Apparatus and method of using a hybrid of fixed media data and
Contents
1. A computer program product on a medium for utilizing a software product said software product including data on a fixed media said computer program product comprising code means for utilizing said data on said fixed media and code means for utilizing a network based data while the Software product is in use for replacing outdated or errored data Apr 24 2003 7 The computer program product of claim 6 wherein the network based data is downloaded for use only when said data is about to be utilized 8 The computer program product of claim 7 further comprising code means for determining whether said soft ware product contains outdated or errored data upon running said software product 9 The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the determining code means includes code means for accessing said network to download tags of said outdated or errored data if there is outdated or errored data 10 The computer program product of claim 9 wherein when an outdated or errored data is going to be used a tag corresponding to said data is used to download the network based data to temporarily replace the outdated or errored data 11 An apparatus for utilizing a software product said software product including data on a fixed media said apparatus comprising means for utilizing said data on said fixed media and means for utilizing a network based data while the soft ware product is in use for replacing outdated or errored dat2. the form disclosed Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention the practical appli cation and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated What is claimed is 1 A method of utilizing a software product said software product including data on a fixed media said method comprising the steps of utilizing said data on said fixed media and utilizing a network based data while the software product is in use for temporarily replacing outdated or errored data on said fixed media 2 The method of claim 1 wherein the network based data is downloaded for use only when said data is about to be utilized 3 The method of claim 2 further comprising the step of determining whether said software product contains out dated or errored data upon running said software product 4 The method of claim 3 wherein the determining step includes the step of accessing said network to download tags of said outdated or errored data if there is outdated or errored data 5 The method of claim 4 wherein when an outdated or errored data is going to be used a tag corresponding to said data is used to download the network based data to tempo rarily replace the outdated or errored data 6
3. the tag Thus if the software product in use by the user is Operating System Manual and its version is 1 0 then the feature will go to area 500 of the Web site to look for changes If on the other hand the software product is Operating System Manual version 2 0 the feature will go to area 550 to look for updates Any entry found in these areas signifies a change to the respective software product 0036 As mentioned earlier the manual is organized in sections and sub sections etc Each entry then relates to a section or sub section of the original software product in use by the user In this particular example section titles Lvm 128 to Lvm 130 and Kde 53 to Kde 55 etc will be downloaded to the user s computer Note that only the titles of the sections or sub sections are downloaded and not the actual changes Accordingly this download process will be quite short and quick 0037 Returning to FIG 4 after the titles are down loaded the corresponding titles in the software product in use will be replaced by the downloaded titles when and if they are displayed step 410 If additional titles are provided e g new sections are provided that don t have correspond ing sections in the original software product they will be inserted in their proper space each downloaded title con tains an instruction stating whether it is an added section and where it is to be inserted Thus if the original software product did not ha
4. update or fix This information is used until the user stops execution of the software product BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0010 The novel features believed characteristic of the invention are set forth in the appended claims The invention itself however as well as a preferred mode of use further objectives and advantages thereof will best be understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein 0011 FIG 1 is an exemplary block diagram illustrating a distributed data processing system according to the present invention 0012 FIG 2 is an exemplary block diagram of a server apparatus according to the present invention 0013 FIG 3 is an exemplary block diagram of a client apparatus according to the present invention 0014 FIG 4 is a flow diagram of a process used by the present invention 0015 FIG 5 is a representation of the manner in which the Web site is organized 0016 FIG 6 depicts a representative Web site database of changes DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 0017 With reference now to the figures FIG 1 depicts a pictorial representation of a network of data processing systems in which the present invention may be imple mented Network data processing system 100 is a network of computers in which the present invention may be imple mented Network data processing syst
