One Top Search Firms example of a common use of these concepts is a Mail User Top Search Firms Agent that can Top Search Firms be instructed to be in either "on-line" or "off-line" states. One such MUA Top Search Firms is Microsoft Outlook. Top Search Firms When it is "on-line" it will attempt to Top Search Firms connect to mail servers (to Top Search Firms check for new mail at regular intervals, for example), and when it Top Search Firms is "off-line" it Top Search Firms will not attempt Top Search Firms to make any such connections. The "on-line" or "off-line" state of the MUA does not necessarily reflect the connection status between the Top Search Firms computer on which Top Search Firms it is running Top Search Firms and Internet. The user may have the computer Top Search Firms itself on-line, connected to Internet via a cable Top Search Firms modem or an ADSL connection, but may Top Search Firms wish for Outlook to be off-line, Top Search Firms so that it makes no attempt to send or to receive messages. Or the computer may be configured to employ a dial-up connection Top Search Firms on demand (whenever an application such as Outlook Top Search Firms attempts to make connection to Top Search Firms a server), but the connection may Top Search Firms be an expensive telephone call from the particular location in which the computer currently Top Search Firms happens to be Top Search Firms (such as a hotel room) and the user may not wish Outlook to trigger making that Top Search Firms call every 5 or 10 minutes to check Top Search Firms for mail.
Another example of the use of these concepts is Top Search Firms in the world of digital audio technology. A tape Top Search Firms recorder, Top Search Firms digital editor, or other device 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 Top Search Firms to Top Search Firms the master and commences playing Top Search Firms from Top Search Firms the same point in the recording. Whereas a device that Top Search Firms is "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 Top Search Firms is often convenient, if one wants to hear just the output of one single device, to take it off-line, because if the device Top Search Firms is played Top Search Firms back on-line all synchronized devices Top Search Firms have to locate the playback point and wait for each other to be in Top Search Firms synchronization.[2] (For further related discussion, see MIDI timecode, word sync, and recording system Top Search Firms synchronization.)
A third example of a common use Top Search Firms of Top Search Firms these concepts is a web browser that can be instructed to be in either "on-line" or "off-line" states. Top Search Firms The browser only Register With Search Engine attempts to fetch pages from servers whilst in Free Search For Someone the "on-line" 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 in the "on-line" state. This can be Top Search Firms useful when the Top Search Firms computer itself is also off-line, with connection to Internet expensive or impossible. The Top Search Firms pages are Top Search Firms either downloaded implicitly into the web browser's own cache, as a result of Top Search Firms prior on-line browsing by the user, or Top Search Firms explicitly by Top Search Firms the browser being Top Search Firms configured to keep local copies of certain web pages, which it keeps updated Top Search Firms when the browser is in the on-line state, either Top Search Firms by checking that the local copies are up-to-date Manatee County Property Appraiser Search at regular intervals or by checking that the local copies are up-to-date whenever the browser is Top Search Firms switched to Top Search Firms the on-line state. One such web browser capable of being Top Search Firms explicitly configured to download pages for offline browsing Top Search Firms is Internet Top Search Firms Explorer. When pages are added to the "Favourites" list, they can be marked for being made "available for offline Top Search Firms browsing". Internet Top Search Firms Explorer will download to local copies both the marked page and, optionally, all of the pages that it Top Search Firms links to. In Internet Explorer version 6, the level of direct and indirect links, the maximum amount of local disc space allowed to be consumed, and the schedule on which local copies are checked Hybrid Search Engine to see whether they are up-to-date, are configurable for each
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The ideas of "on-line" and "off-line" have been generalized Top Search Firms from computing and telecommunication into the field of human interpersonal relationships. The distinction between what is Top Search Firms considered "on-line" Top Search Firms and what is considered "off-line" Top Search Firms has become a subject of study in the field of sociology.[7]
The distinction between "on-line" Top Search Firms 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" Top Search Firms is Top Search Firms 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 Top Search Firms than a simple Top Search Firms "on-line"/"off-line" dichotomy, he observes that some people draw no distinction between an "on-line" relationship, such as indulging in cybersex, Top Search Firms and an "off-line" relationship, such as Top Search Firms being pen-pals. He also argues that even Top Search Firms the telephone can be regarded as an "on-line" experience in some circumstances, and that the blurring Top Search Firms of the distinctions between the uses of various Free Drivers License Search technologies (such as PDA and mobile telephone, television and Internet, and telephone and voice-over-IP) has made it "impossible to use the term 'on-line' meaningfully in Job Search Contact Management Software the sense that was employed by the first generation of Internet research".[7]
Slater asserts that there are legal and regulatory pressures to reduce the distinction between "on-line" and "off-line", Top Search Firms with a "general tendency All Search Engines In One to assimilate online Top Search Firms to offline and erase the distinction", Top Search Firms stressing, however, that this does not mean that on-line relationships are being reduced to pre-existing 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 Top Search Firms already seen as just as Search Cactus Games "real" as their off-line counterparts), although he states it to be Top Search Firms Foreign Search Engine hard Top Search Firms to imagine courts awarding palimony to people who have had a purely on-line sexual relationship. 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" 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, Top Search Firms and so Top Search Firms 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 Top Search Firms a man into Heaven. Another illustrates "the Top Search Firms off-line Top Search Firms store" where Top Search Firms "All items are actual size!", where shoppers may "Take it home as soon as Specialised Search Engines you pay for it!", and where "Merchandise may be handled prior to purchase!". |
