International Business Machines Corporation

Glen Edmond Chalemin

Clifford Jay Spinac

Indran Naick

Calvin Lui Sze

Alfredo V Mendoza

Gaurav Batra

Anil Kumar Kaniveedu Damodaran

Erik Allan Kane

Stephen P Cummings

Debora A Blakely-Fogel

Carolyn K Jones

Mechanisms that dynamically check availability of hardware resources for applications of virtual environments are provided. One or more computing devices have various hardware resources available to applications of a virtual environment. Hardware resources may comprise, for example, amounts of memory, amounts or units of processing capability of one or more processors, and various types of peripheral devices. The mechanisms store hardware data pertaining to a specified amount of hardware recommended or required for an application to execute within the virtual environment. The mechanisms monitor for changes to the hardware configuration that may affect amount of hardware available to the virtual environment and/or application. If the changes to the hardware reduce the amount of available hardware to a point beyond the specified amount of hardware, the mechanisms prevent the application from being executed or prevent the changes to the hardware configuration.

Dynamic checking of hardware resources for virtual environments

It has been discovered that instances of an item to be sold in online auctions may be linked to an already created online auction listing for the item. The associating propagates the online auction listing to these other item instances. The propagating allows junior bidders (i.e., losing bidders) to continue pursuing purchase of the associated item instances and allows the junior sellers of the associated item instances to leverage the information of the online auction listing.

Online auction propagation

Illustrative embodiments present a computer-implemented method for programmatic message forwarding. The computer-implemented method initiates a messaging session on a primary device and identifies device priority preferences for a set of secondary devices. The computer-implemented method further monitors for a presence of the mobile device, wherein the presence of the mobile device is indicated as a heartbeat, and responsive to a determination of the absence of the heartbeat is detected, identifies one of the set of secondary devices as a target device, and responsive to locating the target device, forwards a message to the target device.

Programmatic message forwarding

Apparatus, method and program product for relocating Bad Block Relocation Directory (BBRD) on a disk storage pre-allocate a number of areas for BBRD in different locations of the disk storage. The locations for the BBRD are calculated based upon the size of the disk and BBRD count. If the update of BBRD fails due to defective media at the location to be updated, that location is abandon and the next pre-allocated location is used. A copy of the BBRD is stored in RAM and maintained by the kernel. By so doing, when a bad block in the BBRD is detected the kernel causes the BBRD to be written in a good one of the locations reserved for BBRD. When the number of alternate BBRD locations used hits a pre-defined threshold, this indicates a situation where many sections of the disk are going bad and the disk needs replacement. If all BBRD locations are used, the disk is presumed bad and all future I/O activities to the disk is suspended. An administrator may be notified that the disk is going bad and needs to be replaced.

Relocating bad block relocation (BBR) directory upon encountering physical media defect on a disk

A method by which a user may move windows from one location to another on a screen of a portable computing device is provided. In accordance with the method, when the device is in window manipulation mode, the user needs only tilt the device toward a destination location and the windows are moved toward that location. Tilt detectors in the device sense an angle of tilt and provide the tilt angle as feedback to a processor. The processor, under proper software instructions, moves the windows toward the destination location on the screen based on the tilt angle. The greater the tilt angle, the faster the windows are moved toward the destination location.

System, computer program product and method of manipulating windows on portable computing devices through motion

An irrigation system includes a radio transmitter station that transmits weather prediction information to a geographic region that includes multiple geographic sub-regions. The weather prediction information includes a respective geographic sub-region code for each of the geographic sub-regions for which a weather forecast predicts rain within a predetermined time period. An irrigation apparatus in a particular sub-region activates to water a watering zone at a schedule time. However, if the irrigation apparatus receives the sub-region code for the particular sub-region where the irrigation apparatus is located, the irrigation apparatus does not immediately activate to water the watering zone in one embodiment. The transmitter station may transmit both program content and data content on a common radio frequency signal wherein the data content includes the weather prediction information.

Irrigation system and methodology

In one embodiment, this invention utilizes radio frequency identification (RFID) tag with nutrition information for each kind of food in a restaurant, institutional cafeteria, in food delivery to hospital patients, in hospice, in old age home residents or elsewhere. The food plate is placed on a coaster with an RFID reader and miniature built-in scale. The scale is used to measure the weight of a particular food placed on the plate. In addition, the RFID reader reads the nutritional information from an RFID tag in the serving bin of the cafeteria or the food distribution point. With the nutritional information of each food and the amount of the food that is added to the plate, the nutritional intake of a customer or patient can be calculated. With this the nutrition information now available, the nutritional information, including the amount of vitamins, calories, sugars, carbohydrates, and grams (g) of fat, can be obtained and tracked.

Nutrition intake tracker

In one embodiment, a Wake-On-LAN (WOL) signal is sent to power-up and boot the workstation when the employees badge into the site in order to save time for the employees. The workstation boots up into the operating system as the employees arrive at the office area. Upon badging into their office area or building, a database matches the badge number with the MAC address of their corresponding workstations. Then a WOL signal with that MAC address is sent to power-up the particular workstations. In an embodiment, upon badging out, the same procedure is triggered to shutdown the machine or performs any other tasks based on a predetermined configuration. If two or more employees use the same computer, the computer is turned on when either employee badges into the site. This embodiment groups the employees in a group entity and keeps track of the individuals within the group.

Integrating workstation computer with badging system

The system and method of this invention configures the protocols of a network architecture as an expert system. The expert system utilizes the knowledge of the network architecture, and offers intelligent advice to system users in the event of an invalid request to enable the entry of a valid request to establish communications through the network.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Glen Edmond Chalemin