and the web site. Usually the information in a cookie is quite simple such as a user name and what PIER site they are logged on to, yet it is vital information for the site to use when maintaining connections for many users.
CSS - Cascading Style Sheet
“Style" Instruction layers for presentation of Web pages.
CSV - Comma Separated Variable
This is a “text" based file format commonly mirroring a spreadsheet layout of data.
DNS - Domain Name Server
A service for helping resolve “URL" names to specific server addresses.
HTML - HyperText Markup Language
The "code"describing a Web page.
TinyMCE
A "friendly" editor for developing Web pages in HTML.
ClearSilver
A template language providing an additional layer of flexibility to HTML Web Page generation.