Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Brendan Clarke Fields

Jorge Pereira

Diana J Schwend

Karim Batthish

Komal Kashiramka

Matthew Christopher Kuzior

Bogdan Gheorghe

Alfred Kenneth S Gopez

Jucheng Xiao

David Richard Reed

Michael Anthony Faoro

Jason C Mayans

Paul David Tischhauser

Russell L Simpson, Jr

Craig Anthony Osborne

Yuriy Mikhailovich Inglikov

Various technologies and techniques are disclosed that improve the workflow process for resolving data elements, such as email addresses. These technologies and techniques allow the user to perform such tasks in the same context as the activity or message. In addition, user can start and stop the resolution process at any point in the process of composing the activity or email. The activity cannot be finalized, such as an email message being sent, until all of the data elements are resolved.

Workflow and in-context E-mail recipient handling

Workflow and in-context e-mail recipient handling

An Application Programming Interface (API) provides functions for interacting with contact lists and contacts that are stored in a unified contact store by a primary contact service. For example, a client of a unified communications service may use the API to access contact information that is stored with a primary contact service (e.g. a messaging application/service). The contact information is maintained by the primary contact service. The API includes functions such as, but not limited to: adding a new IM contact to a group, adding a new IM group, removing an IM contact from a group, adding a distribution group to an IM list, getting an IM item list, and tagging an IM contact. The contacts may be obtained from the primary contact service and temporarily stored by the client (e.g. within a cache) of a different service.

Web service API for unified contact store

A computer-implemented method for assisting in the scheduling of a meeting. A user who desires to schedule a meeting simply inputs the relevant meeting parameters. In response, the computer evaluates a number of possible meeting times by comparing the input constraints against a predetermined set of suitability criteria. Based on this evaluation, the system identifies suggested meeting time(s), and also may identify rooms suitable for each meeting time. The system also calculates an estimated desirability for each suggested meeting time based on its compliance with the suitability criteria. The suggested meeting time(s) and a visual indicator of desirability for each time are then displayed. In addition, the raw free-busy data for each attendee may still be displayed. When the user selects a suggested meeting time, an electronic meeting request is automatically populated with the meeting time and a suitable place associated with the suggested meeting time.

Facilitating automated meeting scheduling

A method and a processing device may be provided for detecting a device newly connected to the processing device. The processing device may copy files from the device to a cache of the processing device. In some embodiments, the files may include a digital image files and associated files, such as wav files, or other files. Acquisition processing of the files stored in the cache may be initiated at any time after the processing device begins to copy the files from the device to the cache. Via a user interface, a user may preview thumbnail images corresponding to digital image files stored in one or more virtual devices, corresponding to one or more respective caches. The user may be prompted to initiate acquisition processing of a cache, having unprocessed files, after a configurable amount of time has passed since a file was last copied to the cache.

Pre-caching files from removable device to expedite perceived download performance

Maintaining a plurality of application component catalogs describing user experiences associated with particular application programs. The invention includes an extensible schema for the application component catalogs and a method for matching user experiences within the application component catalogs to particular user requests. The invention provides an extensible and scalable infrastructure for customizing a user interface experience.

System for defining and activating pluggable user interface components for a deployed application

Disclosed is a policy based method for blocking the automatic dereferencing of web beacon links in an e-mail message sent in HTML format with a minimum sacrifice in the HTML body rendering quality. HTML content that potentially contains web beacons is replaced with non-dereferencing elements prior to HTML rendering by the e-mail browser so that the remaining HTML can be rendered as complete as possible without rendering the potential web beacons. Additionally, the present invention also provides a method for removing the HTTP Referer header from referenced external links and activated images. An HTTP redirector service is implemented as a server-based link redirection evaluator application which serves to eliminate the Referer header for the URL requested. Embodiments of the present invention provide for blocking web beacons and removing HTTP Referer headers in both a 'down-level' e-mail client and a client which can make programmatic use of an HTML rendering engine.

Method for blocking dereferencing elements in messages

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Woodinville, WA, United States of America

Brendan Clarke Fields