Abstract:
A method to independently test and develop a component based software system. The method captures software specifications of the system in a model. It then loads technical specifications of the components of the system into a code generation repository, and generates platform specific code for the components. In a separate embodiment, the generated code is in a standalone format for ease of testing. In another embodiment, the generated code is integrated with one or more other components, thereby permitting integration testing. The method can be used, among other things, to produce user interfaces that are standardized.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS  
       [0001]     Benefit is claimed under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/553,246, filed Mar. 15, 2004, which is herein incorporated in its entirety by reference for all purposes.  
         [0002]     Benefit is claimed under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/553,248, filed Mar. 15, 2004, which is herein incorporated in its entirety by reference for all purposes.  
         [0003]     Benefit is claimed under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/553,247, filed Mar. 15, 2004, which is herein incorporated in its entirety by reference for all purposes.  
         [0004]     Benefit is claimed under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/553,162, filed Mar. 15, 2004, which is herein incorporated in its entirety by reference for all purposes.  
         [0005]     Benefit is claimed under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/553,467, filed Mar. 16, 2004, which is herein incorporated in its entirety by reference for all purposes. 
     
    
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
       [0006]     The present invention relates to component based software systems, and in particular, the development, testing, and deployment of such systems.  
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0007]     Component-based software development is the current trend in software technologies. A software component may be thought of as a self-contained unit that encapsulates and implements the behavior of a single function.  
         [0008]     A complex software system for an organization that spans multiple business functions is normally made up of multiple components. And since the various functions in a business interact with each other, components also need to interact with each other. Development of such multi-component software systems comprising multiple interacting components usually involves multiple development teams with each team responsible for a distinct set of components. The development and roll out may be done in phases with interacting components developed and delivered at different times. For successful development and deployment of such a software system, it is important to be able to develop and test a component in a truly standalone, independent manner, separately test its integration with other components, and subsequently assemble and connect the interacting components together at the deployment stage. The inability to achieve successful development and deployment in software technologies is a problem in the struggle towards creating practical software components. This is compounded by the fact that on a micro-level, the functionality inside the component is not expressible in a standard way for users to understand before they assemble an application using components.  
         [0009]     The choice of technologies used to create software further complicates system development because of the lack of standard architectural or structural elements in describing software. Moreover, the functionality provided by software components cannot be abstracted to a reasonably finite set at any point in time. This is in contrast to standard electronic components that pack huge amounts of functionality and behavior into data sheets that describe the various interfaces (pins), properties of information transfer through these interfaces (voltage, signal frequency, etc.), and the expected behavior in terms of the effects on the output interfaces (pins). However, such data sheet based specifications are not available for software components. Rather, software components need fabrication and a certain amount of engineering every time a new application is created. Ironically, even though software is supposedly more malleable, it is electronic components that do not need any engineering to adopt them into an overall functionality. Consequently, problems faced by the industry in making software components include a lack of a standard definition, a lack of an independent production approach, a lack of transparency in functionality and interface properties, and a lack of support needed for making available respective data sheets, assembly instructions, and engineering instructions.  
         [0010]     To address some of these problems, generating code out of specifications has been attempted over the past couple of decades. Early approaches involved logic modeling, and later efforts used specifications applied to various sets of diagrammatic conventions to generate code onto target technologies. However, none of the prior attempts were very successful, as they got caught up in the modeled logic, the programming language, or the tediousness of the approach. As a result, the development community reverted back to coding in the conventional way. Consequently, generating code out of specification has up to this point suffered from at least the following drawbacks. First, attempts to generate code for a logic model required extensive detail work at the specification level. This basically transferred the error prone details of development from the details of coding to the details of specification design. Second, even when specifications were used, there has been no standardization of the specification and/or the formal data structures that store and retrieve information. Third, a much needed Change Management process has not been thought out and implemented, causing specifications and models to be out of sync and rendering forward engineering ineffective. Therefore, an issue is the lack of understanding of how to go about creating and managing specifications for software components in such a way that Code generation is possible.  
