Patent Application
20050193069
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electronic mail messaging, and, more particularly, to providing a portion of an electronic mail message based upon a transfer rate and a message size.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic mail has become a central feature of modern life and users have come to expect to receive electronic mail messages at any time and in virtually any place. For example, during the course of one day of travel, a user may receive electronic mail messages at a home desktop computer in the early morning, an office desktop computer in midmorning, via a cell phone or personal digital assistant in a taxi on the way to the airport, on a laptop computer via a wireless local area network while waiting in the airport lounge, via an in-flight telephone on the airplane, and in a hotel room via a high-speed Internet connection provided by the hotel at the end of the day.
Thus, depending on the circumstances, electronic mail messages may be transmitted and/or received by a wide variety of devices at any given time. In addition to the aforementioned end-user devices, such as desktop computers, laptop computers, cell phones, personal digital assistants, and the like, electronic mail messages typically also pass through a variety of network servers, network switches, hubs, routers, transmission lines, wireless transmission media, modems, interface cards, and the like. The transfer rates of these devices and/or media can vary by many orders of magnitude. For example, a laptop computer's modem may be limited to a transfer rate of 56K bits per second, a cable modem may easily provide data at a transfer rate of 1-2 megabits per second, and a T-3 connection may provide data at a transfer rate as high as 40 megabits per second.
The complexity and size of electronic mail messages has increased roughly in proportion with the available transfer rate. Early electronic mail message systems relied upon comparatively slow modems and thus these electronic mail messages were typically limited to short ASCII text documents. Modern electronic mail messaging systems, on the other hand, may utilize high-speed connections to transmit documents containing complex formatting, audio, graphics, video, and the like. For example, a user may send and/or receive an electronic mail messages with a PowerPoint attachment including formatted text, images, and animations. For another example, a user with the appropriate licenses may send and/or receive a feature length movie as an electronic mail message. The size of these files may easily exceed several megabytes, and users may expect to transmit even larger files in the future.
Despite the advantages of using high-speed connections to transmit large information-rich electronic mail messages, the same messages can become problematic when they must be transmitted by a lower speed connection. For example, a user reading electronic mail messages on a laptop computer connected to the Internet via a 14.4K dial-up modem may have to wait an inordinate amount of time for a large electronic mail message to be downloaded through the modem. As another example, a user writing electronic messages on the laptop computer connected to the Internet via a 14.4 Kbps (K bits per second) dial-up modem may want to attach a large document to an electronic mail message, but may have to wait an unreasonable amount of time for the electronic mail message to be uploaded through the modem. In addition, bottlenecks, heavy traffic, device malfunctions, severed transmission lines, geomagnetic storms, and the like can dramatically, and often unpredictably, decrease the transfer rate of even the highest speed networks.
The present invention is directed to addressing, or at least reducing, the effects of, one or more of the problems set forth above.
In one aspect of the instant invention, a method of providing a portion of an electronic mail message based upon a transfer rate and a message size is presented. The method includes determining a value associated with a data transfer rate, determining a value associated with a size of an electronic mail message, and determining a mail transfer criteria. The method also includes selecting a portion of the electronic mail message based upon the determined transfer rate value, the determined value associated with the size of the electronic mail message, and the determined mail transfer criteria. The method further includes providing the selected portion of the electronic mail message. An apparatus for implementing the method, and an article comprising one or more machine-readable storage media containing instructions that when executed enable a processor to perform the method, are also presented.
The invention may be understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals identify like elements, and in which:
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof have been shown by way of example in the drawings and are herein described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the description herein of specific embodiments is not intended to limit the invention to the particular forms disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
Illustrative embodiments of the invention are described below. In the interest of clarity, not all features of an actual implementation are described in this specification. It will of course be appreciated that in the development of any such actual embodiment, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which will vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it will be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time-consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking for those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure.
The words and phrases used herein should be understood and interpreted to have a meaning consistent with the understanding of those words and phrases by those skilled in the relevant art. No special definition of a term or phrase, i.e. a definition that is different from the ordinary and customary meaning as understood by those skilled in the art, is intended to be implied by consistent usage of the term or phrase herein. To the extent that a term or phrase is intended to have a special meaning, i.e. a meaning other than that understood by skilled artisans, such a special definition will be expressly set forth in the specification in a definitional manner that directly and unequivocally provides the special definition for the term or phrase.
