Identifying changes to media-device contents

• US 8,769,033 B2
• Filed: 03/03/2006
• Issued: 07/01/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Manders, Blake D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Choudhury, Azizul
• Assistant Examiner(s): NAJEE-ULLAH, TARIQ S
• Application Number:
  US11/368,145
• Publication Number:
  US 20070208818A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,042 Days
• Field of Search: 709/208, 709/221
• US Class Current: 709/208
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes

Abstract

A method to expose information about a set of data objects to a master device is provided. A benchmark sequence indicator is used in connection with a set of sequence indicators that are each related to data objects (such as media files on a device) to satisfy multiple independent requests for information about certain objects that satisfy sequence criteria conveyed from multiple requesting applications. An embodied data structure includes a set of properties associated with a data object as well as a sequence-identification field that also corresponds to the data object and that is populated with an object sequence indicator that indicates when a change occurred to the data object.

Claims

1. A method of utilizing an object-based protocol for communicating between a master device and a slave device, the method comprising:

facilitating a communications link with said slave device, said slave device including,

(1) one or more objects on said slave device that are respectively associated with a set of corresponding object sequence indicators, wherein the object sequence indicator is a value within a set of values that for any two values, a later value is at least as extreme as a preceding value; and

(2) a current maximum-sequence-value indicator that indicates the largest object sequence indicator on said slave device;

communicating a request initiated by a requesting application on the master device for information about objects on the slave device based on a former maximum-sequence-value indicator corresponding to the requesting application, which indicates when the slave device formerly communicated with the master device, wherein said former maximum-sequence-value indicator is provided by said master device in association with the request;

receiving information that satisfies the request, wherein the received information is communicated to the master device from the slave device, wherein the received information is related to objects that satisfy said request initiated by the requesting application, wherein the received information is determined based on utilizing the former maximum-sequence-value indicator and the object sequence indicators, wherein utilizing the former maximum-sequence-value indicator and the object sequence indicators includes determining a first set of objects whose corresponding object sequence indicator exceeds said former maximum-sequence-value indicator, and further wherein the received information is communicated to the master device based on the request initiated by the requesting application on the master device, and further wherein the received information comprises one or more of;

(1) references to said first set of objects communicated to said master device, and

(2) said first set of objects communicated to said master device; and

updating the former maximum-sequence-value indicator corresponding to the requesting application with the current maximum-sequence-value indicator, wherein updating the former maximum-sequence-value indicator comprises receiving from the slave device its current maximum-sequence-value indicator and storing it as said former maximum-sequence-value indicator for the requesting application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said master device includes a computing device and wherein said slave device includes a media-playing device.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the media-playing device is a device that plays one or more of audio files, video files, or data files.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying a set of objects that were deleted from said master device.

5. One or more computer storage devices storing machine-readable media having embodied thereon a set of one or more data objects, a data structure respectively associated with each data object, and a maximum-sequence-value indicator associated with the set of one or more data objects to assist in presenting information related to the data object(s), the data structure comprising:

a first set of properties associated with a first data object; and

a sequence-identification field that also corresponds to the first object and that is populated with;

(1) an object sequence indicator that indicates when a change occurred to the first data object in relation to the maximum-sequence-value indicator, the change including one or more of a creation of a new data object and a change to a property associated with the object; and

(2) indications of deleted objects that include corresponding object sequence indicators that indicate when an object was deleted relative at least to the maximum-sequence-value indicator;

wherein the maximum-sequence-value indicator is updated to be at least as extreme as any of the object sequence indicators of the data structure(s),

wherein a method, utilizing an object-based protocol for communicating between a master device and a slave device, for identifying one or more of newly created objects, modified objects, or deleted objects of said slave device comprises utilizing said machine-readable media, wherein said method comprises;

facilitating a communications link with said slave device, said slave device including,

