Abstract:
The invention provides a method and system for searching based on association of system resources a user was working on with external devices such as user&#39;s PDA, mobile phone, or printer and the system&#39;s interaction with such external devices. In one embodiment of the invention, a method is provided comprising a person using a resource on the computer and, during said using, engaging in another event; sending data to the computer related to said another event; and the computer creating an association between said another event and said resource. This embodiment also comprises sending a request to the computer to identify the resource that was being used by said person at the time of said another event; and the computer, acting in response to said request, using said association to identify said resource.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0002]    This invention generally relates to using a computer to search for resources such as data or files. More specifically, the invention relates to searching for computer resources based on associations between those resources and external events. 
         [0003]    2. Background Art 
         [0004]    Conventional computer operating systems have the capability to search for files and folders based on a number of criteria, including file name, file extension, specific phrase or keyword inside the file, time last modified, and size. Most often these searches are useful when the user has information about these details. However, sometime people do not have such details. Also, sometimes people recall information that is not directly relevant to the applications they were working on, and would like the computer to conduct a search based on such information. The present limitation in conventional computer searches is that they work on objects or events within the computer system, such as searching file objects based on creation or modification of date and time, name or extension. 
         [0005]    Attempts have been made to record incident logs in a computer or data processing system. The incident information that is generated is for events happening within the system, for instance within a mobile phone system or a personal computer. It does not extend to key events happening in other systems or to external system events. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0006]    Embodiments of the invention provide a method, system and computer program product for using a computer to search for resources. In one embodiment of the invention, a method is provided comprising a person using a resource on the computer and, during said using, engaging in another event; sending data to the computer related to said another event; and the computer creating an association between said another event and said resource. This embodiment also comprises sending a request to the computer to identify the resource that was being used by said person at the time of said another event; and the computer, acting in response to said request, using said association to identify said resource. 
         [0007]    As one example, the association between said another event and said resource may be stored in a relational database. As another example, an object oriented data model may be used to associate said another event and said resource. 
         [0008]    In one embodiment, described in detail below, the invention associates events occurring in devices external to a computer—such as storage devices, mobile phone devices, printers, and so on—with tasks or objects a user is working with on the computer. This association can be used for searching across all the peripheral devices. Such capability makes the computers more intuitive and smarter to work with. This is because people will be able to search the tasks they were working on by recalling commonplace events, such as receiving a call from friend, and the latter, which are much easier to remember than file names or date/time information. 
         [0009]    Further benefits and advantages of this invention will become apparent from a consideration of the following detailed description, given with reference to the accompanying drawings, which specify and show preferred embodiments of the invention. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0010]      FIG. 1  is a conceptual representation of an incident event model that accounts for storing peripheral events and relating those events to objects in a computer system. 
           [0011]      FIG. 2  is a table illustrating typical information that may be stored in incident logs as a user works with objects in a computer system. 
           [0012]      FIG. 3  is a block diagram depicting an object oriented data model of an incident log. 
           [0013]      FIG. 4  is a block diagram illustrating the interaction of phone calls, short message service messages (SMSes), and printer devices with a computer system. 
           [0014]      FIG. 5  is an exemplary diagram of a computing environment in which the present invention may be implemented. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
       [0015]    As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the present invention may be embodied as a system, method or computer program product. Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.” Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied in any tangible medium of expression having computer usable program code embodied in the medium. 
         [0016]    Any combination of one or more computer usable or computer readable medium(s) may be utilized. The computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, device, or propagation medium. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CDROM), an optical storage device, a transmission media such as those supporting the Internet or an intranet, or a magnetic storage device. Note that the computer-usable or computer-readable medium could even be paper or another suitable medium, upon which the program is printed, as the program can be electronically captured, via, for instance, optical scanning of the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted, or otherwise processed in a suitable manner, if necessary, and then stored in a computer memory. In the context of this document, a computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be any medium that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The computer-usable medium may include a propagated data signal with the computer-usable program code embodied therewith, either in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. The computer usable program code may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc. 
         [0017]    Computer program code for carrying out operations of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user&#39;s computer, partly on the user&#39;s computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user&#39;s computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user&#39;s computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider). 
         [0018]    The present invention is described below with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable medium that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. 
         [0019]    The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide processes for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. 
