Event notification system and method
Contents
1. N IN Ms hnojom Patent Application Publication Jul 19 2007 Sheet 7 of 11 US 2007 0168451 Al 400 402 404 N Yes o ps No Yes Terminate 408 3 No Terminate IM client process end Modify title associated with IM client process FIG 4 Patent Application Publication Jul 19 2007 Sheet 8 of 11 US 2007 0168451 Al 500 a 5 02 504 Display in association with a browser a title associated with state of the browser 506 Receive an event trigger 508 Display in association with a browser a title associated with the event Continue to display Yes 514 Close browser FIG 5 Patent Application Publication Jul 19 2007 Sheet 9 of 11 US 2007 0168451 Al 600 a Input Device Network Output Device 602 604 606 Event Display SS e Kai Kee 612 Event Processing Engine 614 Title String s Title Provisioning Engine Control 616 o Client e2 Title Array wus ii oo aes era Dz A HA al KA E Patent Application Publication Jul 19 2007 Sheet 10 of 11 US 2007 0168451 Al 700 Start 702 Process event that calls for user notification 704 Generate a first string of characters associated with the event 706 Store the first string of characters in an array2. 708 Providing the first string of characters from the array to a process 710 Using the first string of characters as a title in association with the process 712 Providing a second string of characters from the array to the process 714 Using the second string of characters as a title in association with the process FIG 7 Patent Application Publication Jul 19 2007 Sheet 11 of 11 US 2007 0168451 Al 800 a Computer 80 Processor 808 Comm Interface 810 Display Control 814 NV Storage 816 UO Control 818 MO Devices 804 Display Device 806 FIG 8 US 2007 0168451 Al EVENT NOTIFICATION SYSTEM AND METHOD CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 0001 This Patent Application claims priority to U S Provisional Patent App No 60 748 988 filed Dec 9 2005 which is incorporated herein by reference This Patent Application is related to U S patent application Ser Nos Attorney Docket No 63017 8001 US01 Attorney Docket No 63017 8002 US01 Attorney Docket No 63017 8003 US01 Attorney Docket No 63017 8005 US01 to Taylor et al respectively entitled HIGH LEVEL NETWORK LAYER SYSTEM AND METHOD PICTURE PROVISIONING SYSTEM AND METHOD MESSAGE HISTORY DISPLAY SYSTEM AND METHOD and CONTACT LIST DISPLAY SYSTEM AND METHOD filed concurrently herewith and incorpo rated by reference herein BACKGROUND 0002 Instant messaging requires the use of a client
3. 19 2007 Sheet 5 of 11 chil COMO wan ER ES A LR GA ag pue gam C UJIAN G oy gy uns E Po a A E een Ji Greg AS BT RE ey a am E G KE fest WEE EE El El EI H Si E z V EE i q e e d E E mawan ine wo Apa AOL i H RSR aw JUNOIIY 3591 4 q DUO MOI 0 Y 19 09 a i FO e pesa D _ 2 SPUOMAAN L A FUJO DIO Jo ET A ape lofelotolrlelolel fele fefei lefo efa Jene ee Jan gt es US 2007 0168451 Al Patent Application Publication Jul 19 2007 Sheet 6 of 11 A E 1 O GSS Y ABRE Y TIN A E H 5 FESTA APTA 7 pees EPN INGAT Aq Ae A neit RL ewo Ang wie Appnge wepuaisury At C Seas e Joga ANG Og a dems Cisna up Ei 149 suna ies 4 BHO MOLA 6 S 19 09 a seja 2 spuomaam 4 amy BNO SYI UM SIAROS UY OO Ros Leet wo Appriga mini mp aan E 54 Aw 30S Oy Apanga WOT Appnge O d Na pech eye Ey was Apanga iien Eppa C EQ ue APRO M SU beren E Zt saippnaa 4 bane ta ei es papu TA 0 VIIN 4 IS
4. in a non limiting embodiment the title provisioning engine 616 controls the title generator 626 to either generate a title in the usual way e g using the state of the client 622 to determine an appropriate title or to not generate a title because a title string is available from the title array 618 Thus title string 624 which is embodied in a computer readable medium in association with the display will include either a title generated in accordance with the state of the client 622 or a title string from the title array 618 specifically the title array string selected by the multiplexer 620 The display e g a window including the title string 624 is provided to the interface 612 for display on the output device 606 0061 Advantageously although the title string 624 is likely to have display limitations associated with the client 622 the operating system the output device 606 or other factors creative control of the title array 618 can yield interesting title display characteristics For example the title can appear to have scrolling text blinking alternating upper and lower case etc 0062 Scrolling text may be accomplished by cycling through the title array 618 over time After the title array string N is displayed the title array 618 can start over at title array string 0 or allow the title generator 626 to generate a title instead The scrolling text could include the Jul 19 2007 actual message of an
5. program that hooks up an instant messaging service and differs from e mail in that conversations are then able to happen in real time Most services offer a presence infor mation feature indicating whether people on one s list of contacts are currently online and available to chat This may be called a contact list In early instant messaging programs each letter appeared as it was typed and when letters were deleted to correct typos this was also seen in real time This made it more like a telephone conversation than exchanging letters In modern instant messaging programs the other party in the conversation generally only sees each line of text right after a new line is started Most instant messaging applications also include the ability to set a status message roughly analogous to the message on a telephone answering machine 0003 Popular instant messaging services on the public Internet include NET Messenger Service MSN Messenger AOL Instant Messenger Excite Pal Gadu Gadu Google Talk iChat ICQ Jabber Qnext QQ Meetro Skype Tril lian and Yahoo Messenger These services owe many ideas to an older and still popular online chat medium known as Internet Relay Chat IRC 0004 The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specifica
