Abstract: A method of dynamically composing or updating electronic contact lists, such as mailing lists, on the basis of proximity to a particular point or user. By means of this method a user can be offered the option of addressing a method to all “nearby” users. Proximity may be determined with reference to network hardware or other resources associated with each user, for example, LAN segments or wireless access points.

Abstract: A method of managing a shared electronic mail account co-owned by at least two owners includes intercepting electronic mail account configuration settings received from the at least two owners; combining the intercepted electronic mail account configuration settings based on a shared electronic mail account profile so as to generate shared e-mail account configuration settings; and applying the shared e-mail account configuration settings so as to affect the operation of the shared electronic mail account.

Abstract: A method (300) and a corresponding system are proposed for configuring different computers of a network. Each computer plays a specific physic role (defined by an architecture of the network) and/or a specific logic role (defined by the applications running in the network). A reference model and a transition table are associated (306-312) with each product to be installed in the network; the reference model specifies a target configuration for each role (defined by the components of the product to be installed), while the transition table specifies the actions required to reach each target configuration from each current configuration of the computers. A server identifies (330-336) the role and the current configuration of each computer; the actions required to enforce the desired target configuration on the computer are then established and executed (333,339-366).

Abstract: A method (300) of installing software applications using a wizard-based installation package (for example, built using “InstallShield”) is proposed. The installation package is defined declaring a discoverer Bean (308), a producer Bean (312), a consumer Bean (314) and a debugger Bean (315) into the wizard tree (while the product tree is left empty). During the installation process, the discoverer creates (322-346) a working queue dynamically, inserting the installation operations that are needed for reaching a desired configuration (defined in a descriptor of the software application) from a current configuration (detected at run-time). The consumer executes (348-362) the installation operations defined in the working queue in succession. Whenever an error condition is detected (352, 356, 360), the installation process is suspended (368) and the debugger is invoked (372). An administrator can browse (378) an execution log of each installation operation and update (380-383) any wrong operative parameter.

Abstract: A method (300) of building a package for installing a software application on a data processing system with a distributed architecture is proposed. The installation package is built using an authoring tool based on a declarative model. In the proposed method, a descriptor is used to define (309) a desired configuration of the system (specifying the software products to be installed for each role that can be played by the different target computers of the system). The installation package is build declaring a discoverer element (312), a producer element (315) and a consumer element (318) into the wizard tree (while the product tree is left empty). During the installation process, the discoverer element detects (330-332) a current configuration of the system (including the role assigned to each target computer). The producer creates (337-351) a working queue dynamically, inserting the installation operations that are needed for reaching the desired configuration from the current configuration of the system.