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