Abstract: An image based email system associates images with different electronic mail (email) senders. The email system receives email messages from different email senders and then looks through either website member profiles or user contacts for associated images. Any located image is displayed in a list of recent senders. This allows the email user to associate recently received email messages with particular sender images or photographs. The images can also be used in a list of favorite or most frequent email senders. Other features of the email system extract information from received email messages to better identify the email senders. These and other features of the email system provide more intuitive and easier to perform email operations.

Abstract: A system for and a method of providing an expandable home automation controller is disclosed which supports multiple numbers and multiple different types of data communications with both appliances and subsystems within the home as well as systems external to the home. The system is based upon a central processor, such as a microprocessor-based computer, and is connected by means of a data bus to control the various products and subsystems within a home or commercial building, such as lighting systems, security systems, various sensors, multiple external terminals, as well as to allow for the input of commands by a variety of means such as touchscreens, voice recognition systems, telephones, custom switches or any device capable of providing an input to a computer system. The system functions can be readily controlled by the user utilizing a high resolution graphics display and associated touchscreen interface.