One example of a common use of these concepts is Compare Best Home Bussinesses 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 Compare Best Home Bussinesses it Compare Best Home Bussinesses is "on-line" it will attempt to connect to mail servers Compare Best Home Bussinesses (to check for new mail Compare Best Home Bussinesses at regular intervals, for Compare Best Home Bussinesses example), and when it is "off-line" it will not attempt to make Compare Best Home Bussinesses any such connections. The "on-line" or "off-line" state of the MUA does not necessarily reflect the connection status between the computer on Compare Best Home Bussinesses which it is running and Internet. The user Compare Best Home Bussinesses may have the computer itself on-line, connected to Internet via a cable modem or an ADSL connection, Compare Best Home Bussinesses but may wish for Outlook to be off-line, so that it makes no attempt to send or to receive messages. Or Compare Best Home Bussinesses the Compare Best Home Bussinesses computer may be configured Compare Best Home Bussinesses to employ a dial-up connection on demand (whenever an application such as Best Water Amusement Park Outlook attempts to Compare Best Home Bussinesses 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 Compare Best Home Bussinesses room) and the user Compare Best Home Bussinesses may not wish Outlook to trigger making that call every 5 or 10 minutes to check Compare Best Home Bussinesses for mail.
Another example of the use of these concepts is in the world Compare Best Home Bussinesses of digital audio technology. A Ne York Times Best Sellers tape recorder, digital Compare Best Home Bussinesses editor, or other device that is "on-line" is one whose clock is under the control of the clock of a "synchronization master" device. Compare Best Home Bussinesses When the sync master commences playback, the "on-line" device automatically synchronizes itself to the master and commences playing from the same point in the recording. Compare Best Home Bussinesses Whereas a device Compare Best Home Bussinesses that is "off-line" Compare Best Home Bussinesses uses no external clock reference Compare Best Home Bussinesses and relies upon its own internal Compare Best Home Bussinesses clock. When a large number of devices are connected to a sync Compare Best Home Bussinesses master, it is often convenient, if one wants to hear Compare Best Home Bussinesses just the The Best Dual Purpose Motorcycles output Compare Best Home Bussinesses of one single device, to take it off-line, because if the device is played Compare Best Home Bussinesses back on-line Compare Best Home Bussinesses all synchronized devices have to locate the playback point and wait for each other to Compare Best Home Bussinesses be in synchronization.[2] (For further related discussion, Compare Best Home Bussinesses see MIDI timecode, word sync, and recording system Best Elastomeric Paint synchronization.)
|
A third example of a common use of these concepts is a Compare Best Home Bussinesses web browser that can be instructed to be in either "on-line" or "off-line" states. The browser only attempts to fetch pages Compare Best Home Bussinesses from servers whilst in Compare Best Home Bussinesses the "on-line" Compare Best Home Bussinesses state. In the "off-line" state, users can perform offline browsing, where pages can be browsed using local copies of those pages that have previously been downloaded whilst Compare Best Home Bussinesses in the "on-line" state. This can be useful when the computer Compare Best Home Bussinesses itself is also off-line, with connection to Internet expensive or Compare Best Home Bussinesses impossible. The Compare Best Home Bussinesses pages are Compare Best Home Bussinesses either downloaded Compare Best Home Bussinesses implicitly into 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 Compare Best Home Bussinesses keeps updated Compare Best Home Bussinesses when the browser is in the on-line state, either by checking that Compare Best Home Bussinesses the local copies are up-to-date at regular intervals or The Best Paper Air Planes by checking that the local copies are up-to-date whenever the browser is Compare Best Home Bussinesses switched to the on-line state. One such web browser capable of being explicitly Compare Best Home Bussinesses configured to download pages for The Best Nitro Rc Cars offline browsing is Internet Explorer. When pages are added to the "Favourites" Compare Best Home Bussinesses list, they can be marked Compare Best Home Bussinesses for being Compare Best Home Bussinesses made "available for offline browsing". Internet Compare Best Home Bussinesses Explorer will download to local copies both the marked page and, optionally, all of the pages that it links to. In Internet Explorer version 6, the Compare Best Home Bussinesses level of Compare Best Home Bussinesses direct and indirect links, the maximum Compare Best Home Bussinesses amount 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 "off-line" have been generalized from computing and telecommunication into the field 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 Compare Best Home Bussinesses communication and face-to-face communication (e.g. face time), respectively. "On-line" Compare Best Home Bussinesses is virtuality, and "off-line" is reality (e.g. real life or meatspace). Slater states that Compare Best Home Bussinesses this distinction is "obviously far too simple". To support his Compare Best Home Bussinesses argument that the distinctions in relationships are more complex than a Compare Best Home Bussinesses Px4 Subcompact Best Price simple "on-line"/"off-line" dichotomy, he observes that some people draw no distinction Compare Best Home Bussinesses between Best Female Sex Positions an "on-line" relationship, such as Compare Best Home Bussinesses indulging in cybersex, and Compare Best Home Bussinesses an "off-line" relationship, such as being pen-pals. He also argues that even the Compare Best Home Bussinesses telephone can be regarded as an "on-line" experience in some circumstances, and that the blurring of the distinctions between Compare Best Home Bussinesses the uses of various technologies (such as PDA and mobile telephone, television and Internet, and telephone and voice-over-IP) has made it "impossible to use Compare Best Home Bussinesses the term 'on-line' meaningfully in the sense that was employed by the first generation of Internet research".[7]
Slater Compare Best Home Bussinesses asserts that there are legal and regulatory pressures to reduce the distinction between "on-line" and "off-line", with a "general tendency Compare Best Home Bussinesses to assimilate online to offline and erase the distinction", stressing, however, that this does not mean that on-line relationships Compare Best Home Bussinesses are Compare Best Home Bussinesses being reduced to pre-existing Compare Best Home Bussinesses 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" Compare Best Home Bussinesses as their off-line counterparts), although he states it to Compare Best Home Bussinesses be hard to imagine Compare Best Home Bussinesses courts awarding palimony to people who Free Best Sex Positions have had a purely on-line sexual relationship. He Compare Best Home Bussinesses also conjectures that an "on-line"/"off-line" distinction may be seen by people Compare Best Home Bussinesses as "rather quaint and not quite comprehensible" within 10 years
|
The distinction where "on-line" is Compare Best Home Bussinesses seen as virtuality and "off-line" as reality Compare Best Home Bussinesses is sometimes inverted, with Compare Best Home Bussinesses "on-line" Compare Best Home Bussinesses concepts being used Compare Best Home Bussinesses to define and to explain "off-line" activities, Compare Best Home Bussinesses rather than (as Compare Best Home Bussinesses per the conventions of the desktop metaphor with its desktops, Compare Best Home Bussinesses trash cans, 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 into Heaven. Another illustrates "the off-line store" where "All items are actual Compare Best Home Bussinesses size!", where shoppers may "Take it home as soon as you pay for it!", and where "Merchandise may be handled Compare Best Home Bussinesses prior to purchase!". |
