One example of a common use of these concepts is a Mail User Agent that can be instructed to be Best Food Singapore 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 mail Best Food Singapore servers (to check for new mail at Is Man S Best Medicine Hippocrates regular intervals, for example), and when it Best Food Singapore is "off-line" it will not attempt to make any Best Food Singapore such Best Food Singapore connections. The "on-line" or "off-line" state of the MUA Best Food Singapore does not necessarily reflect the connection status between the computer Best Food Singapore on which it is Best Food Singapore running Best Food Singapore and Best Food Singapore Internet. The user may have Best Food Singapore the computer itself on-line, connected to Internet via a cable modem or an ADSL connection, but may wish for Outlook to be off-line, so that it Best Food Singapore makes no attempt to send or Best Food Singapore 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 Best Food Singapore an expensive telephone call from the particular location in which the computer currently happens to be (such as a hotel room) and Best Travel Credit Cards the user may not wish Outlook to trigger making that call Best Food Singapore 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 Best Food Singapore device that is "on-line" is one whose clock is under the control of the clock of a "synchronization master" device. When the sync Best Food Singapore master commences playback, the Best Food Singapore "on-line" device automatically synchronizes itself to the master and commences playing from the same point Best Food Singapore in the recording. Whereas a device that is "off-line" uses no external clock Best Food Singapore reference and relies Best Food Singapore upon its own internal Best Food Singapore clock. When Best Food Singapore a large Best Food Singapore number Best Food Singapore of devices are connected to a sync master, it is often convenient, if one wants to hear just the output of one single device, to Best Food Singapore take it off-line, because if the device is played back on-line all synchronized devices have to locate the playback point and wait for each Best Mortgage Interest Rate Online other to be in synchronization.[2] (For further related discussion, see Best Food Singapore MIDI timecode, word sync, and recording system synchronization.)
A third example of a common use of these concepts is a web Best Food Singapore browser that can be instructed to be Best Food Singapore in either "on-line" or "off-line" states. The browser only attempts to Best Food Singapore fetch Best Food Singapore pages from servers whilst in the "on-line" state. Best Food Singapore In the "off-line" state, users can perform offline browsing, where pages Best Food Singapore can be browsed using local copies Best Food Singapore of Best Food Singapore those pages that have Best Food Singapore previously been downloaded whilst in the "on-line" state. Best Chai Tea This can be useful when the computer itself is also off-line, with connection to Internet expensive or impossible. The pages are either Best News downloaded implicitly into Best Food Singapore the web browser's own cache, as a result of prior on-line browsing by the user, or explicitly by the browser being configured Best Food Singapore to keep local copies Best Food Singapore of certain web pages, which it keeps updated when the browser is in the on-line state, either by checking that the local copies are up-to-date at regular intervals Best Food Singapore or by checking Best Food Singapore that the local copies are up-to-date whenever the browser Best Food Singapore is switched to the on-line state. One Best Food Singapore such Best Food Singapore web browser capable of being explicitly configured to download pages for offline browsing is Internet Explorer. Best Food Singapore When pages are added to the Best Food Singapore "Favourites" list, they can be marked for being made "available for offline browsing". Internet Explorer will download Best Food Singapore to local copies both the marked page and, optionally, all of the pages that it Best Food Singapore links Best Food Singapore to. In Internet Explorer version 6, the level of direct and indirect links, the maximum amount of local disc space allowed to Best Food Singapore be consumed, Best Food Singapore and the schedule on which local copies are checked to Best Food Singapore see whether Best Food Singapore they are up-to-date, are configurable for each
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The ideas Best Food Singapore of "on-line" and "off-line" have been generalized from computing and telecommunication into the field of human interpersonal relationships. The distinction between Best Food Singapore what is considered "on-line" and what is Best Food Singapore considered "off-line" has Best Food Singapore become a Best Food Singapore subject of study Best Food Singapore in the field of sociology.[7]
The distinction between "on-line" and "off-line" Best Food Singapore is conventionally seen as the distinction between computer-mediated communication and face-to-face communication (e.g. face Best Palm Pilot time), respectively. "On-line" is virtuality, Best Food Singapore and "off-line" is reality (e.g. real life or meatspace). Slater states that Best Food Singapore this distinction is Best Food Singapore "obviously far too simple". To support his argument that the distinctions in Best Food Singapore relationships are Best Food Singapore more complex than a simple "on-line"/"off-line" dichotomy, he observes that some people draw no distinction between an "on-line" relationship, such as indulging in cybersex, and an "off-line" relationship, such as being pen-pals. He also argues that even the telephone Best Food Singapore can be regarded as Best Food Singapore an "on-line" experience in some circumstances, Best Food Singapore and that the blurring of the distinctions Best Food Singapore between the uses of Best Food Singapore various 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 the sense that was employed by the first generation of Internet research".[7]
Slater asserts that there are Best Food Singapore legal Best Food Singapore and regulatory pressures to reduce the distinction between "on-line" and "off-line", with a "general Best Food Singapore tendency to assimilate online to offline and erase Running Best Trail Shoes the distinction", stressing, however, that this does Best Food Singapore not mean that on-line relationships are being reduced to pre-existing off-line relationships. He conjectures that greater legal status Best Food Singapore may be assigned to on-line relationships (pointing out that Best Food Singapore contractual relationships, such as business transactions, on-line Best Food Singapore are already seen as just as "real" as their off-line counterparts), although he Best Food Singapore states it to be Best Food Singapore hard to Best Food Singapore 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 Best Food Singapore 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 Best Food Singapore 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 Best Food Singapore asking for a user name and a password before Best Food Singapore admitting a man into Heaven. Another illustrates "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 Best Food Singapore prior to purchase!". |
