Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.p.

Hewlett-packard Company

Bruce Neil Campbell

James Russell Curtis

Eric Martin Soderberg

Daniel W Hepner

Jonathan Paul Patrizio

Thomas A Murray

Bradley A Stone

An update website prioritizes updates available for an application (e.g., a word-processing program or a fault-tolerance program) running on a user computer system. Prioritization is in part a function of usage data gathered on the user computer system by a usage-tracking module of the application. The usage data is transferred to the update site and parameters relevant to prioritization are evaluated. The parameter values are then used for prioritization. The usage data can also be compiled with data from other users to guide further development of the application.

Program-update prioritization according to program-usage tracking

A document reader program determines the existence of an updated version of a document file at a network location specified by an original version of the document file. The document reader program then presents the user a choice of rendering the original version or the updated version in human-cognizable form. For example, a user can request help for a host application, which accesses an original version of a help file via the document reader. Instead of displaying information from the original help file, the reader access a network location specified in the original help file, downloads an updated help file and then displays its information to the user. The updated help file can correspond to the local version of the host application or, in another embodiment, the most-recent help file for the most-recent version of the host application.

Auto-updating reader program for document files

A system and methods are disclosed for preventing computers in a network from concurrently processing a task, where the task can be successfully processed by only one computer in the network at a time. The system comprises a plurality of computers connected to the network and a locking device connected to the network, wherein the locking device uses a password change system to control which computer in the network is able to process the task.

Mutual exclusion lock implementation for a computer network

Selected resources of a computing system are monitored. A user interacting with a resource management client discovers the resources currently available to be monitored and then selects which resources of the computing system are to be monitored. Also, the user selects monitor parameters for each resource. Then, for each resource selected, the resource management client forwards to a resource monitoring manager a monitor request to monitor the resource. The resource monitoring manager reformats the monitor request to form a reformatted monitor request. The resource monitoring manager forwards the reformatted monitoring request to one of a plurality of resource monitor modules. The resource monitor module which receives the reformatted monitoring request monitors the resource.

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Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Bruce Neil Campbell