         [0011]     A closely related issue to code generation is the packaging of the generated artifacts (i.e. executable code) for deployment. Currently, deployment packaging varies to a great extent depending on support technologies and the operating system, and packaging the artifacts out of the code generator is a major task in deploying the generated application. Presently, tools in the market are aligned to single support technology and do not cater to multiple support technologies.  
         [0012]     Component based software systems have user interfaces that link a user and the system. User interfaces may be a critical part of any software solution since the end user experiences the solution through the user interfaces. User interfaces are many times created by developers who specialize in aesthetics and feel of interfaces. While this makes the interface more creative, it also at times makes it non-standardized. End users do not usually feel comfortable with solutions that require them to operate various user interfaces in many different ways. So in this era of software component assembly, if the user interfaces are not standardized and similar, the resultant assembly will not have consistent usability in user interfaces. Moreover, if there is no standardization, maintenance of the user interfaces becomes more difficult, especially if the interface creator is no longer available.  
         [0013]     On the technical level, user interface requirements for some applications can be very demanding. For example, it may be required to capture multiple line items for a document based interface. This is achieved by using a grid control in the user interface. This is even more difficult when the application is Web based. Moreover, it may be required that the application be available on multiple platforms like Windows, UNIX, OS/400, etc., and that it also be available on a wide range of browsers and devices.  
         [0014]     One problem with current grid control solutions however is that they are tied to either a particular platform or technology. And a problem with Web based grid controls is that users are very much accustomed to friendly desktop based applications with rich user interfaces. Any Web based control should therefore provide the same rich user interface and ease of use. On the performance side, Web based applications should send as little data as possible over the Web. Because the grid control can hold hundreds of thousands of rows of data, sending all of them over the Web from the client browser to the Web server takes a great deal of time. Since the users are very much used to the fast desktop-based applications, slow Web based applications are not always acceptable. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0015]      FIG. 1  illustrates an example of a typical software component and its interfaces to other system entities.  
         [0016]      FIG. 2  illustrates in diagrammatic form a code generation process.  
         [0017]      FIG. 3  illustrates an example of an interface used to collect user interface data.  
         [0018]      FIG. 4  illustrates a standardized user interface.  
         [0019]      FIG. 5  illustrates a computer system upon which the present invention can reside and operate.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS  
       [0020]     In one embodiment of the invention, a component is defined as a self-contained software application that encapsulates and implements a single function. As illustrated in  FIG. 1 , there are then several facets to a component. A component  10  has direct interfaces  20  that are invoked from external agents (inter-system). The component  10  also has connector interfaces  30  that are invoked by, or on behalf of, other components within this system (intra-system). Components also have visual interfaces  40  that are invoked from the standard interface devices such as clients and browsers. Within a component itself, there are interface specification lists that define the structure of information supplied to and received by the component, internal data structures that are the schema for data persistence inside the component, interface behavior specifications that list the logic flow inside the component when an interface is invoked, and facilities to generate the resultant output on the related interfaces.  
         [0021]     Such a component based system provides several advantages. It provides traceability of business processes in software implementations. Since the software component definition is well defined, reusability of code is possible. Additionally, because behavior transparency is present in component based systems, identifying the engineering needs is somewhat easier. Moreover, direct interfaces implemented in suitable technology provide for inter-operability with systems, even those systems developed and deployed with conventional approaches. Similarly, the connector interfaces and specifications help in an independent production approach providing stub specifications for testability as an autonomous component. As a result of the preceding, categories of visual interfaces can be implemented in multiple technologies. This all provides for a clear understanding of components, functionalities, and dependencies vis-à-vis information requirements.  
         [0022]     Another embodiment addresses the realm of multi-layered/multi-component Web based software systems, and provides an approach for independently developing and unit testing a component of an integrated business system without having the source and executable codes corresponding to the various other components with which this component interacts. This component can then be separately tested for integration requirements when the connector components themselves are available. In another embodiment, components are independently rolled out and then connected with their interacting components when they become available.  
