One example of a common use of these concepts is a Mail User Agent that can be Search For Cactus Plants instructed to be in either "on-line" or "off-line" states. One such MUA is Microsoft Outlook. When it is "on-line" it will attempt to connect to Search For Cactus Plants mail servers (to check for new mail Search For Cactus Plants at regular intervals, for example), Search For Cactus Plants and when it is "off-line" it will Search For Cactus Plants Top Search Firms not attempt to make any such connections. The "on-line" or "off-line" state of the Search For Cactus Plants MUA does not necessarily reflect the connection status between the computer on Search For Cactus Plants which it is running Search For Cactus Plants and Internet. Search For Cactus Plants The user may have the computer itself on-line, connected to Internet via Search For Cactus Plants a cable Search For Cactus Plants modem or an ADSL connection, but may wish for Outlook to be off-line, so that it makes no attempt to Search For Cactus Plants send or to receive Search For Cactus Plants messages. Or the computer may be configured to employ a dial-up connection on demand (whenever an application such as Outlook Search For Cactus Plants attempts to 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 Search For Cactus Plants room) Search For Cactus Plants and the user Search For Cactus Plants may not wish Outlook to trigger making that call every 5 or 10 minutes to check for Search For Cactus Plants 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 that is "on-line" is one whose clock is under the control of the clock Search For Cactus Plants of a "synchronization master" device. When the Search For Cactus Plants sync master commences playback, the "on-line" device Search For Cactus Plants automatically synchronizes itself to Search For Cactus Plants the master and commences playing Search For Cactus Plants from the same point in the recording. Whereas a device that is "off-line" uses no external clock reference and relies upon its own internal clock. Search For Cactus Plants When a large number Search For Cactus Plants of devices are connected to a Search For Cactus Plants sync master, it is often convenient, if one wants to hear just Search For Cactus Plants the output of one single device, to Search For Cactus Plants take it off-line, because if the device is played back on-line Free Mp3 Search 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.)
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A third Search For Cactus Plants example of a common use of Search For Cactus Plants these concepts is a web browser that can be instructed to be in either "on-line" or "off-line" states. The browser only attempts to fetch pages from Search For Cactus Plants servers whilst in the "on-line" state. In the "off-line" state, users Search For Cactus Plants can perform offline browsing, Search For Cactus Plants where pages can be browsed using local copies of those pages Search For Cactus Plants that have previously been downloaded whilst in the "on-line" Search For Cactus Plants state. This Search For Cactus Plants can be Search For Cactus Plants useful when the computer Search For Cactus Plants itself is also off-line, with connection Search For Cactus Plants to Internet expensive or impossible. The pages are either downloaded implicitly into the web browser's own cache, as a result of prior on-line browsing by the user, or explicitly Search For Cactus Plants by the Search For Cactus Plants browser being configured to keep local copies of certain web World Search People pages, which it keeps updated when the Search For Cactus Plants browser is in the on-line state, either by checking that the local copies are up-to-date at regular intervals or by Search For Cactus Plants checking that the local copies are up-to-date whenever the browser is switched Search For Cactus Plants to the on-line state. One such web browser Number Search Sic Number capable of being explicitly configured to download pages for offline browsing is Internet Explorer. When pages are added Search For Cactus Plants to the "Favourites" list, they Search For Cactus Plants can be marked for being made "available for offline browsing". Internet Explorer Search For Cactus Plants will download to local copies both the marked page and, optionally, Search For Cactus Plants all of the pages that it links to. In Internet Explorer version 6, the level of direct Toronto Job Search Engine and indirect links, the maximum amount of local disc space allowed to be consumed, Search For Cactus Plants and the schedule on which local copies are checked to see whether Search For Cactus Plants they are up-to-date, are configurable for each
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The ideas of Search For Cactus Plants "on-line" and "off-line" have been generalized from computing and Search For Cactus Plants telecommunication into the field of human interpersonal relationships. The distinction between what is considered "on-line" and what is considered "off-line" has Search For Cactus Plants become a subject of study in the field of sociology.[7]
The distinction between "on-line" and "off-line" is Search For Cactus Plants conventionally seen as the distinction between computer-mediated communication and Search For Cactus Plants face-to-face communication (e.g. face time), respectively. "On-line" is virtuality, and "off-line" is reality Search Nassau Community College (e.g. real life or meatspace). Slater states that this distinction is "obviously far too simple". To support his argument Search For Cactus Plants that the distinctions in relationships are more complex than a simple "on-line"/"off-line" dichotomy, he observes that some Search For Cactus Plants people draw no Search For Cactus Plants distinction between an "on-line" relationship, such as indulging in cybersex, and an "off-line" Search For Cactus Plants relationship, such as being pen-pals. He also argues that even the telephone can be regarded as an "on-line" experience in Search For Cactus Plants some circumstances, and that the blurring of the distinctions between the uses Search For Cactus Plants of various Search For Cactus Plants 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 Search For Cactus Plants in Search For Cactus Plants the sense that Search For Cactus Plants 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", Search For Cactus Plants with a "general tendency to Google Desktop Search Htm assimilate online to offline and erase Search For Cactus Plants the distinction", stressing, however, that this does not mean that on-line relationships are being Search For Cactus Plants reduced to pre-existing off-line relationships. He Search For Cactus Plants conjectures that greater legal status Search For Cactus Plants may be assigned to on-line relationships (pointing out that contractual relationships, such Search For Cactus Plants as business transactions, on-line are already Search For Cactus Plants seen as just as Search For Cactus Plants "real" as their off-line counterparts), although he states it to be Search For Cactus Plants hard to Search For Cactus Plants imagine courts awarding palimony to people who have had a purely on-line sexual relationship. He also Search For Cactus Plants 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 Search For Cactus Plants "on-line" is seen as virtuality and "off-line" as reality is sometimes inverted, with "on-line" Search For Cactus Plants concepts being used to define and to explain "off-line" activities, rather than (as per the conventions of the desktop metaphor Search For Cactus Plants with its desktops, trash cans, folders, and so forth) the other way around. Several cartoons by The New Yorker Search For Cactus Plants have satirized this. One includes Saint Peter asking for a user name and Search For Cactus Plants a Search For Cactus Plants password before admitting a man into Heaven. Search For Cactus Plants Another Search For Cactus Plants illustrates Search For Cactus Plants "the off-line store" where "All items 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!". |
