One example of a common use of these concepts is a Mail User Agent that can be instructed to be in either "on-line" or "off-line" states. One such MUA is Microsoft Outlook. When it is "on-line" it will attempt to connect to mail servers (to check for new mail at regular intervals, for example), and when it Best Home Business Opportunity Online is "off-line" it will not attempt to make any such connections. The "on-line" or "off-line" state of Best Home Business Opportunity Online the Best Home Business Opportunity Online MUA does not necessarily reflect the connection status between Best Home Business Opportunity Online the computer on which it is running and Internet. The user may have the computer itself on-line, connected to Internet via a cable modem or an Best Home Business Opportunity Online ADSL connection, but may wish for Outlook to be off-line, so that it makes no attempt to send or to receive messages. Or the Best Home Business Opportunity Online computer may be configured to employ a dial-up connection on demand (whenever an application such as Outlook attempts to make connection to a server), but the connection may be an Best Home Business Opportunity Online expensive telephone call Best Home Business Opportunity Online from the particular location in Best Home Business Opportunity Online which the computer currently happens to Best Home Business Opportunity Online be (such Best Home Business Opportunity Online as a hotel Best Home Business Opportunity Online room) and the user may not wish Outlook to trigger making that call every 5 or 10 minutes to check for mail.
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The ideas of "on-line" and "off-line" have been generalized from computing and telecommunication into the field Best Home Business Opportunity Online 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 sociology.[7]
The distinction between "on-line" and "off-line" is conventionally seen as the distinction between computer-mediated communication and Best Remote Control face-to-face communication (e.g. face Best Home Business Opportunity Online time), respectively. "On-line" is virtuality, and Best Home Business Opportunity Online "off-line" is reality (e.g. Best Home Business Opportunity Online real life or meatspace). Slater states that this Best Home Business Opportunity Online distinction is "obviously far too Best Home Business Opportunity Online simple". To support his argument that the distinctions in relationships are more complex than a simple "on-line"/"off-line" dichotomy, he observes that some people draw no distinction between an "on-line" relationship, such as indulging in cybersex, and an "off-line" relationship, Best Home Business Opportunity Online such as Best Home Business Opportunity Online being pen-pals. He also argues that even the telephone can be regarded as an "on-line" Best Home Business Opportunity Online experience in some circumstances, and that the blurring of the distinctions between the Best Home Business Opportunity Online uses of various Best Home Business Opportunity Online technologies (such as PDA and mobile telephone, television and Internet, and telephone and voice-over-IP) has made it "impossible to use the term 'on-line' meaningfully in the sense that was employed by the first generation of Internet research".[7]
Slater asserts that there are legal and regulatory pressures to reduce the distinction between "on-line" and Best Home Business Opportunity Online "off-line", with a "general tendency to assimilate online to offline and erase the distinction", stressing, however, that this does not Best Home Business Opportunity Online mean that on-line relationships are being Best Home Business Opportunity Online reduced to pre-existing off-line relationships. He conjectures that 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 Best Home Business Opportunity Online counterparts), although he states it Best Home Business Opportunity Online to be hard to imagine courts awarding palimony to people who have had Best Home Business Opportunity Online a purely on-line sexual Best Home Business Opportunity Online relationship. He also Best Home Business Opportunity Online conjectures that Best Home Business Opportunity Online an "on-line"/"off-line" Best Home Business Opportunity Online distinction may be seen by people Best Home Business Opportunity Online as "rather quaint and Best Home Business Opportunity Online not quite comprehensible" within 10 years
The distinction where "on-line" is seen Best Home Business Opportunity Online as virtuality and "off-line" as reality is sometimes inverted, with "on-line" concepts being used to define and to explain "off-line" activities, rather than (as Best Home Business Opportunity Online per the conventions of the desktop metaphor with Best Home Business Opportunity Online its desktops, trash Best Home Business Opportunity Online cans, folders, and so forth) Best Home Business Opportunity Online the other way around. Several cartoons by The Best Home Business Opportunity Online New Yorker have satirized Best Home Business Opportunity Online this. Best Home Business Opportunity Online One includes Best Home Business Opportunity Online Saint Peter asking for a user name and a password before admitting a man into Heaven. Another illustrates "the Best Home Business Opportunity Online off-line store" where "All items are Best Home Business Opportunity Online actual size!", where shoppers may "Take it home as soon as Best Home Business Opportunity Online you pay for it!", and where "Merchandise may be handled prior to purchase!". Best Home Business Opportunity Online |