         [0023]     This particular embodiment accomplishes this by adopting a model-driven approach to component development, i.e. the software specifications are captured in a model, and the model is then used to generate the code. The modeling elements for capturing the specifications include connector interfaces, interface specifications, and interface behavior specifications. Connector interfaces are the interfaces of the component through which it interacts with other components of the system. These interfaces can be between the user interfaces of the components (Web layer), the services of the components (Application layer), or the data structures of the components (Data layer). Interface specifications describe the structure of the information exchanged with the interacting components. Interface behavior specifications are the logic flow within the component when an interface is invoked and the resultant output to the related interfaces. Put together, these modeling elements describe the interactions of a component with other components of the system.  
         [0024]     Once the specifications of a component are captured in the model, the construction phase is initiated. In this phase, a single component&#39;s technical specification is downloaded into a code generation repository. From this repository the technology platform-specific code for the component is generated. Two versions of the component&#39;s code are generated—standalone and integrated. In the standalone version, all the connector interfaces are implemented through stubs. Standard stubs are implemented for each type of connection, and these stubs implement standard behavior. The integration version of the component code provides the actual implementation of the connector interfaces of the component. This version of the code can be generated when the technical specifications of the integrating components are completed.  
         [0025]      FIG. 2  illustrates the code generation process. Specifically, one or more embodiments of the invention insure that standard representations of software specifications are available in Block  50 . This helps in developing code generators in Block  60  with standard semantics for multiple technologies and technology usage selection options. In some embodiments of the invention however, code generation covers only the flow aspects of the processing, and leaves the logic pieces to be manually coded. After code generation, core runtime support is available in Block  70  that is specific to underlying technologies in Block  80 , and the generated code is implemented over the various system technology layers in Block  90 . And when there is an improvement or advance in underlying support technologies, the component based design permits the changes that are needed to adopt to these improvements to be localized, leading to faster adoption without entire regeneration. Support is also available for integrated packaging leading to easier deployment of the generated artifacts. Lastly, an integrated change management process identifies the changed artifacts to be generated and deployed.  
         [0026]     Information stored in the standard repository supplies naming conventions and code generation related specification attributes. This is moved from the standard repository  50  to a specific code generation repository at  60 . Code generators use the interfaces offered by standard runtime artifacts  100  for specific technologies and generate the artifacts into the different technology layers. The artifacts and the packaging scheme are technology dependent and are available in the specific code generation repository. A change management process specifies the list for code generation and the generation cycle is used to generate the specific artifacts. The unit of work at the code generation level is a component, and subsequent changes are at a lower granular level to avoid disruption of deployed artifacts.  
         [0027]     In one embodiment, to actually deploy the invention, the following steps are taken. First, the software specifications of components are captured in a software model. The three main parts of a component that are captured are the connector interfaces, the interface specifications, and the interface behavior specification. Second, the specification of a component is downloaded into a code generation repository. Third, the standalone version of the platform specific code for the component is generated from the code generation repository. Fourth, unit testing of the component is performed. Fifth, the component is independently rolled-out. Sixth, integrated specifications for this component are downloaded into the code generation repository. Seventh, integration testing of component interfaces is performed. Finally, integrating components are rolled out and connected with the component.  
         [0028]     One advantage of this embodiment includes the ability to independently fabricate and test each component. Also, true unit testing can be practiced where the standalone version of the component is tested for internal behavior. The connector stubs ensure that the component does not break down because of the absence of the actual connecting code. That is, there is an independent deployment of components with stub implementation of interfaces. Thereafter, a separate integration testing phase is implemented where the integration version of a component is test deployed along with its connecting components and the connection interfaces. Then at deployment time, integrating components can be assembled and connected where the stub connectors of a component are transparently replaced with actual implementations.  
         [0029]     The foregoing disclosure of software specifications, modeling, and code generation can be used in connection with user interface modeling to solve the problem of lack of standardization of user interfaces and to ensure consistency of user interfaces across a software system. Consequently, to ensure standardization and consistency, the user interface structure should be modeled and the user interface itself should be generated. Then the requirement of repeatability and consistency for user interface generation will be met.  
