Method, apparatus, and computer program product for indexing, synchronizing and searching digital data

• US 20060080303A1
• Filed: 10/07/2005
• Published: 04/13/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Moore, David, Willhite, Daniel L., Upson, Linus, Sargent, Antony John, Kay, Erik Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 8,126,895 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/31 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures

Abstract

A system, method and computer program product provide a search module for searching digital data. The search module operates, according to an embodiment, by indexing stored data without interrupting use of the stored data, synchronizing the indexed data with data stored subsequent to the indexing step, searching at least one of the synchronized data and the indexed data, and outputting results of the searching step.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

indexing stored data without interrupting use of the stored data;

synchronizing the indexed data with data stored subsequent to the indexing step;

searching at least one of the synchronized data and the indexed data; and

outputting results of the searching step.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising compressing the stored data prior to the indexing step.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the compressing step comprises at least one of stemming, phonetic coding, and Levenshtein techniques.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the indexing step comprises using historical searching criteria to categorize the stored data.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the indexing step is performed during time periods during which the stored data is not accessed.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the indexing step is performed during a plurality of time segments; and

the indexing step being a subsequent time segment using a last file indexed from a previous time segment.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the stored data comprises a message.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the message is at least one of email, tasks, contacts, notes, journal entries, messages, and appointments.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the synchronizing step is performed during use of the stored data.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the stored data is accessed during at least one of the indexing, synchronizing, and searching steps via a network.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the synchronizing step occurs when the network is online.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprises determining whether the network is online and wherein the synchronizing step is performed only if the network is online.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the synchronizing step is performed at least one of continuously, periodically, and after detection of a predetermined event.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the predetermined event is at least one of creating, deleting, updating, moving, and copying of the stored data.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the predetermined event is powering up a storage device in which the stored data is stored.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the synchronizing step comprises:

monitoring for movement of sets of the stored data from a first set storage location to a second set storage location; and

synchronizing the first set storage location to the second set storage location instead of individual ones of the stored data.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein when the stored data moves from a source to a destination location the synchronization step comprises synchronizing based on information correlating to the stored data.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining what actions have occurred to the stored data since a previous performance of the synchronizing step; and

basing subsequent performance of the synchronizing step on the determining step.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the stored data in folders;

scanning the stored data in one of the folders at a first time period;

scanning the store data in the one of the folders at a second time period;

compiling a list of the stored data that changed between the first and second time periods; and

using the list to perform the synchronizing step.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein when several actions occur to one of the stored data within a specified time period the synchronization step is delayed until a certain time elapses between actions and then the synchronization step is performed based on a last action to the stored data.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein an oldest time period of one of the stored data is synchronized with a most recent time period of the one of the stored data during the synchronization step.

22. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

organizing the stored data in folders;

organizing the folders in an order correlating to most used to least used; and

performing the indexing step based on the order.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the most used folder comprises the folder with a most amount of the stored data.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein the most used folder comprises the folder having a last modified one of the stored data.

25. The method of claim 1, wherein the searching and outputting steps are performed during the indexing step.

26. The method of claim 1, wherein the indexing steps comprises:

processing the stored data to find fields present in the stored data; and

forming categories based on the fields.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the fields comprise at least one of subject, body, logical fields, from, to, cc, bcc, type, size, attachments, last modified date, and first modified date of each one of the stored data.

28. The method of claim 26, wherein the fields comprises at least one of stemming, phonetic coding, and Levenshtein parameters associated with each of the stored data.

29. The method of claim 26, wherein the processing includes determining a language of the stored data.

30. The method of claim 26, wherein the processing includes filtering the stored data to remove unwanted types of the stored data.

31. The method of claim 1, wherein the outputting step comprises outputting results in an output format that allows for subsequent searching.

32. The method of claim 1, wherein the outputting step comprises outputting statistical results.

33. The method of claim 1, wherein the storage device is coupled to at least one of an email system, an Internet system, and a computer system.

34. The method of claim 1, wherein the searching step comprises allowing for autocompletion of search terms.

35. A computer program product comprising a computer useable medium having computer program logic stored thereon for controlling at least one processor, the computer program logic comprising:

first computer program code means for causing said at least one processor to index stored data without interrupting use of the stored data;

second computer program code means for causing said at least one processor to synchronize the indexed data with data stored subsequent to the operation of the first computer program code means;

third computer program code means for causing said at least one processor to search at least one of the synchronized data and the indexed data; and

fourth computer program code means for causing said at least one processor to output results of the search.

36. A system, comprising:

a controller;

at least one storage device that stores initial data, indexed data, and synchronized data under control of the controller; and

a graphical user interface, controlled by the controller, that enables a user to enter search commands; and

a search module that searches at least one of the indexed data and the synchronized data, wherein the graphical user interface displays the results of the search module.

37. The system of claim 36, wherein the graphical user interface includes one or more search areas in which the search commands are entered.

38. The system of claim 36, wherein the search areas include an area that allows for choosing of one or more of the at least one storage device to be searched.

39. The system of claim 38, wherein the one or more of the at least one storage devices include at least one of an email storage device, an Internet storage device, and local storage device.

40. The system of claim 36, wherein the graphical user interface displays the results in a format that shows how many of the results were found in each one of the at least one storage device.

41. The system of claim 36, wherein the graphical user interface displays the results in a format that highlights the search commands within the results.

42. The system of claim 36, wherein the graphical user interface displays the results in a format that allows for further searching through interaction with the displayed results.

43. The system of claim 36, wherein the graphical user interface displays the results along with additional information associated with the results.

44. The system of claim 43, wherein the additional information is advertisements.

45. The system of claim 36, wherein the controller processes the search such that the displayed results link the user from a chosen one of the at least one storage devices to another one of the at least one storage devices.

46. A system, comprising:

means for indexing stored data without interrupting use of the stored data;

means for synchronizing the indexed data with data stored subsequent to the indexing of the stored data;

means for searching at one of the synchronized data or the indexed data; and

means for outputting results of the searching.