One Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs example of a common use of these concepts Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs is a Mail User Agent that can be instructed to be in either "on-line" or "off-line" states. One Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs such MUA is Microsoft Outlook. When it is "on-line" it will attempt to connect to mail servers (to check Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs for new Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs mail at regular intervals, for Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs 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 the connection status between the computer on which it Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs is running and Internet. The user may have the computer itself on-line, Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs connected to Internet via a cable Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs modem or an ADSL connection, Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs but Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs may wish for Outlook to be off-line, so that it makes no attempt Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs to send or to receive messages. Or the computer may be configured to employ Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs a Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs dial-up connection on demand (whenever an application such as Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs Outlook attempts to make connection to a server), but the connection may be an expensive telephone call from the particular location in which the Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs computer currently happens to be (such as a Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs hotel room) and the user may not wish Outlook to trigger making that call every 5 or 10 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 Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs that is "on-line" is one whose clock is under the control of the clock of a "synchronization master" device. When the sync master commences playback, the "on-line" device automatically synchronizes itself to the master Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs and commences playing from the same Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs point in the recording. Whereas Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs a device that is Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs "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 often convenient, Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs if one wants to hear just the output of one Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs single device, to take Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs it off-line, because if the device is played back Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs on-line all synchronized devices have to locate the playback Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs 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 Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs these concepts is Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs a web browser that can be instructed to be Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs in either "on-line" or "off-line" Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs states. The browser only attempts to Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs fetch pages from servers whilst Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs in the "on-line" Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs 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 Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs been downloaded whilst in the "on-line" state. This can be useful when the computer itself is also off-line, with Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs connection to Internet expensive or impossible. The pages Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs are either downloaded implicitly Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs into the web browser's Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs 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 is in the on-line state, either Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs by checking Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs that the local copies are up-to-date at regular intervals or by checking that the Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs local copies are up-to-date whenever the browser is switched to the on-line state. 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, Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs they can be marked Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs for being Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs made "available for offline browsing". Internet 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 level of direct and indirect links, the maximum amount Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs of local disc space allowed to be consumed, and the schedule on which local copies are checked to see whether they Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs 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 distinction between what is considered "on-line" and what is considered "off-line" has Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs become a subject of Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs study in the field of Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs sociology.[7]
The distinction between "on-line" and "off-line" Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs is conventionally seen as the distinction between computer-mediated communication and face-to-face communication Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs (e.g. face time), respectively. "On-line" is virtuality, and "off-line" is reality (e.g. real life or meatspace). Slater Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs 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 Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs observes that some people draw no distinction Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs between an "on-line" relationship, such as indulging in cybersex, and Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs an "off-line" relationship, such Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs 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 Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs and mobile telephone, television and Internet, and telephone and voice-over-IP) has made it "impossible to use the term Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs 'on-line' Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs meaningfully in the sense that was employed by the first Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs generation of Internet research".[7]
Slater asserts that there Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs are legal and regulatory pressures to reduce the distinction between "on-line" and Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs "off-line", with a "general tendency to assimilate online to offline and erase the distinction", stressing, however, that this does not Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs mean that on-line relationships Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs are Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs being reduced to pre-existing off-line relationships. He Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs conjectures that Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs greater legal status may be assigned to Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs on-line relationships (pointing out that contractual relationships, Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs such as business Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs transactions, Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs on-line are already seen as just as "real" as their off-line counterparts), although he states it to Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs be hard to Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs imagine courts awarding palimony to people who have had a purely on-line sexual relationship. He also Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs conjectures that an "on-line"/"off-line" distinction may be Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs seen by people as "rather quaint and not quite comprehensible" within 10 Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs years
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The distinction where "on-line" Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs 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" 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 includes Saint Peter asking Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs for Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs a Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs user name and Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs a password before admitting a man into Heaven. Another Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs illustrates "the off-line Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs store" where "All items Absolute Best Ever Beer Songs are actual size!", where shoppers may "Take it home as soon as you pay for it!", and where "Merchandise may be handled prior to purchase!". |