         [0020]    Generally, in accordance with the present invention, a computer system associates a resource on which a user was working, with events occurring in various devices that a user used at the time the user was working on that resource. The computer system later uses that association to perform a search for that resource or a related resource. This capability makes computers more intuitive and smarter to work with, as people are able to search the tasks on which they were working by recalling commonplace events, such as receiving a call from friend or vice versa, which are often much easier to remember than file names or date/time information. 
         [0021]    In order to achieve this the computer systems are made pervasive by gathering events or data from various devices or peripherals of a computing device. Human memory is based on the association of disparate information obtained from various sources. This invention emulates that by collecting information about events from peripheral devices that are connected to nearby, or used at the same times as a computer, and using that information to recall the objects the user was working with, or actions the user was doing, at the time these other events occurred. 
         [0022]    In an embodiment of the present invention, the operating system records additional information, which will be described below, in addition to the application resource name, type, location, timestamp, and username. The search options available in today&#39;s operating system are able to search the files based on a given name or modified time stamp. However, today&#39;s operating systems are limited in that they are not able to perform a search on system objects based on events happening within peripheral devices at a given time, or on operations the user performed on those devices, such as making a call on a mobile phone or using a printer. 
         [0023]      FIG. 1  illustrates various events that can be associated with a computer object or resource. For example, as represented at  102 , information about telephone calls to or from a mobile phone, or information about SMS messages may be recorded for association with a computer object or action. Printer events may also be recorded, as represented at  104 , for the same purpose. In addition, an incident log  106  may be kept of incidents, and an incident log  110  may be kept to store information about individual incidents. A resource record  112  may be kept to record information about resources on the computer system, and an event record  114  may be kept to store information about individual events. 
         [0024]    The following discussion gives an example that illustrates the utility of a search based on external stimulus. Namely,  FIG. 2  illustrates an incident log for a specific user, named Joe, for Mar. 16, 2008. Based on the log, Joe can get the system to return the resources he was working on while he received a call from a person named Anita on his mobile phone, which would be one or more of Resume.doc 25, B1.ppt 40, and Pricing.x1s 55. Also, the system can now support another query such as “Who called Joe when a particular document was being modified.” One can see that Joe received calls from Anita, Sam and an unknown caller from phone number 9890111222 when Joe was working on his resume. 
       Object Oriented Data of Incident Log 
       [0025]    Operating systems may use a relational database or equivalent to store the incident information. An alternative to using a conventional relational database for storing logs is to use an object oriented data model as depicted in  FIG. 3 . 
         [0026]    In the log, each system resource is represented as an object with properties. The incidents log  300  is a collection of objects a user was working with. The user location  325  is represented as a property for the incident log entry  310  for that particular location. A collection of incident logs  310  form the main incidents log  300 . 
         [0027]    The destination object  360  represents the storage devices a particular resource is saved to. In the embodiment shown, this object has properties such as resource location  375 , device name  365 , and name  370  of the system resource on this device. A resource object  330  may have a list of destinations  345 . For instance, Joe&#39;s resume could be stored on a CD, a pen drive, and a flash drive, apart from the computer system itself. 
       Mobile Devices 
       [0028]      FIG. 4  is a block diagram illustrating the interaction of phone calls, SMSes, and printer devices with a computer system. Another example of an embodiment of this invention uses the incoming/outgoing calls and/or SMSes  400 , to or from the user, Joe, when Joe is working on a presentation. Joe may not remember the name of the file, but he may be able to vividly remember a call from an important client or his wife. 
         [0029]    In another embodiment, the invention associates calls received on a cell phone while working on a document on a computer. When a user receives a particular call on his cell phone or landline, this information can be made available to a desktop computer  410  from time to time through an infrared, Bluetooth link or a data cable if the phone is connected to the computer. 
         [0030]    As another example of an embodiment of the present invention, when a person opens a particular document on a computer, the computer operating system gives the person the option to send a command to his or her cell phone (if the cell phone is in range) to display all the numbers dialed or calls received the last time the person was working on the document. 
         [0031]    All the phone  400  needs to retrieve this data is date/time stamp information. The desktop computer  410  may supply such information to the mobile device  400  in a mutually agreeable format over, for example, a data cable, an infrared link or a Bluetooth network. When the phone  400  receives the request for this information, the phone will search its memory or sim card memory to retrieve information about the calls and messages sent or received during the relevant time period. 