         [0030]     To understand this embodiment of the invention, it is helpful to understand exactly what a user interface is. First, a user interface is a collection of data items that are laid out in a structured fashion. It can have a tabbed look and feel, which enables the-user to group various sections of a document as tabs and enables the user to work on one section at a time. This ensures that the user views only those data that are relevant for the current operation and all the other related data are available at the click of a button. Each page (or screen) of a document is a collection of sections, and the positions of these sections are captured as logical coordinates within the page (screen). These positions do not normally correspond to the exact X/Y coordinates on the screen, as these will be arrived at during generation of the user interface layout.  
         [0031]     Additionally, every section is a collection of user interface elements. The layout of these user interface elements within the sections is also captured as logical coordinates. These logical coordinates have their scope within the section, and this ensures that the user interface elements maintain their logical positioning irrespective of how the sections are positioned. This setup gives great control to the user interface engineer to concentrate on laying out controls within a section and then concentrating on how such sections are positioned in a page. Every section can then have command buttons that perform specific actions on user invocation. For the positioning of these buttons, they can be considered as any other user interface element and be positioned as required.  
         [0032]     The traversal from one user interface to another user interface can be specified as traversal links. These links are special user interface links that can be positioned in any section. These links can also be superimposed on display only data items, which provide the end user with the capability of a Data-Specific Hyper Link  
         [0033]     Every data set on a user interface screen with multiple elements can be specified as a grid. In one embodiment of the invention, a grid is treated as a single element for positioning in a section. This enables the layout of a section that is immune to any changes in the layout of such grids. Each grid can then have a set of user interface elements which repeat for every row of data. The positioning of the user interface elements in a grid follows the ordering of the user elements within a grid. Rendering of these elements is taken care of while generating the user interface.  
         [0034]     Each of these user interface elements can have a set of sample data associated with them. These data will be used to fill the user interface when generated as a prototype. This enables the end user to have a feel of how the user interface would look and behave with data filled in. This approach also enables a user to have a feel of the functionality of the user interface with data relevant to the user&#39;s business. This prototype can be used for initial training and user acceptance from a user interface perspective.  
         [0035]     Each of the elements in a section can have documentation associated with it. This will be displayed to the end user as a tool tip in the prototype that is generated from the system.  
         [0036]      FIG. 3  illustrates an example of a typical look and feel of the application used to specify the user interface layout. In the example of  FIG. 3 , a user interface element is entered in the column at  110 . A description of that element is input into the column at  115 , and the placement of that element on the screen is dictated by the horizontal order  120  and the vertical order  125 . A generator component analyzes these user interface layout elements and generates the user interface deliverable. This component can be configured to generate the user interface for various technologies and various users&#39; needs.  
         [0037]     A user can generate the user interface for deployment on a variety of user interface methodologies. Examples of such methodologies include desktop based client server presentation, browser based HTML presentation, and mobile technology based WAP presentation. The user can generate the user interfaces for various purposes such as user interface for user interface acceptance review, user interface for end user training, user interface for use in production, and user interface for use in internal design review. Additional versions of this generation are limited only by the need for new requirements and requires personalization of the generator component only.  FIG. 4  illustrates an example of a standardized user interface produced by the application illustrated in  FIG. 3 . The user interface  200  has edit controls  210 , sections  220 , grid controls  230 , task buttons  240 , and page  250 .  
         [0038]     The foregoing method has many advantages for the various users of the user interface. First, there is a standardization of look and feel of the user interfaces across the entire system. Second, user interfaces can be delivered on various technologies, and user interfaces can be delivered to various users for various purposes. Third, the user interface layout is isolated from the actual deliverable and gives greater control to the user interface designer. Fourth, the ability to preview the user interface at any point in time of the user interface layout process provides the designer with the ability to visualize how the end deliverable would actually look. Fifth, there is no longer a dependency on a highly skilled user interface designer, since the required data is modeled and available for further changes by any other designer. Finally, this is all made possible by well-documented translation semantics for various technologies and end user requirements.  