As will be described in detail below, the present invention provides for intelligent use of the bandwidth available for transmitting electronic mail messages, which will be referred to hereinafter as e-mails, in accordance with common usage. For example, in one embodiment of the present invention, an e-mail server may autonomously decide whether an e-mail should be uploaded and/or downloaded based upon environmental factors such as a connection speed of a local system to a remote server. In another embodiment, a user may decide, manually or using an automated process based upon selected user preferences, what portions of an e-mail are sent and/or received. The user may also be provided with notifications of what choices are available and what actions have been taken.
The server 110, in one embodiment, may be one form of a processor-based device that can be accessed over the network 115. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, and as discussed below, the server 110, if desired, provides a less than the entire e-mail to a remote user. In one embodiment, the server 110 may be capable of performing tasks such as receiving, queuing, storing, and/or distributing e-mails to one or more users. Although not so limited, in one embodiment, one or more of the described embodiments of the present invention can be implemented within a conventional e-mail server, such as a Microsoft® Exchange Server. In the interest of clarity, the potential functionality of the server 110 not related to the present invention will not be described in further detail, as these tools and/or features are well known to persons of ordinary skill in the art.
In the embodiment illustrated in
In the embodiment illustrated in
The e-mail message 200 shown in
Referring back to
The e-mail management module 125 may provide the e-mail 200 via a variety of communication paths 130(1-2). In the illustrated embodiment, the e-mail management module 125 may transmit a selected portion of the e-mail 200 (designated by reference number 140(1)) to the processor-based device 105(1) along the communication path 130(1), which may include the link 120(3), the network 115, and the link 120(1). The e-mail management module 125 may also transmit a selected portion of the e-mail 200 (designated by reference number 140(2)) to the processor-based device 105(2) along the communication path 130(2), which may include the link 120(3), the network 115, and the link 120(2). Those skilled in the art will appreciate that communications paths 130(1-2) may include one or more intermediate gateways (not shown), routers (not shown), and the like.
As explained above, the data transfer rate along the communication paths 130(1-2) may vary by many orders of magnitude. For example, the communication path 130(1) may consist of a dedicated T-3 connection that may provide data at a transfer rate as high as 40 megabits per second. Accordingly, even if the attachments 240(1-3) attached to the e-mail 200 are large, e.g. 100 MB, the total time required to transfer the copy 140(1) may remain comparatively low, e.g. a few seconds in the case of the 100 MB attachments 240(1-3). In contrast, the communication path 130(2) may include a dial-up connection, such as the link 120(2), which may transfer data at a much lower rate. Thus, a user may have to wait several hours for the 100 MB attachments 240(1-3) to be transferred via the communication path 130(2). The long transfer time may inconvenience the user, particularly if the user does not wish to see the attachments 240(1-3), but does want to see one or more e-mails that may be transferred subsequently from the server 110.
In order to reduce the potential inconvenience to the user and increase the efficiency of the system 100, the e-mail management module 125, in one embodiment, may only transfer a portion of the e-mail 200 along one or more of the communication paths 130(1-2). For example, as will be discussed in detail below, the e-mail management module 125 may estimate a data transfer rate for the communication paths 130(1-2) and a size of the e-mail 200. In one embodiment, the estimated data transfer rate and the estimated size of the e-mail 200 may be used to estimate the time required to transfer the e-mail 200 along the communication paths 130(1-2).
The e-mail management module 125 may also determine a threshold time, such as a user's maximum preferred time to transfer the e-mail 200, and compare the determined threshold to the estimated e-mail transfer time. For example, the user may select a maximum preferred transfer time of approximately one minute. For another example, the user may select a maximum preferred transfer time of approximately zero minutes to force the e-mail management module to provide a reduced copy 140(2) of all e-mails 200. Alternatively, the threshold time may be a default time.
If the estimated e-mail transfer time is substantially less than the predetermined threshold time, the e-mail management module 125 may transmit substantially all of the e-mail 200. For example, the processor-based device 105(1) may receive the complete copy 140(1) of the e-mail message 200, including a header 141, a body 142, and one or more attachments 143. However, if the estimated e-mail transfer time is substantially more than the predetermined threshold time, and it is not desirable to transmit the entire e-mail 200, the e-mail management module 125 may transmit a portion of the e-mail 200. For example, the processor-based device 105(2) may receive the reduced copy 140(2) of the e-mail message 200, including a header 144 and a body 145.