         [0032]    The user can be more specific as well. The user might say, for example, “Give me only the incoming calls the last time I worked on this document.” So along with the date/time information, an operation type is also sent to the mobile device  400 . Such an operation type, in an embodiment, has predefined values appropriate to the functionality offered by a peripheral device. 
         [0033]    Phone calls may be incoming calls, outgoing calls, incoming messages, and outgoing messages. For instance, while browsing through the outgoing call list, a person may select a contact and send a “query” command to the desktop computer  410 . The phone  400  sends this date/time stamp and caller information to the computer system to query against. 
         [0034]    Since the association between date/time, caller id, etc, has already been made in the computer system, the computer system can easily look up all associated system objects and present them to the user on the desktop screen. 
         [0035]    With prior art devices, users can only synchronize static address books, calendars or file objects between phone and computer. Embodiments of the present invention are able to synchronize transactional information happening in real time. 
         [0036]    In the case of phone calls, the information that can be shared with other devices includes, but is not limited to: 1) caller ID (contact name if in address book), 2) date/time call arrived or made (incoming or outgoing), and 3) duration of call. In the case of SMSes, the information that can be shared with other devices includes, but is not limited to: 1) sender&#39;s/receiver&#39;s phone number, and 2) date/time SMS sent/arrived. 
       Printer Devices 
       [0037]    The following information may be already available, or, if not, may be communicated by a printer server  420  to a desktop computer  430 : 1) printer location, 2) user/computer IP addresses/names that sent the print jobs, 3) names of documents which were sent for printing, 4) number of copies to be printed, 5) date/time stamp at which the documents were sent to print, and 6) the result of the print request, such as failed printing, successful, etc. 
         [0038]    The computer  430  uses this information to form associations with file objects in order to search for these objects at a later time. One way to form these associations is to treat such external information as transactional attributes of file objects. The computer system can use these attributes to entertain queries such as: 1) “Give me the documents I tried to print but failed at the office today when I was listening to a particular song on my IPOD”, or 2) “Give me the documents &lt;file objects&gt; 1 &lt;user&gt; was working on when I got a call &lt;external event&gt; from so and so person yesterday &lt;date/time info&gt;”. 
       Workplace Recovery Based on External Events 
       [0039]    In addition to offering a new way to search, the functionality provided by embodiments of this invention can be used to quickly launch the resources on which a user was working, based on the user&#39;s interaction with peripheral devices. Therefore, in the example discussed in connection with  FIG. 2 , Joe can now ask the computer system to launch all applications or open resources he was working with when, for instance, he was on a telephone call with a given person, or downloaded an area map on his PDA, or was playing a particular music number on his portable music player, or added someone to his contact list, and so on. 
         [0040]    For example,  FIG. 5  and the following discussion provide a brief general description of a suitable computing environment in which the invention may be implemented. It should be understood, however, that handheld, portable, and other computing devices of all kinds are contemplated for use in connection with the present invention. While a general-purpose computer is described below, this is but one example, the present invention may be implemented in an environment of networked hosted services in which very little or minimal client resources are implicated, e.g., a networked environment in which the client device serves merely as a browser or interface to the World Wide Web. 
         [0041]    Although not required, the invention can be implemented via an application-programming interface (API), for use by a developer, and/or included within the network browsing software, which will be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by one or more computers, such as client workstations, servers, or other devices. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures and the like that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Typically, the functionality of the program modules may be combined or distributed as desired in various embodiments. Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced with other computer system configurations. 
         [0042]    Other well known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may be suitable for use with the invention include, but are not limited to, personal computers (PCs), server computers, hand-held or laptop devices, multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based systems, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network or other data transmission medium. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote computer storage media including memory storage devices. 
         [0043]      FIG. 5 , thus, illustrates an example of a suitable computing system environment  500  in which the invention may be implemented, although as made clear above, the computing system environment  500  is only one example of a suitable computing environment and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the invention. Neither should the computing environment  500  be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination of components illustrated in the exemplary operating environment  500 . With reference to  FIG. 5 , an exemplary system for implementing the invention includes a general purpose-computing device in the form of a computer  510 . Components of computer  510  may include, but are not limited to, a processing unit  520 , a system memory  530 , and a system bus  521  that couples various system components including the system memory to the processing unit  520 . The system bus  521  may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus (also known as Mezzanine bus). 
