One example of a common use of these concepts is a Mail User Agent that can be Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review instructed to be in either Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review "on-line" or "off-line" Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review states. One such MUA is Microsoft Outlook. When it is "on-line" Best Family Cell Phone Plan it will attempt Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review to connect to mail servers (to check for new mail at regular intervals, for example), and when it is "off-line" it will not Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review attempt to make any such connections. The "on-line" or Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review "off-line" state of the MUA does not Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review necessarily reflect the connection status Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review between the computer on which Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review it is Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review running and Internet. The user may have Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review the Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review computer itself on-line, connected to Internet via a cable modem or an ADSL connection, but may wish for Outlook Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review to be off-line, so that it makes no attempt to send or to receive messages. Or the Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review computer may be configured to employ a dial-up connection on demand (whenever an application such Best Price On Honda Accord as Outlook 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 room) and the user may not wish Outlook Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review 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 Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review technology. A tape recorder, digital editor, or other device Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review that is Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review "on-line" is one whose clock is Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review under Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review the control of the clock Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review of a "synchronization master" Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review device. When the sync master commences playback, the "on-line" device automatically synchronizes itself to the Beenie Best Man master and commences playing from the same point in the recording. Whereas a device that is "off-line" uses no external clock reference and relies Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review upon its own internal clock. When a large number of devices Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review are connected to a sync master, it is often convenient, if one wants to hear just the output of one single device, to take Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review it off-line, because if the device is played back on-line all synchronized devices have to locate the Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review playback point and wait for each other to be in synchronization.[2] (For further related discussion, see MIDI timecode, word sync, Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review and recording system synchronization.)
A third example of a common use of these concepts is a web browser that Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review can be instructed to be in either "on-line" or "off-line" states. Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review The browser only attempts to fetch pages from servers whilst in the "on-line" state. In the "off-line" state, Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review users can perform offline browsing, where Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review pages can be browsed using Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review local copies of those pages Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review that have previously been Best Dental Plan Coverage downloaded Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review whilst in the Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review "on-line" state. This can be useful when the computer itself is also off-line, with connection to Internet expensive The Best Ass In Pantyhose or impossible. The Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review pages Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review are either downloaded implicitly into the web browser's own cache, as a result of prior Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review on-line browsing by the user, or explicitly by the browser being configured to keep local Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review copies of certain web pages, which it keeps updated when the browser is Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review in the on-line state, either by checking Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review that the local copies are up-to-date at regular intervals or by checking that the local copies are up-to-date whenever the browser is switched to the on-line state. One such web browser Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review capable of being explicitly configured Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review to download Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review pages for offline browsing is Internet Explorer. When pages are added to the "Favourites" list, they can be marked Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review for being 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 Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review to. In Internet Explorer version 6, the level of direct and indirect links, the maximum amount of local disc space allowed Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review to be consumed, and the schedule Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review on which local copies are checked to see whether they Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review are up-to-date, are configurable for each
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The ideas of "on-line" and "off-line" have been generalized Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review from computing and telecommunication into the field of human interpersonal relationships. The distinction between Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review what is considered "on-line" and Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review what is considered "off-line" has become a subject of Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review study in the Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review field of sociology.[7]
The distinction between "on-line" and "off-line" is Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review conventionally seen as the distinction between computer-mediated communication and face-to-face communication (e.g. face time), respectively. Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review "On-line" is virtuality, and "off-line" is reality (e.g. real Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review life or meatspace). Slater states that this distinction is "obviously far too simple". To support his argument Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review that the distinctions Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review in relationships are more complex than a simple "on-line"/"off-line" dichotomy, he observes that some people draw Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review no Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review distinction between an "on-line" relationship, such as indulging in cybersex, and an "off-line" relationship, Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review such as being pen-pals. Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review He also argues that even the telephone can be regarded as an "on-line" experience in some circumstances, and that the blurring Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review of the distinctions between the uses of various technologies (such as Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review PDA and mobile telephone, television and Internet, and telephone and voice-over-IP) has made it "impossible Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review to use the term 'on-line' meaningfully in the sense Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review that was employed by the first generation of Internet research".[7]
Slater asserts that there are legal and regulatory pressures to reduce Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review the distinction between "on-line" and "off-line", with a "general tendency to Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review assimilate online to offline and erase the distinction", stressing, however, that this does not mean Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review 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 Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review out that contractual relationships, such as business Best Carribian Destinations transactions, on-line are already seen as just as "real" as their Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review off-line counterparts), although he states it to be hard to imagine courts awarding palimony to people who have had a Best Cell Phone Company Verizon Cingular purely on-line sexual relationship. He also conjectures that an "on-line"/"off-line" distinction may Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review be seen by people as Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review "rather quaint and not quite comprehensible" within 10 years
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The distinction where "on-line" is seen Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review as virtuality and "off-line" as reality is sometimes inverted, with Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review "on-line" concepts being used to define and to explain Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review "off-line" activities, rather than (as per the conventions of the desktop metaphor with Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review its desktops, trash cans, folders, and Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review so forth) the Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review other way around. Several cartoons by Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review The New Yorker Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review have satirized this. One includes Saint Peter asking for a Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review user name and a password before admitting a man into Heaven. Another illustrates Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review "the Best Prepaid Cell Phone Review 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!". |