6. provides greater storage greater display area and greater power than a cell phone Thus at best an IM client must work under the constraints imposed by a particular device Depending upon the device certain functionality may be more useful For example a device may have inferior capabilities with respect to notifying a user when a message is received 0035 The device capabilities may limit the way in which a user can be notified when a message is received The environment in which a user operates may provide another limitation For example a user at work may not want to play a noise or have a popup window show up every time a message is received Similarly a user who gets lots of messages may not want to hear the noise or see the popup Jul 19 2007 windows because of the great frequency with which it occurs Advantageously notification can take place in a titlebar which is great for devices that have inferior notifi cation functionality and great for users who want a subtle notification 0036 FIGS 3A 3D depict examples of screenshots 300 with IM notification functionality The bar may be a titlebar a taskbar or some other menu or display item In the example of FIG 3A the taskbar includes a process identi fied by the taskbar item 302 For illustrative purposes the process is a Firefox web browser that is at the site www ebuddy com The screenshot appears as a conventional screen might look However when a new mes
7. XMLHttpRequest object to make HTTP requests to the server 104 The server 104 may reply with messages taken from the queue of the corresponding session in XML or another format that are parsed and displayed according to the message content 0028 For clients 114 that include a browser when accessing the server 104 the browser typically uses hidden HTML frames to update information on visible frames The visible frames display appropriate information while the hidden frames are reloaded in short periods of time In each refresh that hits the server 104 the browser identifies the current messaging session and checks if new events or messages associated with the session are in the event queue 116 When new information arrives and needs to be dis played in some form the browser makes use of for example JavaScript code to update the visible frames and windows with new messages or events keeping the information up to date in the screen In this way automatic refreshing can take place in a hidden frame 0029 In another embodiment certain of the clients 114 with browsers may not make use of refreshes For example a form of updating the screen without using a refresh technique is to keep one single HTTP socket request alive for the whole period of a messaging session without actually closing the socket connection In this example information is initially loaded and displayed in one single visible frame While events and messages are being
8. a computer readable storage medium such as by way of example but not limitation read only memories ROMs RAMs EPROMs EEPROMs magnetic or optical cards any type of disk including floppy disks optical disks CD ROMs DVDs and magnetic optical disks or any known or convenient type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions 0083 The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer architec ture The techniques may be implemented using any known or convenient programming language whether high level e g C C or low level e g assembly language and whether interpreted e g Perl compiled e g C C or Just In Time JIT compiled from bytecode e g Java Any known or convenient computer regardless of architecture should be capable of executing machine code compiled or otherwise assembled from any language into machine code that is compatible with the computer s architecture 0084 As used herein the term embodiment means an embodiment that serves to illustrate by way of example but not limitation 0085 It will be appreciated to those skilled in the art that the preceding examples and embodiments are exemplary and not limiting to the scope of the present invention It is intended that all permutations enhancements equivalents and improvements thereto that are apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study o
9. according ot the state of the client 11 A method comprising processing an event that calls for user notification generating a first string of characters associated with the event storing the first string of characters in an array US 2007 0168451 Al providing the first string of characters from the array to a process using the first string of characters as a title in association with the process providing a second string of characters from the array to the process using the second string of characters as a title in associa tion with the process 12 The method of claim 11 further comprising generating the second string of characters wherein the second string of characters is associated with the event storing the second string of characters in the array 13 The method of claim 11 wherein the event is a first event further comprising processing a second event that calls for user notification generating the second string of characters associated with the second event storing the second string of characters in the array 14 The method of claim 11 further comprising alternat ing using the first string of characters as a title in association with the process with using a NULL string Jul 19 2007 15 The method of claim 11 further comprising generat ing the second string of characters as a NULL string 16 The method of claim 11 further comprising alternat ing using the first string of cha
10. computer readable medium that includes a plurality of character strings for provi sioning to the title string of the client an interface coupled to the client for receiving an event and for sending a display associated with the client to a display device an event processing engine embodied in a computer readable medium and coupled to the interface for processing the event a title provisioning engine embodied in a computer readable medium and coupled to the event processing engine for maintaining the title array and controlling which character string of the plurality of character strings to provide to the client 7 The system of claim 6 further comprising a network through which the event is sent to the interface 8 The system of claim 6 further comprising an input device from which the event is sent to the interface 9 The system of claim 6 further comprising an output device including the display device to which a display is sent from the interface wherein a title associated with at least a portion of the display includes at least a portion of the character string of the plurality of characters strings 10 The system of claim 6 further comprising a title generator that generates a title for the client according to state of the client wherein the title provisioning engine controls the title generator to allow for the character string of the plurality of character strings to be used instead of the title generated
