Abstract: A sender prepares a message, then transmits an e-mail notice to the receiver and the e-mail message to a forwarding server. The “e-mail notice” is a short message, including a message ID and specifically does not include the complete prepared message. The “e-mail message” is in binary format and also includes the message ID of the corresponding e-mail notice. The receiving user receives the e-mail notice, then contacts the forwarding server to receive the e-mail message corresponding to the message ID within the received e-mail notice.

Abstract: Allowed actions of a computer-based player in a game are limited. A pre-action value is identified which corresponds to a relative advantage between the computer-based player and a real person player prior to a current action taken by the computer-based player. A post-action value is identified corresponding to the relative advantage between the computer-based player and the real person player after the current action taken by the computer-based player. The current action is limited to be among a set of allowed actions, which keep the post-action value at least as great as a threshold value. The current action of the computer-based player also may be limited to keep the post-action value not more than a tolerable value, where possible. The current action is selected from the set of allowed actions. The threshold value and tolerance value are prescribed, selected or varied over the course of the game.

Abstract: To purchase music online, a user becomes a member to a site which fulfils orders. An announcement is posted to members of a future release of a first song as performed by a first recording artist. Preorders are accepted from members indicating an intent to download the first song upon release for a fee. Verification is performed to determine that the member is eligible to submit the preorder. The preorders are tallied. A minimum volume of preorders is set. After the minimum volume is met, the first song is released. Members' accounts are charged the fee to access the song. By setting the minimum volume, a threshold revenue level is achieved for release of the first song assuring an established artist a minimum revenue regardless of any pirating that might occur after the release.

Abstract: A digital audio video recorder captures a stream of audio video (AV) data targeted for output onto a computer display. The content is intercepted from a DVD playback, an internet data stream, an audio disc or another audio, video or audio-video source and routed to a select encoder for compression. Various encoders are available for recording at varying fidelity and speed. The intercepted also is encrypted with a key. The key is specific to the medium to which the captured AV stream is stored. The encryption step prevents the AV content from being distributed, but allows the AV stream to be played back later from the same medium onto which it was captured. The AV stream is compressed and encrypted on a frame by frame or a batch-frame basis.

Abstract: A sender prepares a message, then transmits an e-mail notice to the receiver and the e-mail message to a forwarding server. The “e-mail notice” is a short message, including a message ID and specifically does not include the complete prepared message. The “e-mail message” is in binary format and also includes the message ID of the corresponding e-mail notice. The receiving user receives the e-mail notice, then contacts the forwarding server to receive the e-mail message corresponding to the message ID within the received e-mail notice.

Abstract: A file among equivalent files identified during a search of a global computer network is selected to be downloaded to a local computer. Equivalent files are found frequently where different copies of the same song are stored many times on a global computer network. A portion of all or a subset of the equivalent files are screened during a brief trial download period. Because the files are expected to be located at different sites, the bandwidth of the pathways to the respective files may vary. Amongst other criteria, the file with the best download performance during the trial time period is selected to be downloaded in its entirety.

Abstract: A plurality of vendors include a prescribed hyperlink protocol in their web pages to be participating web pages. The protocol included is the same for everyone, although the function and appearance of a resulting hyperlink varies. For a non-participating end user, the prescribed hyperlink forwards access to a sign-up site. For a participating end user, the function varies according whether the current web page is the referral web site start page, a referral web site non-start page, the privileged web site start page, a privileged web site non-start page, or another participating web page. For the referral start page, the hyperlink redirects access to the privileged web site start page. For the privileged start page, the hyperlink redirects access to the referral start page. For other participating web pages, the function may rotate to redirect access to the referral site or the privileged domain.

Abstract: The functionality of software is contingent upon the home page setting for a user. Each time a user logs onto the World Wide Web, a home page manager program checks the home page setting. If the setting is the predetermined home page, then normal operation of contingent software ensues. If the setting is not the predetermined home page, then access to the contingent software is limited or disabled. The predetermined home page is any one of a prescribed set of home pages listed at a control site. In rotational mode a plurality of prescribed home pages are rotated as the predetermined home page. In long term mode the user selects one home page from the plurality of prescribed home pages as the predetermined home page. The home page manager software also allows (i) access to a user's alternative home page, and (ii) monitoring the level of activity of software.

Abstract: Portions of the internet are embedded onto a transportable media, then delivered periodically to subscribing clients. The contents are indexed to relate a given document to a URL and a time stamp. During on-line access to the internet, the transportable media serves as a read only cache. After issuing a command to view a document at a given URL, a test is performed to see if the document stored on the media is up to date. A command is sent over the internet to identify the date for the most recent update of the document. If the identified date is more recent then the corresponding time stamp, the media version is out of date. So the document is downloaded and displayed. If, however, the time stamp is the same or more recent then the identified date, the document as stored on the media is displayed.

