Glossary of Internet Service Related Terms

Veronica

An acronym for Very Easy Rodent Oriented Netwide Index to Computerized Archives, Veronica is a network utility that lets you search all of the world's Gopher server (which is where the "rodent" part figures in) by keywords. This amounts to over 10 million items from over 6,000 Gopher servers. You can then display a list of Gopher menus and articles containing the search text. Use Veronica if you don't know which Gopher server has the information you need.

Video RAM

A secondary RAM (random access memory), measured in megabytes, that is essential for smooth video imaging and game play. If you are buying a home computer that will be used for playing games, and videos make sure it has Video RAM.

Viewer

A viewer is a software application or tool designed to display a specific type of file (usually one that contains something other than text) that your web browser normally can't display on its own. There are viewers to display graphics files, and to play sound or video files.

Virtual

A computer-generated environment.

Virtual Domain

When you are supporting multiple domains on a single server, each domain being served is often referred to as a virtual domain. Different server software implements or defines virtual domains in different ways. The strict definition of virtual domain is when a single IP address is shared between multiple domains.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality, sometimes called VR, refers to computer simulations of real-world "environments" that use 3-D graphics and external devices like a dataglove or helmet to allow users to interact with the simulation. Users move through virtual reality environments as though they were navigating in real worlds -- walking through structures and interacting with objects in the environment.

Virus

A special type of program which is designed for malicious purposes. It spreads by attaching itself to other programs and then carrying out unwanted and often damaging operations.

VPS - Virtual Private Server

(VPS) A virtual private server provides the features of a dedicated server on a machine that is shared by other Web hosting customers. Customers therefore get hosting services that are similar to that of dedicated Web hosting without sacrificing privacy or performance.

VRML

VRML, short for Virtual Reality Modeling Language, is an open, platform-independent file format for 3-D graphics on the Web. It encodes computer-generated graphics in a way that makes them easily transported across the network. VRML requires a special web browser to display these graphics, which simulate virtual reality 3-D "environments" or "worlds" through which the user can move and interact with objects. These 3-D worlds can contain objects that link to documents, other objects, or other 3-D worlds.