11. native application etc The clients poll the server 104 for events The events can be removed from the event queue 116 and translated into text JavaScript XML or some other known or convenient format that one or more of the clients 114 need or expect in order to process data associated with the event 0025 To interact with the IM network 108 the clients 114 send data to the server 104 The data which may include commands is processed and translated into corresponding data that will be sent to the appropriate IM network In an embodiment the appropriate IM network may be determin able based upon the protocol encoded in a message 0026 Messages or actions from the clients 114 are col lected over network protocols such as by way of example but not limitation HTTP or plain socket connections The messages or actions are transformed to an appropriate pro tocol format to be sent over a compliant port from the clients 114 to the server 104 with the IM protocol on the applica tion side In a non limiting embodiment the compliant port is http port 80 However any port having similar character istics to those of a typical port 80 could be used 0027 The latest available browsers as of December 2005 enable the use of a technique called AJAX Asyn chronous JavaScript And XML With AJAX appropriately configured clients 114 can execute actions and poll for messages or events using only JavaScript The method is based on using an
12. to be a computer system but it may lack some of the features shown in FIG 8 such as certain input or output devices A typical computer system will usually include at least a processor memory and a bus coupling the memory to the processor 0079 The computer system 800 may be controlled by an operating system OS An OS is a software program used on most but not all computer systems that manages the hardware and software resources of a computer Typically the OS performs basic tasks such as controlling and allo cating memory prioritizing system requests controlling input and output devices facilitating networking and man aging files Examples of operating systems for personal computers include Microsoft Windows Linux and Mac OS Delineating between the OS and application software is sometimes rather difficult Fortunately delineation is not necessary to understand the techniques described herein since any reasonable delineation should suffice 0080 As used herein algorithmic descriptions and sym bolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer memory are believed to most effectively convey the techniques to others skilled in the art An algorithm is here and generally conceived to be a self consistent sequence of operations leading to a desired result The operations are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities Usually though not necessarily these quantities take the fo
13. 2 depicts an example of a system 200 for displaying content from an IM client at an alternative IM client In the example of FIG 2 the system 200 includes a client 202 an IM network 204 a server 206 an IM network 208 a client 210 other IM networks 212 1 to 212 N referred to collectively as other IM networks 212 and other clients 214 1 to 214 N referred to collectively as other clients 214 0033 For illustrative purposes it is assumed that the client 202 has content that is compatible with the IM network 204 However the client 210 is capable of reading content formatted to be compatible with the IM network 208 Thus in operation the server 206 collects content from the client 202 either through the IM network 204 as shown in FIG 2 or directly from the client 202 such as is shown by way of example in FIG 1 The server 206 then formats the content as appropriate for use on the IM network 208 Once the content is properly formatted it can be made available to the client 210 either through the IM network 208 as shown in FIG 2 or directly to the client 210 such as is shown by way of example in FIG 1 Depending upon the embodiment and or implementation the content may also be formatted as appropriate for one or more of the other IM networks 212 to be made available for one or more of the other clients 214 0034 As is well understood different devices provide different functionality For example a desktop typically
14. 4 may act as a proxy server between the clients 114 and the IM server 106 The server 104 receives communications from the clients 114 on http port 80 and responds to the clients 114 on http port 80 Com munications from the clients 114 that are bound for the IM network 108 however must also come through http port 80 to the server 104 and are then forwarded to the IM server 106 In this way the server 104 acts as a carrier of the data from users to the IM network 108 using a mechanism that controls and manages the data e g text messages display images emotions audio video streams etc sent between one of the clients 114 and the server 104 and vice versa 0022 The IM server 106 may be any known or conve nient IM server that is compatible with IM Events mes sages or other appropriate data from the IM server 106 are collected in the event queue 116 of the server 104 The events may be collected in association with a variety of protocols including by way of example but not limitation port 1863 port 5050 port 5222 port 5190 etc 0023 The IM network 108 may include one or a com bination of networks selected from MSN Messenger Yahoo Messenger AIM AOL ICQ QQ Jabber Google Talk IRC or some other known or convenient IM network Jul 19 2007 0024 The clients 114 may include any known or conve nient device including by way of example but not limita tion a Web browser mobile client PDA game console TV box
