Abstract: Network-delivered advertisements, and in particular Internet advertisements, are provided increased accessibility and effectiveness through automatic collection of ads, and later presentation of those ads by users. Typically, a publisher modifies a source file (e.g. an HTML file) to include the invention's software and metadata identifiers that uniquely identify advertising content in the source file. When the file is transferred and presented to a user, the invention's software, operating in conjunction with presentation software (e.g. a web browser), locates the metadata identifiers within the presentation (e.g. a displayed web page) and uses them to identify the portions of advertising content associated with those metadata identifiers. The portions of advertising content are then collected and transmitted to a server computer that stores them in a database so that they are associated with a user-identification code retrieved from the user's computer.

Abstract: A GUI containing a panel along each of its edges is produced within a computer's display. Each of the four panels are always visible and accessible within the GUI and contain items that display or reference network-based information, communication, navigational systems, computer programs, and other items. These items have been assigned to the panels based upon a hierarchal containment system which, in the preferred embodiment of the invention, uses the categories “people, places, things, and home” as its first logical grouping of the various items and services a user would seek to utilize within the GUI. This organizational system, and its associated visual representation within the panels, enables the GUI to be displayed and operated within multiple computer devices, even though the designs of those devices may include a wide range of display and control systems.

Abstract: A GUI containing a panel along each of its edges is produced within a computer's display. Each of the four panels are always visible and accessible within the GUI and contain items that display or reference network-based information, communication, navigational systems, computer programs, and other items. These items have been assigned to the panels based upon a hierarchal containment system which, in the preferred embodiment of the invention, uses the categories “people, places, things, and home” as its first logical grouping of the various items and services a user would seek to utilize within the GUI. This organizational system, and its associated visual representation within the panels, enables the GUI to be displayed and operated within multiple computer devices, even though the designs of those devices may include a wide range of display and control systems.