         [0039]     Web applications, virtually all of which operate with user interfaces in a screen or page based environment, send data by submitting the entire web page. This gives a different look and feel to the application users, because many application users are accustomed to desktop based applications which make a call to fetch data and refresh only the necessary controls. To solve this problem, the grid control in the invention gets or submits data using a hidden IFRAME, so that, there will not be a page refresh. This gives a traditional desktop based look and feel on the Web browser. The grid control has a very rich user interface just like an ACTIVEX control. The grid has a row header, column header, vertical scrollbar and a horizontal scrollbar. The row header displays the row numbers, and the column header displays column heading, sort buttons and help button. The column heading text colors are different for mandatory columns and regular columns. Different background colors are used to differentiate editable and non-editable columns.  
         [0040]     The grid control of the invention has two modes of operation—display mode, in which it displays the content as text, and edit mode. The grid places the cell in edit mode when a focus rectangle is over the cell and when the user presses an appropriate key, double clicks on the cell, or starts typing the data. When the cell goes into edit mode, the cell shows an appropriate control, like a combination box, text box or text area, based on the column data type. If the data type is date, then the user can either enter the date or choose it from the built-in calendar. After entering the data in a cell, if the user presses the enter key, control goes to the next editable cell and places that cell in edit mode. This gives the user the ability to enter data continuously without using navigation keys like arrow keys or the TAB key. Additionally, the grid control supports display only columns, text columns, numeric columns, text area columns, combination box columns and URL columns.  
         [0041]     In one or more embodiments of the invention, the grid control is a pure HTML based editable grid control with a user interface that rivals traditional desktop based ACTIVEX grid controls. Since it is HTML based, it does not require any specific platform or browser, and it can be rendered on thin client devices like Pocket PCs. Moreover, since it is HTML based, it can be hosted on any Web server such as ASP, JSP, or ASPX, and no extra security setting is required on the client browser.  
         [0042]     The grid control can be personalized, at runtime, for each application user. Each user can re-arrange the columns in the way he wants it. Similarly, users can change the width of the columns and height of the rows. The personalization information is persisted in the Web server for better performance.  
         [0043]     Transferring huge chunks of data over the Web is a time consuming task, and it adds to the transaction execution time. Keeping this in mind, the grid control stores all its data in the Web server (until the user is ready to submit the transaction), and it transfers a limited number of rows back and forth between the client and the web server. For example, if an engineering order has 500 items and the engineering order screen grid control has 10 visible rows, the client buffer size would be 30 rows (default is 3 times the visible rows). If the user scrolls down beyond 30 rows, the grid control makes a request to the Web server in the background and displays the rows from the 31 st  row onwards. This fetch is transparent to the user, and it is done through a Hidden IFRAME.  
         [0044]     The grid control keeps track of the state of each row. For example, it tracks whether the row is fetched, inserted, modified or deleted. Based on this state, only modified rows are sent for transaction updates. This very much improves the performance, especially for the Web based applications.  
         [0045]     The grid control comes with many useful features, like importing data from Excel and exporting data to Excel for further analysis. Data can be sorted using the sort buttons available on the column header. A search facility allows the user to search for a value on a column or on the entire grid. Similarly, insert row, delete row, cut and append rows, and copy and append rows are available for row based operations. The grid control provides a special column, with a checkbox, to enable the selection of rows for row based operations. The grid control has another feature called Zoom or Snapshot, in which the user can view one row of data in a dialog box. The Zoom feature is very useful when the grid has many columns to display and the user wants to see many of them without scrolling too much.  
         [0046]      FIG. 5  is an overview diagram of a hardware and operating environment in conjunction with which embodiments of the invention may be practiced. The description of  FIG. 5  is intended to provide a brief, general description of suitable computer hardware and a suitable computing environment in conjunction with which the invention may be implemented. In some embodiments, the invention is described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer, such as a personal computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.  
         [0047]     Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced with other computer system configurations, including hand-held devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCS, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computer environments where tasks are performed by I/0 remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.  
         [0048]     In the embodiment shown in  FIG. 5 , a hardware and operating environment is provided that is applicable to any of the servers and/or remote clients shown in the other Figures.  
         [0049]     As shown in  FIG. 5 , one embodiment of the hardware and operating environment includes a general purpose computing device in the form of a computer  20  (e.g., a personal computer, workstation, or server), including one or more processing units  21 , a system memory  22 , and a system bus  23  that operatively couples various system components including the system memory  22  to the processing unit  21 . There may be only one or there may be more than one processing unit  21 , such that the processor of computer  20  comprises a single central-processing unit (CPU), or a plurality of processing units, commonly referred to as a multiprocessor or parallel-processor environment. In various embodiments, computer  20  is a conventional computer, a distributed computer, or any other type of computer.  