15. IM message displayed in the title over time the scrolling text could scroll through a list of senders of email that has not yet been checked Blinking can be accomplished by conceptually making every other title array string blank Alternatively a NULL string could be periodically provided instead of a title array string The number of programmed text effects available to those of ordinary skill in the art of computer programming with this teaching before them are practically impossible to list exhaustively so no effort is made to do so herein 0063 FIG 7 depicts a flowchart 700 of an example of a method for displaying programmed text titles In the example of FIG 7 the flowchart 700 starts at module 702 where an event that calls for user notification is processed It may be noted that whether the event calls for user notification may or may not be known until after the event is processed 0064 In the example of FIG 7 the flowchart 700 con tinues to module 704 where a first string of characters associated with the event is generated There may or may not be a second third etc string of characters associated with the event generated as well 0065 In the example of FIG 7 the flowchart 700 con tinues to module 706 where the first string of characters is stored in an array The array may include other strings of characters associated with other events or the first string of characters and second third etc string of ch
16. The I O devices 804 can include a keyboard disk drives printers a scanner and other input and output devices including a mouse or other pointing device For illustrative purposes at least one of the I O devices is assumed to be a block based media device such as a DVD player The display controller 814 may control in a known or convenient manner a display on the display device 806 which can be for example a cathode ray tube CRT or liquid crystal display LCD 0074 The display controller 814 and I O controller 818 may include device drivers A device driver is a specific type of computer software developed to allow interaction with hardware devices Typically this constitutes an interface for communicating with the device through a bus or commu nications subsystem that the hardware is connected to providing commands to and or receiving data from the device and on the other end the requisite interfaces to the OS and software applications Jul 19 2007 0075 The device driver may include a hardware depen dent computer program that is also OS specific The com puter program enables another program typically an OS or applications software package or computer program running under the OS kernel to interact transparently with a hard ware device and usually provides the requisite interrupt handling necessary for any necessary asynchronous time dependent hardware interfacing needs 0076 The non volatile storage 816 w
17. Y then the flowchart 500 continues to module 514 where the browser is closed and the flowchart 500 ends 0052 The title of e g a window shows up in both the titlebar of a window and in the taskbar Advantageously users can be notified of events in the taskbar while they are using another application The changing taskbar would benefit clients on devices using a desktop system that allows multiple applications to run at the same time e g Mail client Browser IM etc While users are switching between various applications and an IM client they may not be aware of new messages events that have arrived The alternating messages can be seen in a taskbar even if for example the browser window is minimized or behind other application or browser windows as in FIGS 3A 3B 0053 Advantageously in an embodiment a title associ ated with an event can include programmed text effects FIG 6 depicts an example of a system 600 for programmed text event specific title provisioning The system 600 includes an input device 602 a network 604 an output device 606 and a computer 610 The input device 602 may be any known or convenient device that is capable of generating or forward ing events to the computer 610 In a typical implementation events will be received at the computer 610 via the network 604 Most computers include output devices for on which a variety of output is displayed 0054 The computer 610 includes an interface 612 a
18. aracters associated with the event may replace all current characters strings of the array 0066 In the example of FIG 7 the flowchart 700 con tinues to module 708 where the first string of characters is provided from the array to a process The process may include by way of example but not limitation an IM client operating in a Windows environment 0067 In the example of FIG 7 the flowchart 700 con tinues to module 710 where the first string of characters is used as a title in association with the process For example if the process is an IM client operating in a Windows environment the first string of characters could be used such that the window associated with the IM client includes the first string of characters or at least the first subset of the first string of characters if the window is too small to display the entire string in the titlebar Similarly in this specific example the first string of characters could be displayed in a taskbar item associated with the IM client 0068 In the example of FIG 7 the flowchart 700 con tinues to module 712 where a second string of characters is provided from the array to the process The second string of characters could be associated with the same event as the first string of characters an earlier event where the second string remains in the array or a later event where the second string replaces or is in addition to strings associated with the last processed even
19. as United States Taylor et al US 20070168451A1 a2 Patent Application Publication ao Pub No US 2007 0168451 Al 43 Pub Date Jul 19 2007 54 76 21 22 60 EVENT NOTIFICATION SYSTEM AND METHOD Inventors Paulo Taylor Amsterdam NL Jan Joost Rueb Amsterdam NL Onno Bakker Amsterdam NL Correspondence Address PERKINS COIE LLP P O BOX 2168 MENLO PARK CA 94026 US Appl Noa 11637 514 Filed Dec 11 2006 Related U S Application Data Provisional application No 60 748 988 filed on Dec 9 2005 100 a Ev ent Queue Publication Classification 51 Int Cl GO6F 15 16 2006 01 A EE 709 207 57 ABSTRACT A technique for user notification involves modifying a title associated with a process to include information about an event that calls for user notification A method according to the technique may include running a process processing an event generating a string of characters that includes infor mation associated with the event and displaying the string of characters as a title associated with the process A system constructed according to the technique may include a client a title array an event processing engine and a title provi sioning engine IM Network 108 IM Server 106 IM Network 108 US 2007 0168451 Al Patent Application Publication Jul 19 2007 Sheet 1 of 11 Old CULL Wat L
