Web page thumbnails and user configured complementary information provided from a server

• US 20040064471A1
• Filed: 09/15/2003
• Published: 04/01/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 07/30/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kelvin Roderick Lawrence, Michael A. Paolini, Michael Wayne Brown
• Original Assignee: Kelvin Roderick Lawrence, Michael A. Paolini, Michael Wayne Brown
• Inventors: Paolini, Michael A., Brown, Michael Wayne, Lawrence, Kelvin Roderick
• Granted Patent: US 7,167,875 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A method for presenting content from the page in a distributed database. In a preferred embodiment, a server receives a request from a client for a page from the database wherein the page has a plurality of links to linked pages in the database. The server retrieves the page and generates a set of thumbnails of the linked pages in the database. The server then sends the page and the set of thumbnails to the client.

Claims

1. A method for presenting content from a page in a distributed database, comprising the steps of:

receiving, at a server, a request from a client for a page from the database, wherein the page has a plurality of links to linked pages in the database;

retrieving the page; and

generating, by the server, a set of thumbnails of the linked pages in the database.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the step of sending the page and the set of thumbnails to the client.

3. The method as recited in claim 2 wherein the thumbnails are manually fine tuned on the server prior to the step of sending the set of thumbnails to the client.

4. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein the page is modified by embedding the set of thumbnails into the page prior to sending the page to the client.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising selectively replacing the thumbnails by icons.

6. A computer program product in computer readable media for use in a proxy server for providing content from the page in a distributed database, the computer program product comprising:

first instructions for receiving, at a server, a request from a client for a page from the database wherein the page has a plurality of links to linked pages in the database;

second instructions for retrieving the page; and

third instructions for generating a set of thumbnails of the linked pages in the database.

7. The computer program product as recited in claim 6, further comprising fourth instructions for sending the page and the set of thumbnails to the client.

8. The computer program product as recited in claim 7 wherein the thumbnails are manually fine tuned on the server prior to sending the set of thumbnails to the client.

9. The computer program product as recited in claim 7, wherein the page is modified by embedding the set of thumbnails into the page prior to sending the page to the client.

10. The computer program product as recited in claim 6, further comprising fourth instructions for selectively replacing the thumbnails by icons.

11. A system for providing content from the page in a distributed database, comprising:

means for receiving, at a server, a request from a client for a page from the database wherein the page has a plurality of links to linked pages in the database;

means for retrieving the page; and

means for generating a set of thumbnails of the linked pages in the database.

12. The system as recited in claim 11, further comprising means for sending the page and the set of thumbnails to the client.

13. The system as recited in claim 12 wherein the thumbnails are manually fine tuned on the server prior to sending the set of thumbnails to the client.

14. The system as recited in claim 12, wherein the page is modified by embedding the set of thumbnails into the page prior to sending the page to the client.

15. The system as recited in claim 11, further comprising means for selectively replacing the thumbnails by icons.

16. A method for providing content from the page in a distributed database, comprising the steps of:

providing a page of data from the database to a client, wherein the page has a plurality of links to linked pages in the database; and

generating a set of thumbnails for the plurality of links.

17. The method as recited in claim 16, further comprising embedding the thumbnails into the page prior to providing the page to the client.

18. The method as recited in claim 17, further comprising manually fine tuning the thumbnails prior to embedding the thumbnails into the page.

19. The method as recited in claim 16, further comprising:

selectively replacing the thumbnails by icons; and

embedding the icons into the page prior to providing the thumbnails to the client.

20. The method as recited in claim 19 wherein the icons are manually determined by the owner of the linked page associated with each icon.

21. A computer network, comprising:

a network;

a server connected to the network; and

a client connected to the network;

wherein

the network provides communications between the client and the server;

the server provides to the client a page of data from a database wherein the page has a plurality of links to linked pages in the database; and

the server generates and embeds in the page a set of thumbnails of the linked pages in the database.

22. The network as recited in claim 21, wherein the set of thumbnails are manually fine tuned prior to being embedded in the page.

23. The network as recited in claim 21, wherein the thumbnails are selectively replaced by icons and the icons embedded in the page prior to providing the page to the client.

24. A method of processing requests for pages on the Internet, comprising the steps of:

receiving, at a server, from a client, user criteria and a request for a page from the Internet and ;

retrieving the page and parsing the page for a set of links to a set of linked web pages;

retrieving the set of linked pages;

parsing the set of linked pages for user criteria;

responsive to finding the user criteria on a linked page within the set of linked pages, modifying the page to indicate the presence of the user criteria on the linked page; and

sending a modified page to the client.

25. The method as recited in claim 24, wherein at least two different user criteria are present and the page is modified in different manners responsive to finding the different criteria on respective linked pages.

26. The method as recited in claim 24, further comprising the steps of placing an indicator in page proximate to each link to an inactive site prior to sending the page to the client;

wherein the indicator indicates that the link is inactive.

27. The method as recited in claim 24, further comprising the steps of:

parsing the linked pages for a second set of links to a second set of linked web pages;

parsing the second set of linked pages for a second user criteria; and

responsive to finding the second criteria on a linked page within the second set of linked pages, modifying the page to indicate the presence of the second criteria on the linked page within the second set of linked pages.

28. The method as recited in claim 24, further comprising the steps of generating a thumbnail of each of the linked pages.

29. The method as recited in claim 28, further comprising providing an indicator over a respective thumbnail to indicate the presence of the user criteria on a respective linked page.

30. The method as recited in claim 28, wherein the thumbnail is modified to indicate the presence of the criteria on a respective linked page.

31. The method as recited in claim 28, wherein the thumbnail is modified to indicate the absence of the criteria on a respective linked page.

32. The method as recited in claim 28, wherein the thumbnail is replaced with a different image to indicate the presence of the criteria on a respective linked page.

33. The method as recited in claim 28, wherein the thumbnail is replaced with a different image.

34. The method as recited in claim 28,.wherein the thumbnail is replaced with a blank image.

35. The method as recited in claim 28, wherein the thumbnail is presented proximate to a respective link to a linked page.