5. which additional modems or network adapters may be supported In this manner data processing system 200 allows connections to multiple network computers A memory mapped graphics adapter 230 and hard disk 232 may also be connected to I O bus 212 as depicted either directly or indirectly 0021 Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the hardware depicted in FIG 2 may vary For example other peripheral devices such as optical disk drives and the like also may be used in addition to or in place of the hardware depicted The depicted example is not meant to imply architectural limitations with respect to the present invention 0022 The data processing system depicted in FIG 2 may be for example an IBM e Server pSeries system a product of International Business Machines Corporation in Armonk N Y running the Advanced Interactive Executive AIX operating system or LINUX operating system 0023 With reference now to FIG 3 a block diagram illustrating a data processing system is depicted in which the present invention may be implemented Data processing system 300 is an example of a client computer Data processing system 300 employs a peripheral component interconnect PCI local bus architecture Although the depicted example employs a PCI bus other bus architectures such as Accelerated Graphics Port AGP and Industry Standard Architecture ISA may be used Processor 302 and main memory 304 are connected to PC
6. EB SITE TO OBTAIN LIST OF CHANGES DISPLAY AN APPROPRIATE CHANGE WHEN NEEDED DOES USER WANT TO ACCESS A CHANGED SECTION 405 410 415 ACCESS WEB TO OBTAIN CHANGED SECTION DISPLAY CHANGED SECTION FIG 4 420 425 Patent Application Publication Apr 24 2003 Sheet 5 of 6 US 2003 0079216 A1 OPERATING SYSTEM MANUAL VERSION 1 0 LVM 128 LVM 129 LVM_ 130 KDE 53 KDE 54 KDE 55 500 550 FIG 5 Patent Application Publication Apr 24 2003 Sheet 6 of 6 OPERATING SYSTEM MANUAL VERSION 1 0 LVM 128 THEISP V COMMAND LVM 129 LVM 130 KDE 53 KDE_ 54 KDE 55 OPERATING SYSTEM MANUAL VERSION 2 0 THE ISP V COMMAND ONE SHOULD INSERT DISK US 2003 0079216 A1 LVM_ 125 FIG 6 US 2003 0079216 Al APPARATUS AND METHOD OF USING A HYBRID OF FIXED MEDIA DATA AND NETWORK BASED DATA TO PROVIDE SOFTWARE CHANGES BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 0001 1 Technical Field 0002 The present invention is directed to an apparatus and method of fixing updating or enhancing software prod ucts More specifically the present invention is directed to an apparatus and method of using a hybrid of fixed media data and Web based data to provide fixes or updates to software products to the public 0003 2 Description of Related Art 0004 With the ever increasing pace of advancement in computer related technologies software developers often compete to be the first to of
7. I local bus 306 Apr 24 2003 through PCI bridge 308 PCI bridge 308 also may include an integrated memory controller and cache memory for pro cessor 302 Additional connections to PCI local bus 306 may be made through direct component interconnection or through add in boards In the depicted example local area network LAN adapter 310 SCSI host bus adapter 312 and expansion bus interface 314 are connected to PCI local bus 306 by direct component connection In contrast audio adapter 316 graphics adapter 318 and audio video adapter 319 are connected to PCI local bus 306 by add in boards inserted into expansion slots Expansion bus interface 314 provides a connection for a keyboard and mouse adapter 320 modem 322 and additional memory 324 Small com puter system interface SCSI host bus adapter 312 provides a connection for hard disk drive 326 tape drive 328 and CD ROM drive 330 Typical PCI local bus implementations will support three or four PCI expansion slots or add in connectors 0024 An operating system runs on processor 302 and is used to coordinate and provide control of various compo nents within data processing system 300 in FIG 3 The operating system may be a commercially available operating system such as Windows 2000 which is available from Microsoft Corporation An object oriented programming system such as Java may run in conjunction with the operating system and provide calls to the operating system from Ja
8. US 20030079216A1 a2 Patent Application Publication Pub No US 2003 0079216 A1 ao United States Drane et al 43 Pub Date Apr 24 2003 54 APPARATUS AND METHOD OF USING A HYBRID OF FIXED MEDIA DATA AND NETWORK BASED DATA TO PROVIDE SOFTWARE CHANGES 75 Inventors Jacqueline Claire Drane Austin TX US Gerald Francis McBrearty Round Rock TX US Shawn Patrick Mullen Buda TX US Johnny Meng Han Shieh Austin TX US Correspondence Address Mr Volel Emile P O Box 202170 Austin TX 78720 2170 US 73 Assignee International Business Machines Cor poration Armonk NY 21 Appl No 09 981 901 22 Filed Oct 18 2001 START ACCESS WEB SITE TO OBTAIN LIST OF CHANGES DISPLAY AN APPROPRIATE CHANGE WHEN NEEDED DOES USER WANT TO ACCESS A CHANGED SECTION YES ACCESS WEB TO OBTAIN CHANGED SECTION DISPLAY CHANGED SECTION Publication Classification 51 Int C ss GO6F 9 44 GO6F 9 445 G2 JUS CT 717 173 717 178 57 ABSTRACT An apparatus and method for downloading software product fixes updates enhancements etc only when absolutely needed and only for temporary use are provided When the software product begins to execute a feature uses a web address embedded in the software product to access a Web site where changes such as updates fixes enhancements etc are logged in Each fix or update has a tag or title that corresponds to a tag or title in t
