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

• US 7,073,121 B2
• Filed: 11/26/2002
• Issued: 07/04/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/30/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Paolini, Michael A., Brown, Michael Wayne, Lawrence, Kelvin Roderick
• Primary Examiner(s): Bashore, William
• Assistant Examiner(s): Blackwell, James H.
• Application Number:
  US10/305,436
• Publication Number:
  US 20030079179A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,316 Days
• Field of Search: 345/838, 715/513, 715/526, 715/501.1, 715/838, 707/10
• US Class Current: 715/205
• 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 of processing requests for pages on the Internet, comprising the steps of:

receiving, at a server, user criteria and a request from a requestor for a page from the Internet, wherein user criteria comprises both positive preferences and negative preferences, and wherein the negative preferences indicate at least one of unwanted material or unwanted characteristics;

retrieving the page requested by the requestor to form a requested page;

parsing the requested page for a set of links to a set of linked web pages associated with the page;

retrieving the set of linked pages;

parsing the set of linked pages for the negative preferences;

responsive to finding the negative preferences on a linked page within the set of linked pages, modifying the requested page to indicate a presence of the negative preferences on the linked page;

parsing the set of linked pages for the positive preferences;

responsive to finding the positive preferences on the linked page within the set of linked pages, modifying the requested page to indicate a presence of the positive preferences on the linked page; and

sending a modified page to the requestor, wherein the modified page contains modifications to the requested page that indicate a presence of positive preferences and negative preferences found on the set of the linked pages associated with the requested page.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the requested page is modified in different manners responsive to finding different user criteria on respective linked pages.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, 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 requestor;

wherein the indicator indicates that the link is inactive.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

parsing the set of 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 user criteria on a linked page within the second set of linked pages, modifying a respective linked page in the set of linked pages to indicate the presence of the second user criteria on the linked page within the second set of linked pages.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the steps of generating a thumbnail of each of the linked pages.

6. The method as recited in claim 5, further comprising providing an indicator over a respective thumbnail to indicate the presence of the user criteria on a respective linked page.

7. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the thumbnail is modified to indicate the presence of the user criteria on a respective linked page.

8. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the thumbnail is modified to indicate the absence of the user criteria on a respective linked page.

9. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the thumbnail is replaced with a different image to indicate the presence of the user criteria on a respective linked page.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein all the linked pages within the set of linked pages associated with the requested page are parsed for negative preferences and positive preferences.

11. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the thumbnail is replaced with a blank image.

12. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the thumbnail is presented proximate to a respective link to a linked page.

13. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein positive preferences and negative preferences are selected from the group consisting of key words, subject matter, a size of a web page, a number of links, a number of images, a total size of images, music, Video, a JavaScript, a Java Applet, a domain name suffix, an author, a speed of download, a web page security, a date of information, and a date of creation.

14. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein modifying the page to indicate the presence of user criteria comprises indicating the absence of positive preferences and negative preferences.

15. A computer program product in a computer readable medium for processing requests for pages on the Internet, said computer program product comprising:

instructions for receiving, at a server, user criteria and a request from a requestor for a page from the Internet, wherein user criteria comprises both positive preferences and negative preferences, and wherein the negative preferences indicate at least one of unwanted material or unwanted characteristics;

instructions for retrieving the page requested by the requestor to form a requested page;

instructions for parsing the requested page for a set of links to a set of linked web pages associated with the page;

instructions for retrieving the set of linked pages;

instructions for parsing the set of linked pages for negative preferences;

instructions for responsive to finding the negative preferences on a linked page within the set of linked pages, modifying the requested page to indicate a presence of the negative preferences on the linked page;

instructions for parsing the set of linked pages for the positive preferences;

instructions for responsive to finding the positive preferences on the linked page within the set of linked pages, modifying the requested page to indicate a presence of the positive preferences on the linked page; and

instructions for sending a modified page to the requestor, wherein the modified page contains modifications to the reqested page that indicate a presence of positive preferences and negative preferences found on the linked pages associated with the requested page.

16. A system for processing requests for pages on the Internet, said system comprising:

a storage device coupled to a bus, wherein the storage device contains a computer usable program product;

a communications unit coupled to the bus; and

a processor unit coupled to the bus, wherein the processor unit executes the computer usable program code to receive user criteria and a request from a requestor for a page from the Internet, and wherein user criteria comprises both positive preferences and negative preferences, and wherein the negative preferences indicate at least one of unwanted material or unwanted characteristics;

retrieve the page requested by the requestor to form a requested page;

parse the requested page for a set of links to a set of linked web pages associated with the page;

retrieve the set of linked pages;

parse the set of linked pages for negative preferences;

modify the requested page to indicate a presence of the negative preferences on the linked page in response to finding the negative preferences on a linked page within the set of linked pages;

parse the set of linked pages for the positive preferences;

modify the requested page to indicate a presence of the positive preferences on the linked page, in response to finding the positive preferences on the linked page within the set of linked pages; and

send a modified page to the requestor, wherein the modified page contains modifications to the requested page that indicate a presence of positive preferences and negative preferences found on the linked pages associated with the requested page.