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