9. a 12 The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the network based data is downloaded for use only when said data is about to be utilized 13 The apparatus of claim 12 further comprising means for determining whether said software product contains outdated or errored data upon running said software product 14 The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the determining means includes means for accessing said network to down load tags of said outdated or errored data if there is outdated or errored data 15 The apparatus of claim 14 wherein when an outdated or errored data is going to be used a tag corresponding to said data is used to download the network based data to temporarily replace the outdated or errored data 16 A computer system for utilizing a software product said software product including data on a fixed media said computer system comprising a memory device for storing data and a processor for processing said stored data said stored data for utilizing said data on said fixed media and for utilizing a network based data while the software prod uct is in use for replacing outdated or errored data 17 The computer system of claim 16 wherein the net work based data is downloaded for use only when said data is about to be utilized 18 The computer system of claim 17 wherein said stored data for determining whether said software product contains outdated or errored data upon running said software product 19 The computer system o
10. accessed When that occurs chances are the changed section may be accessed as well Therefore the changed section may be pre fetched Related sections in this case may be sections that cover the same or similar topics US 2003 0079216 Al 0040 The invention ensures that some users i e those who have a permanent connection to the Internet will always use the latest changes or version of a software product As mentioned before last minute changes or after the fact changes are incorporated into a software product whenever needed and without a user being aware of such changes The actual software product does not have to be entirely replicated on CDs or on the Web site when changes exist Only the actual changes need to be present Conse quently only non valid information contained in a software product needs to be downloaded from a Web site 0041 The invention has been described in terms of user s manuals however those skilled in the art will readily understand that it is not restricted only to user s manuals Any software products that are made of modules are per fectly within the scope of the invention In that case a module that contains a change since the release of the software product may temporarily replace the original mod ule when needed 0042 The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description and is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in
11. data processing system 300 may also be a notebook computer or hand held computer in addition to taking the form of a PDA Data processing system 300 also may be a kiosk or a Web appliance 0028 The present invention provides an apparatus and method of downloading a software product fix or update when needed and installing the fix or update only tempo rarily The invention may be local to client systems 108 110 and 112 of FIG 1 or to the server 104 or to both the server US 2003 0079216 Al 104 and clients 108 110 and 112 Consequently the present invention may reside on any data storage medium i e floppy disk compact disk hard disk ROM RAM etc used by a computer system 0029 To better understand the invention an example will be provided Suppose a software company develops and sells operating systems Operating systems are usually sold to the public accompanied with a user s manual Suppose that the manual is provided on a non writable medium such as a compact disk CD There may be times when the information in the manual does not properly document the product 0030 For example it is well known in the field that information documenting software products ie user s manual is usually processed weeks or months in advance of the release of the software it documents During the time the information is being processed i e formatted and dupli cated on CDs etc the actual product it documents may have gone through
12. em 100 contains a network 102 which is the medium used to provide commu nications links between various devices and computers connected together within network data processing system 100 Network 102 may include connections such as wire wireless communication links or fiber optic cables 0018 In the depicted example server 104 is connected to network 102 along with storage unit 106 In addition clients 108 110 and 112 are connected to network 102 These clients 108 110 and 112 may be for example personal computers or network computers In the depicted example server 104 provides data such as boot files operating system images and applications to clients 108 110 and 112 Clients 108 110 and 112 are clients to server 104 Network data processing system 100 may include additional servers clients and other devices not shown In the depicted example network data processing system 100 is the Internet with network 102 representing a worldwide collection of networks and gateways that use the TCP IP suite of proto US 2003 0079216 Al cols to communicate with one another At the heart of the Internet is a backbone of high speed data communication lines between major nodes or host computers consisting of thousands of commercial government educational and other computer systems that route data and messages Of course network data processing system 100 also may be implemented as a number of different types of networks such as f
13. f claim 18 wherein determin ing whether said software product contains outdated or errored data code means includes accessing said network to download tags of said outdated or errored data if there is outdated or errored data 20 The computer system of claim 19 wherein when an outdated or errored data is going to be used a tag corre sponding to said data is used to download the network based data to temporarily replace the outdated or errored data