(1) one or more objects on said slave device that are respectively associated with a set of corresponding object sequence indicators, wherein the object sequence indicator is a value within a set of values that for any two values, a later value is at least as extreme as a preceding value; and

(2) a current maximum-sequence-value indicator that indicates the largest object sequence indicator on said slave device;

communicating a request initiated by a requesting application on the master device for information about objects on the slave device based on a former maximum-sequence-value indicator corresponding to the requesting application, which indicates when the slave device formerly communicated with the master device, wherein said former maximum-sequence-value indicator is provided by said master device in association with the request;

receiving information that satisfies the request, wherein the received information is communicated to the master device from the slave device, wherein the received information is related to objects that satisfy said request initiated by the requesting application, wherein the received information is determined based on utilizing the former maximum-sequence-value indicator and the object sequence indicators, wherein utilizing the former maximum-sequence-value indicator and the object sequence indicators includes determining a first set of objects whose corresponding object sequence indicator exceeds said former maximum-sequence-value indicator, and further wherein the received information is communicated to the master device based on the request initiated by the requesting application on the master device, and further wherein the received information comprises one or more of;

(1) references to said first set of objects communicated to said master device, and

(2) said first set of objects communicated to said master device; and

updating the former maximum-sequence-value indicator corresponding to the requesting application with the current maximum-sequence-value indicator, wherein updating the former maximum-sequence-value indicator comprises receiving from the slave device its current maximum-sequence-value indicator and storing it as said former maximum-sequence-value indicator for the requesting application.

6. One or more machine-readable computer storage devices having a set of machine-readable instructions embodied thereon that when processed by a slave device cause it to perform a method of exposing information about a set of data objects to one or more requesting applications running on a master device, the method comprising:

receiving, by a slave device, a plurality of independent object-information requests from the requesting applications on the master device, each of the object-information requests being for information about at least a portion of the data objects in the set of data objects on the salve device, wherein each of the object-information requests are based on a former maximum-sequence-value indicator corresponding to the requesting applications, wherein the former-maximum-sequence-value indicator indicates when the slave device formerly communicated with the master device and is provided by said master device in associated with the received requests;

identifying from each request a respective former maximum-sequence-value indicator that indicates when the slave device last communicated with a respective requesting application;

utilizing previously stored object sequence indicators in connection with the respective former maximum-sequence-value indicator to satisfy each of the plurality of object-information requests, such that each requesting application receives information about only those data objects whose corresponding object sequence indicator satisfies criteria with respect to the maximum-sequence-value indicator, wherein satisfying criteria with respect to the maximum-sequence-value indicator comprises determining a plurality of data objects whose corresponding object sequence indicators exceed the corresponding former maximum-sequence-value indicator identified from each request;

communicating the satisfied plurality of object-information requests to the master device, wherein the communicated information comprises;

(1) references to the data objects whose corresponding object sequence indicator satisfies criteria with respect to the maximum-sequence-value indicator, and

(2) the data objects whose corresponding object sequence indicator satisfies criteria with respect to the maximum-sequence-value indicator; and

providing an updated former maximum-sequence-value indicator corresponding to the requesting application for updating the current maximum-sequence-value indicator for each of the data objects communicated to the master device.

7. The computer storage devices of claim 6, wherein the object sequence indicator is a value in a set of monotonically increasing values.

8. The computer storage devices of claim 7, wherein the object sequence indicator indicates when the change occurred in relation to changes of other data objects.

9. The computer storage devices of claim 7, wherein the object sequence indicator indicates when the change occurred in relation to changes of other data objects even when a time stamp would not indicate a unique sequence position.

10. The computer storage devices of claim 6, wherein the machine-readable instructions further include instructions to identify deleted objects as well as when in relation to the former maximum-sequence-value indicator the deleted objects were deleted.

11. The computer storage devices of claim 6, wherein the machine-readable instructions further include instructions to communicate one or more references to at least a portion of the data objects from the slave device to the master device.