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