Glossary V

VBSCRIPT - A subset of the Microsoft Visual Basic programming system. Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.0, along with other browsers, can read VBScript programs embedded in HTML pages. VBScript programs can be executed either on the browser machine or the World Wide Web server.

VDU - (Visual Display Unit) usually the screen associated with a terminal, but sometimes the term is applied to any screen or monitor.

VERONICA - A tool for searching the titles of documents in Gopher menus. Search results are displayed as a further Gopher menu. The name Veronica is said to be an acronym which stands for Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives.

VIDEO - A moving picture, accompanied by sound.

VIDEO CLIP - A short video sequence that can be embedded into a World Wide Web page.

VIEWER - An application used to display an image format not supported by a particular browser. One of the many helper applications browsers such as Netscape use to support a variety of formats.

VIRTUAL ADDRESS - The address of a location in virtual storage.

VIRTUAL LIBRARY - A maintained list or index of WWW documents, or, more accurately, of links to the documents; virtual libraries represent an effort to categorize and order documents or "pages" by topic.

VIRTUAL MALL - A Gopher or World-Wide Web site that lets users visit many businesses online to browse and conduct business. Virtual malls operate on the same concept used by real-world retail malls.

VIRTUAL REALITY - The term coined by Jaron Lanier in the 1980s to describe immersive digitally rendered visual experiences. Usually associated with goggles or head mounted displays.

VIRTUAL STOREFRONT - Virtual Storefront The online version of a full-service storefront, including the publishing of sales materials and the capability of processing credit-card transactions.

VIRUS - A virus in the context of software is a small program that embeds itself into some part of a user's applications or operating system without the user's knowledge or permission. Viruses can make copies of themselves and spread from computer to computer via media like diskettes or by being carried through networks. Viruses are designed by programmers (often called hackers in this context) to cause benign or destructive effects in a large number of computers. Viruses can possess the ability to mutate and escape the detection of the many virus scanner programs designed to fight software viral plagues.

VISITED HYPERLINK -  hyperlink on a page that has been activated. Visited hyperlinks are usually displayed in a unique color by the browser.

VRML - Virtual Reality Modeling Language, an animated 3D virtual environment specification developed and supported by a large number of companies and other organizations.

VT100 - A standard protocol for terminal emulation. This is the most common protocol used when telnetting to a remote host. Many telnet connections require vt100 emulation. It is a bare-bones, lowest common denominator terminal emulation which does not usually allow for the commands and features available with a workstation-based client (as, for example, a WWW browser).

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