Alternate procedures assisting computer users in solving problems related to error and informational messages

• US 20100115348A1
• Filed: 07/29/2009
• Published: 05/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Frank Van Gilluwe
• Original Assignee: Frank Van Gilluwe
• Inventors: Gilluwe, Frank van
• Granted Patent: US 8,645,760 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/453 Help systems

Abstract

The invention monitors display (error) messages from software programs presented to users and looks for items of interest. When detected, the text of the message is collected along with source of the message, and other details. This data is checked against a database of Messages, either locally, or networked to a remote database. If the issue has not been previously detected it is added to the database. If the message had been detected previously, counters recording frequency of occurrence. Then an option to see additional information is provided. If selected the database returns all the information it has on this specific issue. Also, additionally created content that normally does not exist in the message such as which application and vendor issued the message, frequency of occurrence, and vendor contact information. Additional content such as a detailed description and solutions that were manually created is included in the results to the user. The user can perform additional research and the collected information can be emailed to another user or company.

Claims

1. A system for assisting a computer user receiving a display message on a networked computational device:

a message detection executable module, located and executed on said user'"'"'s computational device, said message detection module receiving message information from said display message;

a display emulator executable module, located and executed on said user'"'"'s computation device, wherein when said display emulated load display information and presents a virtual display message with all the features of said display message with at least the addition of an activation button, wherein said when a user chooses said activation button, an outside network engine is contacted by sending said message information to said outside network engine;

a networked data collection server connection to said outside network engine, including with an issues database, for storing message information detected from said message information;

an issue weighting module, executable on said networked data collection server;

said issue weighting module counting error types from said message information and rearranging data within said issue database after receiving said message information, including a compilation of said message information;

a networked web server for providing assistance data to said user, for displaying said re-weighted information to said user on said user'"'"'s computation device.

a data storage for display information.

2. A method for assisting a computer user with problem-solving a software error on a computational device, comprising the steps of:

implementing and executing monitoring instructions on said computational device for detecting a software error in an executable program, and determining a set of error parameters based on said software error;

displaying, on said computational device, an option to access and display a set of assistance instructions;

if said user chooses said option to access said set of assistance instructions, then accessing said set of assistance instructions based on set of error parameters;

said set of assistance instructions stored on a networked server and accessed via network by said computational device;

weighting, on a second computational device connected to said network server, said set of said assistance instructions based on said set of error parameters;

displaying a set of assistance instructions on said computational device based on said weighting step;

adding to store of assistance instructions to said software error parameters on said networked server;

re-weighting said assistance instructions based on any user-implemented actions following said displaying step and said set of error parameters.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein said displaying step includes determining the display characteristics of said executable program and mimicking said display characteristics in said executable program performing said displaying option step.

4. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein displaying a set of assistance instructions includes displaying a set of links.

5. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein said displaying a set of assistance instructions includes screen shots with blurred out areas that change for each user.

6. The method as recited in claim 2, further including the step of emailing said assistance instructions to remote party via network.

7. A method for displaying information related to an display message from an executable software program on a computational device.

detecting one of said display messages from any of said software program(s);

extracting parametric information from a said display message;

determining that said display message is information, error or warning;

saving said display message content and related information to data storage;

incrementing a frequency of occurrence counter;

displaying said message with an additional solution button on said computational device;

if said solution button is selected by a user, then;

displaying said saved information;

sending said parametric information to a database via a network;

checking said database for more information based on said parametric information, and if said more information is available then sending said more information via network to said computational device and displaying description solutions on said computational device.

8. The method for displaying information related to an display message as recited in claim 7, further comprising the step of emailing alert other users to a specific problem or assist a corporate help desk.

9. (canceled)