         [0044]    Computer  510  typically includes a variety of computer readable media. Computer readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by computer  510  and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation, computer readable media may comprise computer storage media and communication media. Computer storage media includes volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CDROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by computer  510 . 
         [0045]    Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared, and other wireless media. Combinations of any of the above should also be included within the scope of computer readable media. 
         [0046]    The system memory  530  includes computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM)  531  and random access memory (RAM)  532 . A basic input/output system  533  (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within computer  510 , such as during start-up, is typically stored in ROM  531 . RAM  532  typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on by processing unit  520 . By way of example, and not limitation,  FIG. 5  illustrates operating system  534 , application programs  535 , other program modules  536 , and program data  537 . 
         [0047]    The computer  510  may also include other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only,  FIG. 5  illustrate a bard disk drive  541  that reads from or writes to non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, a magnetic disk drive  551  that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile magnetic disk  552 , and an optical disk drive  555  that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile optical disk  556 , such as a CD ROM or other optical media. Other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media that can be used in the exemplary operating environment include, but are not limited to, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. The hard disk drive  541  is typically connected to the system bus  521  through a non-removable memory interface such as interface  540 , and magnetic disk drive  551  and optical disk drive  555  are typically connected to the system bus  521  by a removable memory interface, such as interface  550 . 
         [0048]    The drives and their associated computer storage media discussed above and illustrated in  FIG. 5  provide storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer  510 . In  FIG. 5 , for example, hard disk drive  541  is illustrated as storing operating system  544 , application programs  545 , other program modules  546 , and program data  547 . Note that these components can either be the same as or different from operating system  534 , application programs  535 , other program modules  536 , and program data  537 . Operating System  544 , application programs  545 , other program modules  546 , and program data  547  are given different numbers here to illustrate that, at a minimum, they are different copies. 
         [0049]    A user may enter commands and information into the computer  510  through input devices such as a keyboard  562  and pointing device  561 , commonly referred to as a mouse, trackball or touch pad. Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit  520  through a user input interface  560  that is coupled to the system bus  521 , but may be connected by other interface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). 
         [0050]    A monitor  591  or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus  521  via an interface, such as a video interface  590 . A graphics interface  582 , such as Northbridge, may also be connected to the system bus  521 . Northbridge is a chipset that communicates with the CPU, or host-processing unit  520 , and assumes responsibility for accelerated graphics port (AGP) communications. One or more graphics processing units (GPUs)  584  may communicate with graphics interface  582 . In this regard, GPUs  584  generally include on-chip memory storage, such as register storage and GPUs  584  communicate with a video memory  586 . GPUs  584 , however, are but one example of a coprocessor and, thus, a variety of co-processing devices may be included in computer  510 . A monitor  591  or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus  521  via an interface, such as a video interface  590 , which may in turn communicate with video memory  586 . In addition to monitor  591 , computers may also include other peripheral output devices such as speakers  297  and printer  596 , which may be connected through an output peripheral interface  595 . 
         [0051]    The computer  510  may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer  580 . The remote computer  580  may be a personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer  510 , although only a memory storage device  281  has been illustrated in  FIG. 5 . The logical connections depicted in  FIG. 5  include a local area network (LAN)  571  and a wide area network (WAN)  573 , but may also include other networks. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet. 
         [0052]    When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer  510  is connected to the LAN  571  through a network interface or adapter  570 . When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer  510  typically includes a modem  572  or other means for establishing communications over the WAN  573 , such as the Internet. The modem  572 , which may be internal or external, may be connected to the system bus  521  via the user input interface  560 , or other appropriate mechanism. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer  510 , or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. By way of example, and not limitation,  FIG. 2  illustrates remote application programs  585  as residing on memory device  581 . It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used. 
         [0053]    One of ordinary skill in the art can appreciate that a computer  510  or other client device can be deployed as part of a computer network. In this regard, the present invention pertains to any computer system having any number of memory or storage units, and any number of applications and processes occurring across any number of storage units or volumes. The present invention may apply to an environment with server computers and client computers deployed in a network environment, having remote or local storage. The present invention may also apply to a standalone computing device, having programming language functionality, interpretation and execution capabilities. 
         [0054]    While it is apparent that the invention herein disclosed is well calculated to fulfill the objects stated above, it will be appreciated that numerous modifications and embodiments may be devised by those skilled in the art, and it is intended that the appended claims cover all such modifications and embodiments as fall within the true spirit and scope of the present invention.