One example of a common use of these concepts is a Mail User Agent that can be instructed to Best Garage Doors be in either Best Garage Doors "on-line" Itv Best Dishes or "off-line" states. One such MUA is Microsoft Outlook. When it is Best Garage Doors "on-line" it will attempt to connect to mail servers (to check for new mail at Best Garage Doors regular intervals, for example), and when it is "off-line" it Best Garage Doors will not Best Garage Doors attempt to make any such connections. The "on-line" or "off-line" state of the MUA does not necessarily reflect the connection status between the computer Best Garage Doors on which it is running and Internet. The user may have the computer itself on-line, connected to Internet via a cable modem or an Best Garage Doors ADSL connection, but may wish for Outlook to be off-line, so that Best Garage Doors it makes no attempt to send or Best Pool Cue Sticks to receive messages. Or the computer may be configured to employ a dial-up connection on demand (whenever an application such as Outlook attempts to make connection to a server), but the connection may be an expensive telephone call from the particular Best Garage Doors location in which the computer currently happens Best Garage Doors to Best Garage Doors be (such as a hotel room) and the user may not wish Outlook to trigger making Best Garage Doors that call every 5 or Best Garage Doors 10 minutes to check for Best Garage Doors mail.
Another example of the use of these concepts is in Best Garage Doors the world of digital audio technology. A tape recorder, digital editor, or other device that is "on-line" is one whose clock is under the control of Best Garage Doors the clock of a "synchronization master" device. When the sync master commences playback, the "on-line" device automatically synchronizes itself to the master and commences playing from the same point Best Garage Doors in the recording. Whereas a device that is "off-line" uses no external clock reference and relies upon its own internal clock. When a large number of Best Garage Doors devices are connected to a sync master, it is often convenient, if one wants to hear just the output of one single Best Garage Doors device, to take it off-line, because if the device is Best Garage Doors played back on-line all synchronized devices have to locate the playback point and wait for each other to be in synchronization.[2] (For further related discussion, see MIDI timecode, word sync, and recording system synchronization.)
A third example of a common use of these concepts is a Best Garage Doors web browser that can Best Garage Doors be instructed to be in either "on-line" or Best Garage Doors "off-line" states. The browser only attempts to fetch pages from servers whilst in the Best Garage Doors "on-line" state. In the "off-line" state, users can perform offline browsing, where pages can be Best Garage Doors browsed using local copies of those pages that have previously Best Garage Doors been downloaded whilst in the "on-line" state. This can Best Garage Doors be useful when the Best Online Diet Programs computer itself is also off-line, with connection to Internet expensive or impossible. The pages are either downloaded implicitly into the Best Garage Doors web browser's own cache, as a result of prior on-line browsing by the user, or explicitly by the browser being configured Best Garage Doors to keep local copies of certain web pages, which it keeps updated when the browser is in the on-line state, either by checking Best Garage Doors that Best Garage Doors the local copies are up-to-date at regular intervals or by checking that Best Buy Online Coupon the local copies are up-to-date whenever the browser is switched to the on-line state. One such web Best Garage Doors browser capable of being explicitly configured to download pages for offline Best Garage Doors browsing is Internet Explorer. When pages are Best Garage Doors added to Best Garage Doors the "Favourites" list, they can be marked for being made "available for offline browsing". Internet Explorer will download to local copies both the marked Best Cell Phone Deals Discounts Coupons page and, optionally, all of the pages that it links to. In Internet Explorer version 6, the level of direct Best Garage Doors and indirect links, the maximum 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 Best Garage Doors of human interpersonal relationships. The Best Garage Doors distinction between what is considered "on-line" and what Best Garage Doors is considered "off-line" has become a subject of study Best Garage Doors 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 (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 Best Orgasm Ever Video are more complex than a simple "on-line"/"off-line" dichotomy, he Best Garage Doors observes Best Garage Doors that Best Garage Doors some people draw no Best Garage Doors distinction between an "on-line" relationship, Best Garage Doors such Best Garage Doors as indulging in cybersex, and an "off-line" relationship, Best Garage Doors such as being pen-pals. He also argues that even the telephone can be Best Garage Doors regarded Best Garage Doors as an "on-line" Best Garage Doors experience Best Garage Doors in Best Garage Doors some circumstances, and that the Best Buy Golf Supply blurring of the distinctions between the uses of various technologies (such as Friendly Society Best PDA and mobile telephone, television and Internet, and telephone and voice-over-IP) has made it "impossible to Best Garage Doors use the term 'on-line' Best Garage Doors meaningfully in the sense Best Time To Go To Orlando that was employed by the first generation Best Garage Doors of Internet research".[7]
Slater asserts that there are legal Best Garage Doors and Best Garage Doors regulatory Best Garage Doors pressures to reduce the distinction between Best Garage Doors "on-line" and "off-line", with a "general tendency to assimilate online to offline Best Garage Doors and Best Garage Doors erase the distinction", stressing, Best Garage Doors however, that this does not mean that on-line relationships are Best Garage Doors being reduced to pre-existing off-line relationships. He conjectures that Best Garage Doors greater legal status may be assigned to on-line relationships (pointing Best Garage Doors out that contractual relationships, Best Garage Doors such as business transactions, on-line Best Garage Doors are already seen Best Garage Doors as just Best Garage Doors as Best Garage Doors "real" as their off-line counterparts), although he states it to be hard to imagine courts awarding palimony to people Best Garage Doors who have had a purely on-line sexual relationship. Best Garage Doors He also conjectures that an "on-line"/"off-line" distinction may Best Garage Doors be seen by people as "rather quaint and not Best Garage Doors 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 Best Garage Doors being used to define and to explain "off-line" activities, rather than (as per the Best Natural Hgh conventions of the desktop metaphor Best Garage Doors with its Best Garage Doors desktops, trash cans, folders, and so forth) Best Garage Doors the other way around. Several cartoons by The New Yorker have satirized this. Best Garage Doors One includes Saint Peter asking Best Garage Doors for a user name and a password before admitting a man into Best Garage Doors Heaven. Another illustrates "the off-line store" Best Garage Doors where "All items are Best Garage Doors actual size!", where Best Garage Doors shoppers may "Take it home as soon as you pay for it!", and where "Merchandise may be handled prior to purchase!". |
