A washing machine is a household device which is designed to clean clothes and other fabrics such as sheets, towels and throws. Washing machines usually use water as the primary cleaning agent, along with some washing powder. This is in contrast to dry cleaning where chemicals are used to clean fabrics instead.

There are two major types of washing machine - top loading washing machines and front loading machines.

Front loading washing machines tend to be more expensive than top loading washing machines and are primarily used in Europe however front load washing machines generally use less water, energy and detergent that a top loading washing machine although their overall washing time tends to be higher than the top loading washing machine.

VoIP is an acronym for voice over internet protocol. VoIP is sometimes also known as IP Telephony, Internet Telephone, Broadband Telehphony, Broadband phone or voice over broadband. In a nutshell, VoIP is the routing of voice conversations over an IP based network (including the internet).

With the increase of business and home users who have access to a broadband internet connection, VoIP technology is on the rise. There are many companies who provide VoIP services for both inbound and outbound telephone calls. Some companies even offer unlimited calls through the VoIP network to other countries for a small, flat monthly fee.

Visual Basic is sometimes known simply as ‘VB’. Visual Basic is a programming language that was developed by Microsoft. Visual Basic was a development of the programming language QuickBasic, and in turn, Visual Basic inspired the language Visual Basic.NET. Visual Basic .NET is now the more prevalent language of the two.

Visual Basic is popular because it is easy to learn. Visual Basic makes it easy for programmers to build simple GUI programmes without the need for much actual programming.

Visual Basic can create executable programs as well as ActiveX controls and DLL files but it is mainly used to develop Windows applications and to interface with web database systems.

A video camera is a piece of electronic equipment which is used to capture motion. Video cameras were initially developed and used in the TV industry however video cameras are now commonly also found in people’s homes.

There are two main modes used in a video camera: live broadcast and capture.
When a video camera is in live broadcast mode, the pictures are fed real-time to a screen for observation. This is used in things such as live TV shows. This sort of video camera is also often used in CCTV systems.
In capture mode, the video camera is saving the images down onto a storage device for processing later. There are several formats that video cameras can use - some of these formats include videotape, optical media, hard drives and flash memory.

Vacuum cleaners are sometimes known as hoovers. A vacuum cleaner is used to clean the house. It is a device which uses an air pump to create a partial vacuum and this sucks up all the dust and dirt. The dirt is normally then collected by a filtering system or a cyclone for later disposal.

There are many different types of vacuum cleaner. The most popular sorts of vacuum cleaner are:
- the upright vacuum cleaner
- the canister or cylinder vacuum cleaner
- the wet vacuum cleaner

Turf is a layer of grass, sometimes known as a lawn, which is used for decorative or recreational use. Usually turf is grass only, but sometimes it has things like clover sown into it.

There are many different types of grass that can be used in turf. The type of grass used in the turf will depends on what the turf needs to be used for - coarse grass is used when the turf has active sports played on it, finer softer grasses are sown into the turf on ornamental lawns.

Treadmills are also sometimes known as running machine. Treadmills are a piece of sports and health equipment. A treadmill allows you to go running without having to leave your room. A treadmill is normally a big conveyor belt which is driven by an electric motor hence you can run ‘on the spot’.

Treadmills have benefits such as
- you are able to control the speed you are running at
- you can easily see what speed you are running at
- most treadmills will allow you to adjust the gradient of the treadmill so you can pretend to run up hills
- most treadmills will show you approxmiately how many calories you have burned off
- treadmills tend to offer more shock absorbsion than pavements and concrete so can be better for the joints