System and method for providing links to available services over a network

• US 20020184370A1
• Filed: 06/04/2001
• Published: 12/05/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 06/04/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Simpson, Shell S., Foster, Ward S.
• Granted Patent: US 7,085,807 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/567 Integrating service provisioning from a plurality of service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

A system and method for providing links to services available to an operably connected local computer over a network. The present invention includes a thin portal service for finding services available to the local computer, a thin portal service web content created by the thin portal service for returning links to the discovered available services, and a web browser installed on the local computer for displaying the thin portal service content.

Claims

1. A system for providing links to services available to an operably connected local computer over a network, comprising:

a thin portal service for finding services available to said local computer;

a thin portal service web content created by said thin portal service for returning links to the discovered available services; and

,

a web browser installed on said local computer for displaying said thin portal service content.

2. The system as defined in claim 1 wherein said thin portal service queries the network for information on the current environment.

3. The system as defined in claim 2 wherein said thin portal service queries the network by determining any one from the following group of network information:

network information on the current environment of the local computer;

active network address of the local computer;

available communication with the public Internet by the local computer;

available communication with the public Internet by a web proxy server connected to said local computer;

available services located on the local area network;

type of available services located on the local area network; and

,

available devices located on the local area network.

4. The system as defined in claim 1 wherein said thin portal service creates said thin portal web content providing links to the discovered available services.

5. The system as defined in claim 1 further comprising a personal imaging repository for storing imaging data to be used by the available services, wherein said personal imaging repository is an exchange infrastructure between the imaging data and the available services.

6. The system as defined in claim 5 wherein said personal imaging repository is associated through user information stored with said personal imaging repository.

7. The system as defined in claim 6 wherein said user information is available through an extension component.

8. The system as defined in claim 5 wherein said personal imaging repository stores the imaging data in a plurality of file formats.

9. The system as defined in claim 8 wherein said file format is any one from the group consisting of:

Joint Photographic Experts Group Format;

Graphics Interchange Format;

Portable Network Graphics Format;

Tagged Image File Format;

Portable Document Format; and

,

Microsoft Windows bitmap format.

10. The system as defined in claim 5 wherein said personal imaging repository comprises an imaging data store for storing imaging data.

11. The system as defined in claim 10 wherein said imaging data store is assigned to a user associated with said personal imaging repository for storing imaging data for user usage.

12. The system as defined in claim 10 wherein said imaging data store is assigned to a web service for storing imaging data available to the public.

13. The system as defined in claim 5 wherein said personal imaging repository comprises a composition store for storing imaging compositions of the imaging data that are serviced as a single unit.

14. The system as defined in claim 13 wherein said imaging composition comprises a link reference for each imaging data.

15. The system as defined in claim 5 wherein one of the available services is an imaging source service for accessing said personal imaging repository assigned to a particular user profile.

16. The system as defined in claim 5 wherein one of the available services is an imaging destination service for providing service to the assigned user of the personal imaging repository.

20. The method according to claim 19 wherein said step of finding links to available services further comprising the steps of:

querying network information on the current environment of the local computer; and

,

determining the active network address of the local computer;

21. The method according to claim 19 wherein said step of finding services further comprising the step of discovering available services on the local area network.

22. The method according to claim 19 wherein said step of finding services further comprising the step of determining whether the local computer is connected to any available devices.

23. The method according to claim 19 wherein said step of finding services further comprising the steps of:

determining whether the local computer can communicate with the public internet; and

,

determining whether there is a web proxy server connected to the local computer for communicating with the public Internet.

17. A local computer for providing links to services available over a network, comprising:

a thin portal service for finding available services that are operably connected to the local computer;

a thin portal service web content for returning links to the discovered available services to said local computer;

a web browser installed on said local computer for displaying said thin portal service content; and

,

a personal imaging repository for storing imaging data to be serviced by the available services;

wherein said personal imaging repository is an exchange infrastructure between the imaging data and the available services.

18. A server computer for providing links to services available to an operably connected local computer over a network, comprising:

a thin portal service for finding services available to said local computer;

a thin portal service web content created by said thin portal service for returning links to the discovered available services; and

,

a web browser installed on said local computer for displaying said thin portal service content.

19. A method for providing links to services available to an operably connected local computer over a network, said method comprising the steps of:

finding services available to the local computer;

creating a thin portal service web content for returning links to the discovered available services; and

,

displaying said thin portal service content on the local computer.

24. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program codes embodied in the medium that when executed causes a computer to:

find services available to the local computer;

create a thin portal service web content for returning links to the discovered available services; and

,

display said thin portal service content on the local computer.

25. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program codes embodied in the medium that when installed in a server computer, the product causes the server computer to:

find services available to the local computer; and

,

create a thin portal service web content for returning links to the discovered available services.

26. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program codes embodied in the medium that, when installed in a local computer, the product causes the local computer to:

find services available to the local computer;

create a thin portal service web content for returning links to the discovered available services; and

,

display said thin portal service content on the local computer.