14. fer a new feature or upgrade As a result sometimes software products are made available to the public with unknown defects or errors These defects are often remedied by providing fixes or updates to the software product 0005 Fixes or updates are presently provided to the public in a variety of methods One method is to provide the entire updated or corrected software product on a computer readable medium that a user may use to replace the defective product Another method is to make the fixes or update available on a Web site on the Internet A user who has access to the Internet may periodically or when aware of a fix or update peruse the Web site for fixes or update If a fix or update is available the user may download and install the fix or update 0006 Some software developers instead of having users especially those who have a permanent connection to the Internet peruse a Web site for fixes or updates equip their software products with a feature that periodically accesses a Web site to determine whether fixes or updates have been made available If the feature determines that a fix or update is available the feature may prompt a user as to whether the fix or update is to be downloaded If the user so indicates the feature then downloads the fix or update After having prompted the user and received an affirmative answer that the fix or update is to be installed the feature installs the fix or update on the user s computer
15. he product These tags or titles are downloaded When information indexed by a tag or title is going to be used the feature accesses the network to download the information 1 the update or fix This information is used until the user stops execution of the software product 400 405 410 415 420 425 Patent Application Publication Apr 24 2003 Sheet 1 of 6 US 2003 0079216 A1 108 CLIENT 102 110 MEN CREER CLIENT is ae CLIENT 106 112 FIG 1 Patent Application Publication Apr 24 2003 Sheet 2 of 6 US 2003 0079216 A1 202 204 PROCESSOR PROCESSOR stems MEMORY CONTROLLER BRIDGE CACHE 214 216 Bol BUS 212 E BRIDGE 209 MODEM NETWORK LOCAL M ADAPTER MEMORY 218 220 200 iu aa polus i BRIDGE GRAPHICS 226 ADAPTER 222 a HARD BRIDGE DISK 228 224 232 FIG 2 US 2003 0079216 A1 Patent Application Publication Apr 24 2003 Sheet 3 of 6 Zee Old rc vce cce 02 H3ldvav l AYOWSW WAGON 3SnoN QHVOSA3 oce l H3LdYadY oaaiwolanv d31dvav NV1 3 SOIHdVYD 3OoVvdAHa lNI sna NOISNVdX3 zoe S 3 91 3501348 3 9 9 ualdvav olanv NIV mae IDd LSOH Patent Application Publication Apr 24 2003 Sheet 4 of 6 US 2003 0079216 A1 400 START ACCESS W
16. or example an intranet a local area network LAN or a wide area network WAN FIG 1 is intended as an example and not as an architectural limitation for the present invention 0019 Referring to FIG 2 a block diagram of a data processing system that may be implemented as a server such as server 104 in FIG 1 is depicted in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention Data pro cessing system 200 may be a symmetric multiprocessor SMP system including a plurality of processors 202 and 204 connected to system bus 206 Alternatively a single processor system may be employed Also connected to system bus 206 is memory controller cache 208 which provides an interface to local memory 209 I O bus bridge 210 is connected to system bus 206 and provides an interface to I O bus 212 Memory controller cache 208 and I O bus bridge 210 may be integrated as depicted 0020 Peripheral component interconnect PCI bus bridge 214 connected to I O bus 212 provides an interface to PCI local bus 216 A number of modems may be connected to PCI local bus 216 Typical PCI bus implementations will support four PCI expansion slots or add in connectors Communications links to network computers 108 110 and 112 in FIG 1 may be provided through modem 218 and network adapter 220 connected to PCI local bus 216 through add in boards Additional PCI bus bridges 222 and 224 provide interfaces for additional PCI local buses 226 and 228 from
17. some more metamorphosis Thus when the software product is actually released to the public the information in the manual may not properly document it 0031 As mentioned before fixes or updates may be provided to bring the user s manual up to par with the software product it documents The present invention uses a feature that accesses a Web site to determine whether there are updates to the software product each time the product is loaded into memory Unlike one of the present methods where whenever there is an update users are prompted to decide whether to download and install the update the present invention does not download an update unless the update is actually needed Furthermore when an update is downloaded it is done totally transparent to the user and is only installed temporarily 0032 Returning to the example user s manuals are usu ally arranged in sections sub sections etc Thus fixes and updates will be in one or a few sections or sub sections etc of the manual When a user is using the manual i e when the software product is being executed a background process does the following 1 reads a hidden file in the CD file system structure that lists a contact Web address 1 6 URL 2 accesses the Web site to determine whether there are any fixes or updates 3 if there are fixes or updates the process notes in what sections or sub sections of the manu als the fixes exist 0033 If while browsing the manual
