Vector Graphics
Sounds like the name of an art store, eh. "Hello, and welcome to Vector Graphics. I'm Victor." Actually, they're images built upon geometrical formulas. This format makes for a cleaner image. It can be stretched, resized, and generally abused on screen -- without any unseemly changes. When printed, a vector image is just as smooth. Compare this to a raster (bitmap) graphic, which can be blocky and pixilated when resized and / or printed. Ick. Since the vector format is of a higher standard, it's perfect for digital animations. Ya know, like Flash stuff. Don't look now, but I think Victor is flashing his printer.
Visual Basic
When you first learned to ride a bike, you probably used training wheels. I'm not sure why they don't have training wheels for beginning auto drivers, too. I mean, besides the fact that they'd have to widen the roads considerably to accommodate the... Anyway, back to bicycles. Most of us had to learn balance before we could ride off into the sunset on two wheels. Some folks even went on to master one wheel, and eventually, one wheel on a high wire (but enough about the circus). Visual Basic is a programming language that comes with training wheels. Thanks to a handful of pre-written modules, programmers don't have to write their own code. It's pretty much a point-and-click experience. For developing "prototype" binaries that will later be rewritten in a less "basic" language, Visual Basic is perfect. You may have heard about these so-called Visual Basic runtimes at one point, too. They're the common libraries that can be shared between any given VB application. If you want to get started in programming, there could be no easier way. Future versions of Visual Basic will be even more simple to use.
Vortal
Vortal is just a fancy way of saying "voice portal." That's a web site which can be accessed via the telephone. Once you've dialed in, you can access weather, news, stocks, and all of that kind of information. Vortals are often voice-automated, though you can use your touchtone keypad to select the information you want, too. We should all know how to use a phone by now: "For more information, press 1. For account information, press 2. If you'd like to press 3, please press 5. To return to the main menu, press 12. If your phone does not include a '12' please press 7 to have one mailed to you." Aaargh. I've also heard the term used to describe vertical portals (topic centric sites). My favorite vortal? A chortal -- which is a portal for people who like to laugh. Ha ha.