         [0050]     The system bus  23  can 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. The system memory can also be referred to as simply the memory, and, in some embodiments, includes read-only memory (ROM)  24  and random-access memory (RAM)  25 . A basic input/output system (BIOS) program  26 , containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within the computer  20 , such as during start-up, may be stored in ROM  24 . The computer  20  further includes a hard disk drive  27  for reading from and writing to a hard disk, not shown, a magnetic disk drive  28  for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk  29 , and an optical disk drive  30  for reading from or writing to a removable optical disk  31  such as a CD ROM or other optical media.  
         [0051]     The hard disk drive  27 , magnetic disk drive  28 , and optical disk drive  30  couple with a hard disk drive interface  32 , a magnetic disk drive interface  33 , and an optical disk drive interface  34 , respectively. The drives and their associated computer-readable media provide non volatile storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer  20 . It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that any type of computer-readable media which can store data that is accessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks, Bernoulli cartridges, random access memories (RAMs), read only memories (ROMs), redundant arrays of independent disks (e.g., RAID storage devices) and the like, can be used in the exemplary operating environment.  
         [0052]     A plurality of program modules can be stored on the hard disk, magnetic disk  29 , optical disk  31 , ROM  24 , or RAM  25 , including an operating system  35 , one or more application programs  36 , other program modules  37 , and program data  38 . A plug in containing a security transmission engine for the present invention can be resident on any one or number of these computer-readable media.  
         [0053]     A user may enter commands and information into computer  20  through input devices such as a keyboard  40  and pointing device  42 . Other input devices (not shown) can include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These other input devices are often connected to the processing unit  21  through a serial port interface  46  that is coupled to the system bus  23 , but can be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port, or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor  47  or other type of display device can also be connected to the system bus  23  via an interface, such as a video adapter  48 . The monitor  40  can display a graphical user interface for the user. In addition to the monitor  40 , computers typically include other peripheral output devices (not shown), such as speakers and printers.  
         [0054]     The computer  20  may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers or servers, such as remote computer  49 . These logical connections are achieved by a communication device coupled to or a part of the computer  20 ; the invention is not limited to a particular type of communications device. The remote computer  49  can be another computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a client, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above I/0 relative to the computer  20 , although only a memory storage device  50  has been illustrated. The logical connections depicted in  FIG. 5  include a local area network (LAN)  51  and/or a wide area network (WAN)  52 . Such networking environments are commonplace in office networks, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the internet, which are all types of networks.  
         [0055]     When used in a LAN-networking environment, the computer  20  is connected to the LAN  51  through a network interface or adapter  53 , which is one type of communications device. In some embodiments, when used in a WAN-networking environment, the computer  20  typically includes a modem  54  (another type of communications device) or any other type of communications device, e.g., a wireless transceiver, for establishing communications over the wide-area network  52 , such as the internet. The modem  54 , which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus  23  via the serial port interface  46 . In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer  20  can be stored in the remote memory storage device  50  of remote computer, or server  49 . It is appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of, and communications devices for, establishing a communications link between the computers may be used including hybrid fiber-coax connections, T1-T3 lines, DSL&#39;s, OC-3 and/or OC-12, TCP/IP, microwave, wireless application protocol, and any other electronic media through any suitable switches, routers, outlets and power lines, as the same are known and understood by one of ordinary skill in the art.  
         [0056]     In the foregoing detailed description of embodiments of the invention, various features are grouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments of the invention require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the detailed description of embodiments of the invention, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment. It is understood that the above description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. It is intended to cover all alternatives, modifications and equivalents as may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. Many other embodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. The scope of the invention should, therefore, be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled. In the appended claims, the terms “including” and “in which” are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms “comprising” and “wherein,” respectively. Moreover, the terms “first,” “second,” and “third,” etc., are used merely as labels, and are not intended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.