20. at is different from the corresponding taskbar item However a display area could display information different from that of the title if con figured appropriately Moreover future browsers may include functionality that allows displaying different titles in the titlebar and the taskbar 0047 The title of the application may or may not keep the changed value until the user takes some action e g clicking on the taskbar item associated with the IM client process For example the original title could be displayed after a certain amount of time has passed e g a new message title could last for 10 seconds before reverting to the original title FIG 5 depicts a flowchart 500 of an example of a method for displaying an event related title In the example of FIG 5 the flowchart 500 starts at module 502 where a browser is opened 0048 In the example of FIG 5 the flowchart 500 con tinues to module 504 a title associated with state of a browser is displayed in association with the browser The state of the browser may include for example a current site for which the browser is displaying a page as is shown in FIGS 3A and 3C In general the title associated with state of the browser includes any title that would normally be displayed in association therewith prior to updating the title in response to an event notification 0049 In the example of FIG 5 the flowchart 500 con tinues to module 506 where an event trigger i
21. continues to module 408 where the IM client process is terminated and the flowchart 400 ends If on the other hand it is determined that the IM client process is not to be terminated 406 N then the flowchart 400 loops back to decision point 404 as described above 0044 Inthe example of FIG 4 eventually assuming the IM client process is not terminated 408 it is determined that an event has been received 404 Y and the flowchart 400 continues to module 410 where the event is processed Events are processed in a known or convenient manner 0045 In the example of FIG 4 the flowchart 400 con tinues to decision point 412 where it is determined whether notification is called for Events may or may not result in notification of a user depending upon the event embodi ment implementation device limitations and or user s IM client configuration If it is determined that user notification is called for 412 Y then the flowchart 400 continues to module 414 where a title associated with the IM client process is modified If on the other hand it is determined that user notification is not called for 412 N or in any case after module 414 the flowchart 400 loops back to decision point 406 as described above 0046 Modifying the title 414 presumably modifies the display in the applicable titlebar and or the display in the applicable taskbar item Conventional browsers typically do not allow setting a title in a titlebar th
22. e embodiments and figures are illustrative rather than limiting they provide examples of the invention 0008 FIG 1 depicts an example of a system for provid ing instant messages to clients via a web interface 0009 FIG 2 depicts an example of a system for display ing content from an IM client at an alternative IM client 0010 FIGS 3A 3D depict examples of screenshots with IM notification functionality 0011 FIG 4 depicts a flowchart of an example of a method for changing a title associated with a titlebar 0012 FIG 5 depicts a flowchart of an example of a method for displaying an event related title 0013 FIG 6 depicts an example of a system for pro grammed text event specific title provisioning 0014 FIG 7 depicts a flowchart of an example of a method for displaying programmed text files 0015 FIG 8 depicts a computer system suitable for implementation of the techniques described above with reference to FIGS 1 7 DETAILED DESCRIPTION 0016 Inthe following description several specific details are presented to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments of the invention One skilled in the relevant art will recognize however that the invention can be practiced without one or more of the specific details or in combination with other components etc In other instances well known implementations or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of various embodiment
23. eb the web The physical connections of the Internet and the protocols and communication procedures are well known but any convenient physical connections or protocols could be used 0019 The server 104 may include a multiple servers Indeed it may be desirable depending upon details of a particular implementation to install several servers to cope with the number of simultaneous users the system 100 supports It may further be desirable depending upon details of a particular implementation for the server 104 to have a high CPU throughput together with large amounts of RAM to handle a large number of users It may further be desirable depending upon details of a particular implemen tation to accomplish resource sharing via thread handling where a pool of threads is shared and used by one or more of the clients 114 for client server communication and between the server 104 and the IM server 106 0020 The server 104 may include one or more of an application server database server web server banners server and content server or any combination thereof To make the most of the techniques described herein the server 104 should though is not required to include at least one application server The other servers can have supporting roles in by way of example but not limitation serving static content or advertising e g banners storing usage data or fulfilling some other known or convenient function 0021 The server 10
