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