Patent ID: 7624129

Claim:
A computer device for logging changes made to a user preference, wherein the computer device includes a processor and comprises: a configuration file in a short term memory to write changes made to the user preference; in response to a flush operation, writing the changes made to the user preference from the configuration file in the short term memory to a log file of a pair of log files in a long term memory, the flush operation including an identification operation that sets a marker that identifies the log file of the pair of log files, wherein each log file of the pair of log files in the long term memory comprises a header section divided into two subdivisions, each subdivision containing an identifier, and a time stamp section containing a time when either the identification operation or a flush operation occurred, a dirty vector section containing information that identifies the location of the changes made to the user preference written to the configuration file in the short term memory, a plurality of data sections, each data section containing the changes made to the user preference written from corresponding data sections of the configuration file in the short term memory; and in response to a write operation after a completion of the flush operation, writing the change made to the user preference from the configuration file in the short term memory to a configuration file in the long term memory.