Update checking and synchronization for link and offline data
First Claim
1. A method comprising:
- displaying by a local computing device, user selectable options related to maintaining copies of documents stored on a storage media of a remote computing device on a storage media of the local computing device, wherein the copies of the documents stored on the local computing device are referenced by one or more selectable links presented by the local computing device, the selectable links comprising a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and a plurality of off-line reading properties, the plurality of off-line reading properties comprising;
an update checking property,a local caching property,a number of levels deep property, anda download dependencies property;
in response to a user selecting one or more documents stored on the remote computing device and setting the update checking property, scheduling an update check of the documents stored on the remote computing device, wherein the update check comprises;
retrieving a listing of properties associated with a particular document of the one or more documents stored on the remote computing device;
determining if the listing of properties describes differences between the particular document stored on the remote computing device and a corresponding copy of the particular document stored on the local computing device;
responsive to the listing of properties not describing a difference or being unavailable, calculating a Cyclical Redundancy Check (CRC) checksum for the particular document stored on the remote computing device;
determining if the particular document stored on the remote computing device is different than the copy of the particular document stored on the local computing device using the listing of properties and the CRC checksum;
responsive to determining that the particular document stored on the remote computing device has changed, storing on a storage medium associated with the local computing device, a copy of the particular document stored on the remote computing device;
accepting user input specifying that the update check should be performed when a network connection on the local computing device is determined to be idle, wherein the update check occurs when the network connection has been idle longer than an idle time threshold interval, wherein documents on the remote computing device that have short expected durations of download time are copied at a beginning of an idle period and documents on the remote computing device that have long expected durations of download time are copied after the idle period has exceeded a predefined idle time threshold interval; and
responsive to an affirmative value of the download dependencies property, downloading from the remote computing device and storing on a storage medium associated with the local computing device, a copy of resources related to the particular document stored on the remote computing device.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A computer system includes an object oriented framework that provides a set of application integration interfaces that support programmatic updating operations for maintaining locally stored copies of resources such as hypertext document pages from remote servers on a computer network. The updating operations continually check for updates to the data at the remote server and download updated versions of the resources to maintain concurrency of the locally stored copy. The updating operations are performed while a connection to the remote network is left idle, to maximize usage of on-line connection time. The updating operations also can be programmatically scheduled by a client program of the updating operations. The updating operations include updating the contents of a folder or directory in a local file system as specified in a file at a remote server on the network, and providing automatically updating and populating groups of sites or document pages organized by category.
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Citations
15 Claims
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1. A method comprising:
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displaying by a local computing device, user selectable options related to maintaining copies of documents stored on a storage media of a remote computing device on a storage media of the local computing device, wherein the copies of the documents stored on the local computing device are referenced by one or more selectable links presented by the local computing device, the selectable links comprising a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and a plurality of off-line reading properties, the plurality of off-line reading properties comprising; an update checking property, a local caching property, a number of levels deep property, and a download dependencies property; in response to a user selecting one or more documents stored on the remote computing device and setting the update checking property, scheduling an update check of the documents stored on the remote computing device, wherein the update check comprises; retrieving a listing of properties associated with a particular document of the one or more documents stored on the remote computing device; determining if the listing of properties describes differences between the particular document stored on the remote computing device and a corresponding copy of the particular document stored on the local computing device; responsive to the listing of properties not describing a difference or being unavailable, calculating a Cyclical Redundancy Check (CRC) checksum for the particular document stored on the remote computing device; determining if the particular document stored on the remote computing device is different than the copy of the particular document stored on the local computing device using the listing of properties and the CRC checksum; responsive to determining that the particular document stored on the remote computing device has changed, storing on a storage medium associated with the local computing device, a copy of the particular document stored on the remote computing device; accepting user input specifying that the update check should be performed when a network connection on the local computing device is determined to be idle, wherein the update check occurs when the network connection has been idle longer than an idle time threshold interval, wherein documents on the remote computing device that have short expected durations of download time are copied at a beginning of an idle period and documents on the remote computing device that have long expected durations of download time are copied after the idle period has exceeded a predefined idle time threshold interval; and responsive to an affirmative value of the download dependencies property, downloading from the remote computing device and storing on a storage medium associated with the local computing device, a copy of resources related to the particular document stored on the remote computing device. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3)
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4. A method comprising:
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identifying one or more Internet shortcuts maintained on a local computing device, each particular Internet shortcut comprising a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and a plurality of off-line reading properties, the plurality of off-line reading properties comprising; an update checking property having a Boolean value, a local caching property having a Boolean value, a number of levels deep property having an integer value, a download dependencies property having an Boolean value, and a download size limit property having an integer value; responsive to an affirmative value of the update checking property, scheduling an update check of a remote resource available from a remote computing device, the remote resource being identified by the URL associated with the Internet shortcut associated with the update checking property; responsive to an affirmative value of the local caching property, determining if the remote resource identified by the URL is different from a copy of the remote resource being stored on a storage media associated with the local computing device; responsive to an affirmative result of the determining, downloading the remote resource to a storage media associated with the local computing device, wherein the downloading is limited to occurring when application software on the local computing device has not transmitted data to, or received data from, a network application programming interface for longer than an idle time threshold interval, wherein the idle time threshold interval is based on a size of the remote resource to be downloaded and a bandwidth of the network connection, wherein the downloading is initiated at a beginning of an idle period when the remote resource has a short expected duration of download time and wherein the downloading is initiated after the idle period has exceeded a predefined duration of the idle time threshold interval when the remote resource has a long expected duration of download time; and removing from the local computing device, copies of remote resources that are no longer available from the remote computing device from which they were downloaded. - View Dependent Claims (5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method comprising:
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identifying by a client computing device one or more local folders stored on a storage media associated with the client computing device, wherein the one or more local folders are associated with a specification file located on a remote server, wherein the specification file comprises a plurality of entries, each particular entry of the plurality of entries comprising one or more Internet shortcut entries, wherein each Internet shortcut entry comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), an associated local name for the Internet shortcut, and an off-line reading property comprising an update checking property, a local caching property, and a download dependencies property; scheduling an update check of the plurality of entries in the specification file if the update checking property is set, the update check comprising; determining whether or not resources referenced by each particular entry in the specification file have changed; and responsive to an affirmative result of the determining and responsive to an affirmative value of the local caching property, updating the contents of the one or more local folders with the resources referenced by each particular entry, wherein the updating occurs when a connection to a network application programming interface has been idle longer than an idle time threshold interval, wherein the updating is initiated at a beginning of an idle period for resources with short expected durations of download time and the updating is initiated after the idle period has exceeded a predefined duration of the idle time threshold interval for resources with long expected durations of download time; and responsive to an affirmative value of the download dependencies property, downloading and caching copies of additional resources subordinately related to each of the resources referenced by each particular entry in the specification file. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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Specification