24. f the drawings are included within the true spirit and scope of the present invention It is therefore intended that the fol lowing appended claims include all such modifications permutations and equivalents as fall within the true spirit and scope of the present invention 1 A method comprising running a client process processing an event Jul 19 2007 generating a string of characters that includes information associated with the event displaying the string of characters as a title associated with the client process 2 The method of claim 1 wherein the client process includes a browser 3 The method of claim 1 wherein the event is receiving a new instant message 4 The method of claim 1 wherein the string of characters is a second string of characters further comprising generating a first string of characters according to a state of the client process displaying the first string of characters as the title asso ciated with the client process 5 The method of claim 1 wherein the string of characters is a first string of characters further comprising deciding whether to cease displaying the first string of characters as the title associated with the client process displaying a second string of characters if it is decided to cease to display the first string of characters 6 A system comprising a client including a title string embodied in a computer readable medium a title array embodied in a
25. hich may be referred to as secondary memory is often a magnetic hard disk an optical disk or another form of storage for large amounts of data Some of this data is often written by a direct memory access process into memory 812 during execution of software in the computer 802 The non volatile storage 816 may include a block based media device The terms machine readable medium or computer readable medium include any known or convenient storage device that is accessible by the processor 808 and also encompasses a carrier wave that encodes a data signal 0077 The computer system 800 is one example of many possible computer systems which have different architec tures For example personal computers based on an Intel microprocessor often have multiple buses one of which can be an I O bus for the peripherals and one that directly connects the processor 808 and the memory 812 often referred to as a memory bus The buses are connected together through bridge components that perform any nec essary translation due to differing bus protocols 0078 Network computers are another type of computer system that can be used in conjunction with the teachings provided herein Network computers do not usually include a hard disk or other mass storage and the executable programs are loaded from a network connection into the memory 812 for execution by the processor 808 A Web TV system which is known in the art is also considered
26. il Juano N VEL Juano 507 J9NOS WI 801 OMION WI 08 Hod dy OLL 801 anand juan OMEN NI O uang 001 US 2007 0168451 Al Patent Application Publication Jul 19 2007 Sheet 2 of 11 012 Juano 80 4JOMJON WI NE LE SHOMION WI Jo N PTZ Sue J9UIO c Ola CCG SYOMJ9N WI 19470 N bLo SUE 1940 voz OMISN WI CSS SHOMJON INI 12YO CSS Seet IIe 206 Juano 00z US 2007 0168451 Al Patent Application Publication Jul 19 2007 Sheet 3 of 11 como O A E Apeo DE TS Visas a ba iz iv EE Bebik elles US 2007 0168451 Al Patent Application Publication Jul 19 2007 Sheet 4 of 11 EEN ah A URBIS r Ars Lis Apoca DR was ESBY TERE JT er ay talad dh batas kad Kad tt bad ind sed Se ud Ed Kad LL cd Rat cd BA bad Bcd SS GEN PIAR Gray 204 vorisanh e eau US 2007 0168451 Al Patent Application Publication Jul
27. n event processing engine 614 a title provisioning engine 616 a title array 618 a multiplexer 620 and a client 622 The interface 612 may include an implementation specific num ber of different kinds of known or convenient interfaces The input device 602 the network 604 and the output device 606 are coupled to the computer 610 using the interface 612 0055 An event received on the interface 612 from either the input device 602 or the network 604 is provided to the event processing engine 614 for processing in a known or convenient manner The event processing engine 614 may be embodied in a computer readable medium If user notifica tion is desired for the event the user can be notified in any known or convenient manner 0056 Advantageously data associated with the event can also or in the alternative be provided to the title provision US 2007 0168451 Al ing engine 616 The title provisioning engine 616 may be embodied in a computer readable medium In the example of FIG 6 the title provisioning engine 616 inputs title strings which are strings of characters to the title array 618 The title array 618 includes N 1 title array strings embodied in a computer readable medium which are referenced for illustrative purposes as title array string 0 to title array string N 0057 A given event may cause the title provisioning engine 616 to rewrite the entire title array 618 with title strings associated with the mo
28. r other display area is implementation specific Thus the titlebar 312 is simply illustrative When an event message or other data is available to the client the titlebar 312 may change to show information about the event If properly configured the taskbar item 310 and the titlebar 312 could even display different information though in a typical implementation the text is identical albeit often necessarily shortened on the taskbar 0041 The title can be used to notify users of certain events by changing the title of the IM client The changing of the text in the taskbar and or titlebar may stand out from other taskbars and or with fixed texts 0042 FIG 4 depicts a flowchart 400 of an example of a method for changing a title associated with a titlebar and an associated taskbar item if applicable In the example of FIG 4 the flowchart 400 starts at module 402 where an IM client process is running The IM client process may include by way of example but not limitation a browser 0043 In the example of FIG 4 the flowchart 400 con tinues to decision point 404 where it is determined whether US 2007 0168451 Al an event has been received If it is determined that an event has not been received 404 N then the flowchart 400 continues to decision point 406 where it is determined whether to terminate the IM client process If it is deter mined that the IM client process is to be terminated 406 Y then the flowchart 400
29. racters as a title in association with the process with a variation of the first string of characters 17 The method of claim 11 further comprising generat ing the second string of characters as a variation of the first string of characters 18 The method of claim 11 further comprising receiving affirmation that user notification was successful clearing the array 19 The method of claim 11 further comprising repeti tively using the first string of characters as a title in asso ciation with the process 20 The method of claim 11 further comprising using the first string of characters as a title in association with the process one or more times removing the first string of characters from the array
