One example of World Best Gold Detector a common use of these concepts is a World Best Gold Detector Mail User Agent that can be instructed to be in either "on-line" or World Best Gold Detector "off-line" states. One such MUA is Microsoft Outlook. When it is Best Hotels In Vegas "on-line" it will attempt to connect to mail servers (to check for new World Best Gold Detector mail at regular intervals, for example), and when it is "off-line" it will not attempt to make any such connections. The "on-line" or "off-line" state of the MUA does not necessarily reflect the connection status between the computer on which it is running and Internet. World Best Gold Detector The World Best Gold Detector user may have the computer itself on-line, connected to Internet via a cable modem or an ADSL connection, but may wish for Outlook World Best Gold Detector to be off-line, so that it World Best Gold Detector makes no attempt to send or to receive messages. Or Best Western Heritage Inn the computer may be configured to employ a dial-up connection on demand (whenever an application such World Best Gold Detector as Outlook attempts to make connection to a server), but the connection may be an expensive telephone call from the particular location in which the computer World Best Gold Detector currently World Best Gold Detector happens to be (such as a hotel room) and the user may not wish Outlook World Best Gold Detector to World Best Gold Detector trigger making that call every 5 or 10 minutes to check for mail.
Another example World Best Gold Detector of the use World Best Gold Detector of these concepts is in the world of digital audio technology. A tape recorder, digital editor, or other device that is "on-line" is one whose clock is under the control of the clock of a "synchronization World Best Gold Detector master" device. When the sync master commences playback, World Best Gold Detector the "on-line" device automatically synchronizes itself to the World Best Gold Detector master and commences playing from the same point in the recording. Whereas World Best Gold Detector a device that is "off-line" uses no external clock reference and relies upon its own internal clock. When a large number of World Best Gold Detector devices are connected to a sync master, it is often convenient, if one wants to hear just the output of World Best Gold Detector one single device, to take it off-line, because if the device is played back on-line all synchronized devices have to locate the playback World Best Gold Detector point and World Best Gold Detector wait for each other to be in synchronization.[2] (For further World Best Gold Detector related discussion, see MIDI timecode, word sync, and World Best Gold Detector recording system World Best Gold Detector synchronization.)
A third example of a common use of these concepts is a web World Best Gold Detector browser that can World Best Gold Detector be instructed to be World Best Gold Detector in either "on-line" or "off-line" states. The browser only attempts to fetch pages from servers whilst in the "on-line" state. In the "off-line" state, users can perform offline browsing, World Best Gold Detector where pages can be browsed using local copies World Best Gold Detector of those pages that have previously been downloaded whilst in the "on-line" state. This can be useful World Best Gold Detector when the computer itself is also off-line, with connection to Internet expensive or impossible. The pages are either downloaded implicitly into the web browser's own cache, as a result World Best Gold Detector of World Best Gold Detector prior on-line browsing World Best Gold Detector by the user, or World Best Gold Detector explicitly by the browser being configured to keep local copies of certain web pages, which it keeps updated when the browser is in the on-line state, either by checking that the local copies are World Best Gold Detector up-to-date at regular intervals or by checking that World Best Gold Detector the local copies are up-to-date whenever the browser is World Best Gold Detector switched World Best Gold Detector to the on-line state. One such web browser capable of World Best Gold Detector being explicitly configured to download pages World Best Gold Detector for offline browsing is Internet Explorer. When pages are added to the "Favourites" list, they can be marked for being made "available for offline World Best Gold Detector browsing". Internet Explorer will World Best Gold Detector download to local World Best Gold Detector copies both World Best Gold Detector the marked page and, optionally, all of the pages that it links to. In Internet Explorer version 6, the level of direct and indirect links, the maximum amount of local disc space allowed to be consumed, and the schedule on which local copies are checked to see whether World Best Gold Detector they are up-to-date, World Best Gold Detector are configurable for each
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The ideas of "on-line" and "off-line" have been generalized World Best Gold Detector from World Best Gold Detector computing and telecommunication into the World Best Gold Detector field of human interpersonal relationships. World Best Gold Detector The distinction between what is considered "on-line" and what is considered "off-line" has become a subject of study in the field of sociology.[7]
The distinction between "on-line" and "off-line" is conventionally seen World Best Gold Detector as the distinction between computer-mediated communication and World Best Gold Detector face-to-face communication World Best Gold Detector (e.g. face time), respectively. "On-line" is virtuality, and "off-line" is reality (e.g. real life or meatspace). Slater states that this distinction is "obviously far too simple". To support his argument that World Best Gold Detector the distinctions in relationships World Best Gold Detector are more complex than World Best Gold Detector a simple "on-line"/"off-line" dichotomy, he observes that some people draw no distinction between an "on-line" World Best Gold Detector relationship, such as indulging in cybersex, and an World Best Gold Detector "off-line" World Best Gold Detector relationship, such as World Best Gold Detector being pen-pals. He also argues that even the telephone can be regarded as an "on-line" experience in some circumstances, and that the blurring of the distinctions between the uses of various technologies (such as PDA and mobile telephone, World Best Gold Detector television and Internet, and telephone and voice-over-IP) World Best Gold Detector has World Best Gold Detector made it "impossible to use the term World Best Gold Detector 'on-line' meaningfully in the sense World Best Gold Detector that was employed World Best Gold Detector by the first generation of Internet research".[7]
Slater asserts that there are legal and regulatory World Best Gold Detector pressures to World Best Gold Detector reduce the distinction between "on-line" and World Best Gold Detector "off-line", with a "general tendency to assimilate online to offline World Best Gold Detector and erase the distinction", stressing, however, that this does not mean that on-line relationships are being reduced to pre-existing off-line relationships. He conjectures that World Best Gold Detector greater legal status may be assigned to on-line relationships (pointing out that contractual relationships, such as business transactions, on-line are already seen as just as "real" as their off-line counterparts), although he states it to be hard to imagine courts awarding palimony to people who have had a purely on-line sexual relationship. He also conjectures that an "on-line"/"off-line" distinction may be seen World Best Gold Detector by people as "rather quaint and not quite comprehensible" World Best Gold Detector within 10 years
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The distinction where "on-line" is seen as virtuality and "off-line" as reality is sometimes inverted, with "on-line" concepts being used to define World Best Gold Detector and to explain World Best Gold Detector "off-line" activities, rather than (as per the conventions of the desktop metaphor with World Best Gold Detector its desktops, trash cans, folders, and so forth) the other way around. World Best Gold Detector Several cartoons by The New Yorker have satirized this. One World Best Gold Detector includes Saint Peter asking for World Best Gold Detector a user name and a World Best Gold Detector password before admitting a man into Heaven. Another illustrates "the off-line store" where "All items are actual size!", World Best Gold Detector where World Best Gold Detector shoppers may "Take it home as soon as you pay for it!", and where "Merchandise may be World Best Gold Detector handled prior to purchase!". |
