Abstract: A method and apparatus for context-sensitive exchange of electronic information, is provided. One implementation involves maintaining multiple signatures for a sender; associating each signature with a recipient address or communication content pattern described based on a rule; sending an electronic communication to a recipient address by automatically selecting a most appropriate signature among the multiple signatures based on the recipient address or content pattern in the communication; and including the selected signature in the electronic communication.

Abstract: A method for keeping synchronized data collected by a first and at least one second software applications from respective information sources and stored in a respective first and second data repositories. The method comprises: a) receiving a request to refresh data stored in the first data repository; b) causing the at least one second software application to collect data from the respective information source; c) receiving the data collected by the first and the at least one second software applications from the respective information sources, and d) uploading the received data to the respective first and second repositories.

Abstract: A method and a corresponding system and computer-usable medium for discovering software products on a plurality of one or more computers. The discovering method, system and/or computer-usable medium can populate a software catalogue without the manual intervention of an administrator. Such an approach reduces the cost of producing and maintaining a comprehensive knowledge base (e.g., the catalogue), which contains definitions of software products and the related signature. Signature definitions combine information obtained by the data gathering process and information contained in the registries. This combination allows the creation of a robust signature which reduces to a great extent the possibilities of both “false positive” and “false negative” results.

Abstract: A method is presented for executing complex operations. The method may include providing basic packages that include execution instructions for at least partially executing a complex operation. Each basic package may also include combination instructions for combining the execution instructions with execution instructions of another basic package. Several basic packages may be selected. The complex operation may then be executed according to the execution instructions and the combination instructions associated with the selected basic packages.

Abstract: A method for managing resources in a resource management system in accordance with certain embodiments may include providing a retrieval statement for retrieving management information relating to a set of selected resources. The management information may be retrieved according to the retrieval statement. Context information relating to one or more resources of the set may be retrieved according to the corresponding management information. One or more requests for additional information relating to the resource may be generated according to the context information. The requests for additional information may then be submitted to an information source.

Abstract: A solution is proposed for developing software applications on a data processing system. A corresponding method (A1-A6) starts with the step of providing (A1) an analysis model of a software application (such as based on a use case diagram); the analysis model represents the software application with stereotypes (i.e., use cases) each one representing a requirement of the software application. The method continues by estimating (A2-A3) an optimum number of features of the software application (each one representing a function of the software application); the optimum number of features is estimated according to the analysis model. The stereotypes are then organized (A4-A5) in packages; each package includes a set of logically correlated stereotypes, which expose a corresponding feature. A number of the packages is determined according to the optimum number of features. It is now possible to implement (A6) the software application according to the packages.

Abstract: A solution is proposed for exploiting the resources of a navigation system. For this purpose, any idle time of the navigation system (during which no direction information is output) is used to provide descriptive information about the current location of the vehicle. For example, the navigation system estimates a timeframe available before approaching a next turn (following a current location of the vehicle along a route towards a desired destination). The navigation system presents predefined descriptive messages associated with the current location are then output in succession according to the available timeframe.

Abstract: The invention proposes a solution allowing a web application to generate a response page based on local information of a client. For this purpose, a front-end servlet (receiving a request from the browser of the client) verifies (318,360) whether the local information is available on the server. If not, a wait page with a command for uploading the local information is generated and sent (321) to the client, so as to cause the client to transmit (327-342) the local information to a back-end servlet of the server. The wait page self-refreshes (348-357) after a predefined delay; in response thereto, the same front-end servlet verifies whether the local information is ready to use. If the uploading is still in progress, a wait page without the upload command (which self-refreshes after the same delay) is generated and sent (363) again. Once the uploading has been completed, the front-end servlet can generate and send (366-372) the desired response page based on the up-to-date local information of the client.

Abstract: A method and a corresponding apparatus for inventoring software products on a plurality of computer are proposed. The inventoring system aims at populating a software catalogue without the manual intervention of an administrator. The present invention reduces the cost of producing and maintaining a comprehensive knowledge base (the catalogue) which contains definitions of software products and the related signature. Information about software products and their related signature is obtained through a process which gathers information from a potentially very large collection of computers. Any occurence of a group of identical files across multiple computers is considered a reliable indicator that they belong to the installation footprint of a product.

Abstract: A software patch management solution (200) is proposed. The devised solution is based on the idea of automating the installation of the patches through a software distribution infrastructure. For this purpose, an automation engine (225) is added to a distribution server (110). The automation engine interfaces with a patch provider (125) acting as a proxy, which stores a local copy of the patches (210) and of a patch catalogue (215) for detecting corresponding vulnerabilities. The automation engine automatically builds a distribution plan for deploying the patches to the relevant endpoints (115), according to a vulnerability catalogue (230) that stores the actual exposures of the endpoints. The distribution plan arranges the required activities in the correct order, so as to minimize the number of rebooting of the endpoints; the distribution plan ends with an activity for scanning the endpoints, so as to update the vulnerability catalogue accordingly.

Abstract: A method and system for tracing the failing or successful execution of nested functions coded with return codes in a thread during its execution. The method comprises an ENTRY and EXIT trace macro to mark the beginning and the end of execution of the function, a TRACE macro to record messages and program variable values, and a QUIT macro marking the failing execution of the corresponding function. Using a Graphical User Interface, an interactive trace analyzer reads the trace file and displays the tree structure of the nested functions and marks, by using different colors, the success or failure of each of them. The trace analyzer utilities help the user to quickly identify the error in the source code corresponding to a function with a failing execution.

Abstract: A method for testing a software application (225), for example, written in the Java language is proposed. For this purpose, a factory object (230c) can be configured to operate in a production mode or in a test mode. In the test mode, the factory object instantiates a proxy object (255) for each object (235, 240) of the application. In this way, the invocation of each method exposed by any object of the application is intercepted by the corresponding proxy object. The proxy object invokes a specific method on a fault generator object (265), which provides a return code that can simulate desired error conditions (for example, according to a predefined probability). The proxy object then forwards the invocation to the actual object or returns the error code received from the fault generator object.

Abstract: A method and system for tracing the failing or successful execution of nested functions coded with return codes in a thread during its execution. The method and system further allow accessing the thread execution information in the trace file and visualizing the tree structure of the nested functions and the result of the execution for each of them.