30. received by the server 104 JavaScript code can be injected into the HTML docu ment through the same HTTP socket kept alive and managed by the server 104 For each event or message the browser can interpret the JavaScript code injected and the corre sponding parts of the HTML document and windows will be updated US 2007 0168451 Al 0030 In another embodiment certain of the clients 114 with browsers may make use of manual refreshes Some relatively unsophisticated browsers such as WAP and XHTML browsers often available on mobile phones do not support hidden frames and or JavaScript and others may be configured such that they do not support hidden frames and or JavaScript In such cases the information displayed has to be updated manually by the user Manual updating enables any mobile phone PDA TV Set or any device with a browser to connect to the server 104 and use the messaging platforms made available by the server 104 assuring the communication between the clients 114 and the IM server 106 0031 Message history can be stored by most IM clients on a local computer For alternative web and mobile based clients local storage may not be possible In a non limiting embodiment the server 104 may have the capability to store message history from IM conversations done via one or more of the clients 114 The message history can be accessed and searched at any time via the server 104 by one or more of the clients 114 0032 FIG
31. rm of electrical or magnetic signals US 2007 0168451 Al capable of being stored transferred combined compared and otherwise manipulated It has proven convenient at times principally for reasons of common usage to refer to these signals as bits values elements symbols characters terms numbers or the like 0081 It should be borne in mind however that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appro priate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities Unless specifically stated other wise as apparent from the following discussion it is appre ciated that throughout the description discussions utilizing terms such as processing or computing or calculating or determining or displaying or the like refer to the action and processes of a computer that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical electronic quanti ties within the computer system s registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage transmission or display devices 0082 An apparatus for performing techniques described herein may be specially constructed for the required pur poses or it may comprise a general purpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer Such a computer program may be stored in
32. s of the invention 0017 FIG 1 depicts an example of a system 100 for providing instant messages to clients via a web interface In the example of FIG 1 the system 100 includes a network 102 a server 104 and an Instant Messenger IM server 106 and an IM network 108 The server 104 is coupled to the network at least by way of port 80 The two way commu nication via port 80 is represented in the example of FIG 1 as an arrow 110 The server 104 is coupled to the IM server 106 via one or more other ports The two way communica tion via the other ports is represented in the example of FIG 1 as an arrow 112 The IM server 106 is coupled to the IM network 108 via any known or convenient mechanism Indeed the IM server 106 may be thought of as part of the US 2007 0168451 Al IM network 108 The network 102 couples a plurality of clients 114 1 to 114 N referred to collectively as clients 114 to the server 104 In the example of FIG 1 the server 104 includes an event queue 116 0018 The network 102 may include by way of example but not limitation LAN WAN VLAN WLAN Internet cellular network phone network radio network or some other known or convenient network The term Internet as used herein refers to a network of networks that uses certain protocols such as TCP IP and possibly other protocols such as the hypertext transfer protocol HTTP for hypertext markup language HTML documents that make up the World Wide W
33. s received The event trigger is associated with an event that calls for notifying a user For example the event trigger may include receipt of a new instant message 0050 In the example of FIG 5 the flowchart 500 con tinues to module 508 where a title associated with the event Jul 19 2007 is displayed in association with the browser Thus the title associated with the state of the browser is replaced by the title associated with the event Moreover in a non limiting embodiment the state of the browser is unchanged other than the title of course 0051 In the example of FIG 5 the flowchart 500 con tinues to decision point 510 where it is determined whether to close the browser If the browser is not to be closed 510 N then the flowchart 500 continues to decision point 512 where it is determined whether to continue to display the title associated with the event If so 512 Y then the flowchart 500 loops back to module 508 as described previously If not 512 N then the flowchart 500 loops back to module 504 as described previously The determination as to whether to continue to display the title associated with the event may be based upon by way of example but not limitation a notification timer an event specific timer a user action or some other action that is sufficient to indicate that the title associated with the event should not longer be displayed If on the other hand the browser is to be closed 510
34. sage arrives the taskbar changes 0037 Inthe example of FIG 3B the taskbar includes the Firefox web browser process but the taskbar item 304 appears differently Specifically rather than depicting the site www ebuddy com the taskbar item 304 now indicates that a new message is available The IM notification func tionality may be cool on a desktop but can be particularly useful in other implementations 0038 For example notifying a user when new messages arrive or events happen can gracefully be done by a native IM application However for alternative web clients this is more difficult given the nature of control from within a browser to the Operating System There is less control for alerts like flashing windows etc from browsers In such cases it may be particularly advantageous for a server to be able to provide a user with alerts for new messages or events using the title bar task bar or other display area of a browser 0039 In the example of FIG 3C the Firefox browser is open and the taskbar item 306 indicates the current site is www ebuddv com The titlebar 308 includes similar infor mation If a new message is received then both the titlebar and the taskbar can be changed 0040 Inthe example of FIG 3D the taskbar includes the Firefox web browser with a changed taskbar item 310 The titlebar 312 is also changed to indicate a new message has been received The exact information in a titlebar taskbar o
