Abstract: Disclosed is a frequency scanning method that employs a number of frequency sets that may be scanned consecutively, according to a fixed delay or interval, to discover a frequency that may be used to obtain wireless communication service. In one implementation, any number of these sets may be scanned before a wireless device performs a scan of a full set of frequencies that may be available to the wireless device.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention include an information sharing system that provides an online business service from a provider that uses the Internet to enable individuals and organizations to link together contact databases that reside in multiple desktop applications and create a unified meta-database. This database can be searched by individual subscribers in order to locate a specific entity (such as an organization or a person, by name, title or organization, such as an executive in a target organization), identify if a path to the executive exists through a chain of contacts across the linked contact databases, and request a referral based introduction to the specific executive.

Abstract: A network provides computer services to users and has a centralized data center (CDC) and regional data centers (RDCs) coupled to the CDC. Each RDC is coupled to a plurality of users and maintains for each associated user back up storage. Each user has a user machine with user data stored thereon, and such user data is automatically mirrored to the associated back up storage on the RDC. Each RDC maintains for each associated user a user profile corresponding to the user, and each user and each RDC has a physical location. A user newly couples to the network by contacting the CDC at a network address thereof and receiving from the CDC a network address of an RDC based at least in part on the location of the user. The RDC of the received network address maintains the user profile for the user, and the location of such RDC is expected to be relatively close to the location of the user as compared with the location of all other RDCs.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention include an information sharing system that provides an online business service from a provider that uses the Internet to enable individuals and organizations to link together contact databases that reside in multiple desktop applications and create a unified meta-database. This database can be searched by individual subscribers in order to locate a specific entity (such as an organization or a person, by name, title or organization, such as an executive in a target organization), identify if a path to the executive exists through a chain of contacts across the linked contact databases, and request a referral based introduction to the specific executive.

Abstract: A host computer communicatively linked with a virtual circuit network and communicatively linked with a device over a local area network receives a virtual circuit message from the virtual circuit network, such as an asynchronous transfer mode network. A data structure associating a virtual circuit of the virtual circuit network with the device is referenced, and based on the association, the virtual circuit message is passed to the device over the local area network. The data structure may be a table containing an entry associating the virtual circuit with the device or with the network address of the device.