18. system 0007 In all the methods outlined above when a fix or update is installed the actual original installed software product is permanently changed There are instances how ever when a user may not want the original installed software product to be permanently changed For example suppose a fix or update encompasses hundreds of Megabytes of software code and suppose further that a user may rarely if at all have any use for the fix or update the user may not want that much storage space to be permanently used for the potentially few occasional times the fix or update may be used 0008 What is needed therefore is an apparatus and method of downloading software product fixes or updates only when absolutely needed and to only install them temporarily on a computer system SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 0009 The present invention provides an apparatus and method of downloading software product fixes updates Apr 24 2003 features etc only when absolutely needed and for temporary use When the software product begins to execute a feature uses a web address embedded in the software product to access a Web site where changes such as updates fixes etc are logged in Each fix or update has a tag or title that corresponds to a tag or title in the product These tags or titles are downloaded When information indexed by a tag or title is going to be used the feature accesses the network to download the information 1 the
19. the user wants to access one of the sections or sub sections of the manual that have been updated the process will re access the Web site or may access another Web site if the changes are located on another Web site After accessing the Web site containing the changes the process then will download only the section or sub section that has changed and the user wants to access Once downloaded that section or sub section will be loaded into memory instead of the section or sub section of the manual that is on the CD Thus the present invention provides a seamless update that works in conjunction but not in place of the fixed media i e the CD in this case 0034 FIG 4 is a flow diagram of a process used by the present invention The process starts whenever a software product that has the feature provided by the present inven tion begins to execute step 400 As mentioned above as soon as the process starts it accesses a Web site to determine whether there are any changes updates fixes etc for the software product step 405 Apr 24 2003 0035 FIG 5 is a representation of the manner in which the Web site is organized Obviously a company may use the Web site for any changes to any software product that there may be Accordingly the process needs to have a tag by which to identify where to go to get the changed sections In this example the name of the software product as well as the version in use by the user may be used as
20. va programs or applications executing on data pro cessing system 300 Java is a trademark of Sun Micro systems Inc Instructions for the operating system the object oriented operating system and applications or pro grams are located on storage devices such as hard disk drive 326 and may be loaded into main memory 304 for execution by processor 302 0025 Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the hardware in FIG 3 may vary depending on the implementation Other internal hardware or peripheral devices such as flash ROM or equivalent nonvolatile memory or optical disk drives and the like may be used in addition to or in place of the hardware depicted in FIG 3 Also the processes of the present invention may be applied to a multiprocessor data processing system 0026 As another example data processing system 300 may be a stand alone system configured to be bootable without relying on some type of network communication interface whether or not data processing system 300 com prises some type of network communication interface As a further example data processing system 300 may be a Personal Digital Assistant PDA device which is config ured with ROM and or flash ROM in order to provide non volatile memory for storing operating system files and or user generated data 0027 The depicted example in FIG 3 and above de scribed examples are not meant to imply architectural limi tations For example
21. ve a section called Lvm 130 The down loaded Lvm 130 will nonetheless be inserted in the proper place i e after Lvm 129 as the software product will be so instructed 0038 After displaying the downloaded titles a check will continuously be made to determine whether the user wants to access one of the sections or sub sections that have changed When the user scrolls through one of the sections or sub sections or double clicks on one of the downloaded titles etc this signals that the changed section is to be downloaded for display If so the process then accesses the Web site where the actual changes are located In this case each title may have a URL 1 9 Web address specifying where the actual change resides on the FIG 6 depicts a representative Web site database of changes Once the change is downloaded then it is ready to be displayed steps 415 420 and 425 When the execution of the software product has terminated all downloaded titles and sections will cease to exist on the user s computer system 0039 Note that some changes may be pre fetched from the Web site For example if a section that references another section containing a change is being displayed there is a high likelihood that the referenced section may be needed Hence the referenced section may be pre fetched from the Web site Another example regarding when a changed section is to be pre fetched is when related sections to a changed section are being
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