Abstract: Matching between advertisement and target consumer is achieved in a system which maintains consumer privacy. Such system includes computer end users, an advertising service provider and advertisers. Computer end users subscribe to the advertising service provider. The advertising service provider sells time or other accountable units to the advertisers. The advertiser provides the advertisement. Each advertisement has accompanying demographic information or a desired affinity ranking. The end user completes a demographic questionnaire and ranks various categories of products and services. The advertising service provider sends executable filter programs which run on the end user computer to test whether a corresponding advertisement is to be downloaded and displayed.

Abstract: WAN documents are stored locally in cache with a document expiration date. Ideally, content is unchanged prior to the expiration date and has changed after the expiration date. When requesting to view a WAN document while on-line, the document first is displayed from cache for display and verify mode. The web browser then sends a request to the web server to verify whether the document has been modified. If still valid, then the document is already displayed and time has been saved. If invalid, then the document is downloaded from the web server, stored in cache, and optionally or automatically displayed in place of the invalid document. A signal is communicated to the user, for example, to give the option to reload the document. Because document expiration times may be absent or unreliable, a soft and a hard expiration time are derived and adjusted dynamically based upon their reliability.

Abstract: Load balancing is achieved at the client side, rather than at the server side of a client-server network. Each client computer regularly receives a load balance list, enumerating respective addresses of multiple server computers. Each client computer executes a server selection function which determines the average load for each server in the list. In the event of a server computer failure, a system administrator can remove the server computer from the load balance list and reapportion the load. The client computer's list then is updated when the list is received during subsequent access. In the event a client computer determines that a server is non-responsive, such server is removed from the load balance list for the client computer which made such determination. The client computer also stores a back-up list of servers for use when all servers on the load balance list are non-responsive.

Abstract: Computer system activity is monitored to identify triggers. A trigger is an event or sequence of events which is a reliable predictor of the subsequent occurrence of a specific repeated disk-intensive interval. A disk-intensive interval is an interval of time in which disk read and/or disk write operations occur at a much greater than average rate. Once a trigger and a corresponding repeated disk-intensive interval are identified, a time log constructor is invoked. The time log rearranges the input/output for faster access and loading of the cache. This reduces disk drive latency. When the trigger is detected, instead of waiting for the data request the computer processes the time log to preload the disk data into cache in advance of the data request. When the data request occurs thereafter, the data is already present in the cache.

Abstract: A data pattern cache stores data patterns in units (i.e., a sector). A given data pattern is associated with one or more physical device address ranges which store such data pattern (e.g., sectors). Thus, although the same data pattern may occur as 10 redundant sectors for different files on different parts of a hard disk, the data pattern is stored in the data pattern cache once. One or more physical device sectors are linked to the data pattern.

Abstract: A user views search results and subjectively determines if a document is desirable or undesirable. Only documents categorized by the user are analyzed for deriving a list of prospective keywords. The frequency of occurrence of each word of each document is derived. Keywords that occur only in desirable documents are good keywords. Keywords that occur only in undesirable documents are bad keywords. Keywords that occurs in both types are dirty keywords. The best keywords are the good keywords with the highest frequency of occurrence. The worst keywords are the bad keywords with the highest frequency of occurrence. A new query phrase includes the highest ranked good keywords and performs filtering using the highest ranked bad keywords. Key phrases are derived to clean dirty keywords into good key phrases. A key phrase also is derived from a good keyword and replaces the good keyword to narrow a search.

Abstract: Launch time for a computer program is reduced by logging hard disk accesses during an initial launch, then processing the log file to accelerate subsequent launches. The log file is processed by identifying all the file portions accessed during the launch, eliminating any duplicate cluster accesses, then sorting the remaining accesses. The disk access log entries are sorted by physical address or are grouped by file, then organized by logical address within each group. The processed log file is stored with the application program. When the application program is launched thereafter, the processed log file is accessed first. All the disk accesses in the log file are performed moving all the data into RAM cache. When the program launch resumes, the launch occurs faster because all the data is already in cache.

Abstract: A computer program's launch time is reduced by reorganizing physical address storage of the program on a secondary storage device. Launch of the program is detected, then file access during the launch is monitored. A log file entry is created for each access to the secondary storage device. After launch is complete, the portions of the computer program accesses during the launch are moved into a contiguous area of the secondary storage device. Placement within the area corresponds to the access order during launch. Subsequent launches are faster because the launch portions of the program are contiguously located. Only the first access to a given memory block is considered in ordering the portions within the contiguous area The cluster size is used to estimate whether differing log entries correspond to the same address block.

Abstract: Disk I/O average access time is improved by estimating access time for pending I/O requests and selecting the request with the lowest estimated access time as the next request to be processed. To provide fast run-time estimation, disk characteristics are derived off-line and stored in files/tables for access during run-time estimation. A time (RT) to rotate the disk from a reference sector to each physical sector on the hard drive is derived and stored for each logical block address (LBA). A time (HT) for the heads to move an incremental number of cylinders also is derived. Access time of a destination LBA after completing access to a source LBA is estimated using estimated rotational times for the source and destination looked up in an RT table, and a head movement time estimate looked up in an HT table, based on a run-time calculated cylinder increment between the source and destination LBAs.