35. st recent events Alternatively a given event may cause the title provisioning engine 616 to append title strings to the end of the title array 618 In a non limiting embodiment the title provisioning engine 616 updates the current title array 618 by adding new data associated with an event excluding redundant data e g data that is already represented in the title array 618 0058 In the example of FIG 6 the multiplexer 620 selects one of the title array strings for provisioning to the client 622 The multiplexer 620 receives a control signal from the title provisioning engine 616 to accomplish this task The multiplexer 620 is a conceptual construct that is intended to illustrate selecting one of the title array strings using an index to the title array 618 Thus the multiplexer 620 may or may not be embodied in a computer readable medium It should be noted that the multiplexer 620 in at least one embodiment is not a hardware MUX though it could conceivably be implemented as such 0059 In the example of FIG 6 the client 622 includes a title string 624 and a title generator 626 The client 622 may include by way of example but not limitation an IM client an email client a VolP client or some other communica tions related client The client 622 may include a window panel or some other display that includes a title The title generator 626 generates a title for the display in a known or convenient manner 0060 However
36. t The second string of charac ters could also be unassociated with an event For example the second string of characters could be a NULL string that has the effect of causing the first string of characters if provided before and after the second string of characters to blink or flash 0069 In the example of FIG 7 the flowchart 700 con tinues to module 714 where the second string of characters is used as a title in association with the process Then the US 2007 0168451 Al flowchart 700 ends It should be noted that the flowchart 700 simply illustrates a first and second string of characters from the array being used as a title and then ends Of course the flowchart could continue with modules not shown where the first string of characters is repeated as a title another event is processed a third string of characters is provided or with some other applicable module or sequence of modules 0070 FIG 8 depicts a computer system 800 suitable for implementation of the techniques described above with reference to FIGS 1 7 The computer system 800 includes a computer 802 I O devices 804 and a display device 806 The computer 802 includes a processor 808 a communica tions interface 810 memory 812 display controller 814 non volatile storage 816 and I O controller 818 The com puter 802 may be coupled to or include the I O devices 804 and display device 806 0071 The computer 802 interfaces to external systems through
37. the communications interface 810 which may include a modem or network interface The communications interface 810 can be considered to be part of the computer system 800 or a part of the computer 802 The communi cations interface 810 can be an analog modem ISDN modem cable modem token ring interface satellite trans mission interface e g direct PC or other interfaces for coupling a computer system to other computer systems Although conventional computers typically include a com munications interface of some type it is possible to create a computer that does not include one thereby making the communications interface 810 optional in the strictest sense of the word 0072 The processor 808 may include by way of example but not limitation a conventional microprocessor such as an Intel Pentium microprocessor or Motorola power PC micro processor While the processor 808 is a critical component of all conventional computers any applicable known or con venient processor could be used for the purposes of imple menting the techniques described herein The memory 812 is coupled to the processor 808 by a bus 820 The memory 812 which may be referred to as primary memory can include Dynamic Random Access Memory DRAM and can also include Static RAM SRAM The bus 820 couples the processor 808 to the memory 812 and also to the non volatile storage 816 to the display controller 814 and to the YO controller 818 0073
38. tion and a study of the drawings SUMMARY 0005 The following embodiments and aspects thereof are described and illustrated in conjunction with systems tools and methods that are meant to be exemplary and illustrative not limiting in scope In various embodiments one or more of the above described problems have been reduced or eliminated while other embodiments are directed to other improvements 0006 A technique for user notification involves modify ing a title associated with a process to include information about an event that calls for user notification A method according to the technique may include running a process Jul 19 2007 such as by way of example but not limitation an IM client process a browser or some other process that has a title associated therewith The method may further include pro cessing an event such as by way of example but not limitation a new mail event a new instant message event a reminder event a calendar event or some other event and generating a string of characters that includes information associated with the event The method may further include displaying the string of characters as a title associated with the process A system constructed according to the technique may include a client a title array an event processing engine and a title provisioning engine BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0007 Embodiments of the inventions are illustrated in the figures However th
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