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