Referring back to
Referring back to
In one embodiment, the processor-based devices 105(1-2) may include e-mail modules 160(1-2), which may carry out a portion of the aforementioned processes or additional processes. For example, the e-mail modules 160(1-2) may allow a user to set up preferences as to how e-mails are to be handled. When the user is ready to process e-mails, the e-mail modules 160(1-2) may send a message to the server 110, such as a POP3 or IMAP server 110, which may cause various flags to be set based upon the user preferences. Examples of flags may include, “Queue send for high speed connection,” “Queue flagged target(s) receive for high speed connection,” “Don't download attachments greater than xKB,” “Prompt before downloading attachment(s),” and “Prompt before uploading attachment(s).” E-mails may then be processed in accordance with the user preferences indicated by the flags, as will be discussed in detail below. The modules 125, 160(1-2) illustrated in
As discussed above, the data transfer rate along the communication path 340 may vary by many orders of magnitude. For example, if the processor-based device 301 is linked to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) 310 via a 14.4 Kbps modem (not shown), it may not be desirable to transmit a 100 MB attachment (not shown) to the server 305. Thus, the e-mail management module 320 may only transmit a portion of the e-mail 330 along the communication path 340. Alternatively, the e-mail 330 may be trickle uploaded to the server 305 along the communication path 340.
In one embodiment, after transmitting the portion of the e-mail 330 along the communication path 340, the e-mail management module 320 may queue and/or store the e-mail 330 until a faster connection becomes available. For example, a user may later connect the processor-based device 301 to the network 315 via a higher-speed connection, such as an Ethernet, and then the e-mail management module 320 may transmit the e-mail 330 using the higher speed connection. Alternatively, the user may later connect to the network 315 using a different processor-based device 301 (e.g., switch from a PDA to a laptop computer), where the processor-based device 301 employed by the user may, for example, support a higher-speed connection. In one embodiment, the e-mail management module 320 may periodically provide reminders, such as a pop-up dialog box, asking the user to connect to a high-speed connection and/or asking if the user would like to upload the e-mail 330.
A value indicative of, or associated with, a size of an e-mail is also determined (at 420). In one embodiment, the e-mail management module may determine (at 420) the size of the e-mail by determining (at 420) the number of bits in the e-mail. Alternatively, the size of the e-mail may be determined (at 420) using information that may be transmitted with the e-mail.
A mail transfer criteria is also determined (at 430). In the previously discussed embodiments of the present invention, the mail transfer criteria has been associated with a mail transfer threshold time, such as a user's preferred maximum transfer time or a default threshold time. In these embodiments, the mail transfer criteria is determined (at 430) by determining the threshold time using an indication of the user's preferred maximum transfer time, such as a user profile, or an indication of the default threshold time. However, the potential mail transfer criteria are not limited to the threshold time. In alternative embodiments, the mail transfer criteria may include various user preferences such as a maximum size of an attachment, a minimum average data transfer rate, a time of day, and the like.
In one embodiment, illustrated in
For illustrative purposes, it is assumed that the user profile 500 is stored in a convenient location, and, if desired, can be accessed by the appropriate device and/or module, including the e-mail modules 160(1-2), 320, the e-mail management module 125, and the like. In one embodiment, when the user is ready to process one or more of the received e-mails, a message indicative of the information included in the user profile 500 may be sent to a server, such as the servers 110, 305, which may set flags based upon the user preferences. For example, the flags may indicate that the server 110, 305 should queue e-mails that are to be sent and/or received via a high speed connection, should not download attachments larger that the Maximum Download Size indicated in the user profile 500, should prompt before uploading and/or downloading attachments, and the like.
In some embodiments, flags may also be set on the processor-based-devices 105(1-2), 301 and other devices (not shown) such as third-party proxy servers, e.g. mail servers, and the like. However, persons of ordinary skill in the art should appreciate that the other devices, such as proxy servers, may have additional rules for handling e-mails. For example, a mail server may operate according to a rule that limits the size and/or number of copies of an e-mail that may be sent. The device rules may, in some instances, override the preferences and/or flags that may be determined according to some embodiments of the present invention. For example, the mail server may decline to send copies of a 50 MB e-mail to 100 users, regardless of the preferences that may be indicated by the user profile 500 and/or the flags that may be set on the processor-based-devices 105(1-2), 301 and other devices.
A portion of the e-mail is then selected (at 440) based upon the determined data transfer rate, the determined size of the e-mail, and the mail transfer criteria. For example, the server and/or one or more clients may use the aforementioned flags to automatically select (at 440) the portion of the e-mail. In one embodiment, the determined data transfer rate and the determined size of the e-mail may be used to estimate the total transfer time for the e-mail. The estimated transfer time may then be compared to the threshold time and, if the estimated transfer time does not exceed the threshold time, substantially all of the e-mail may be selected (at 440). However, if the estimated transfer time substantially exceeds the threshold time, a portion of the e-mail may be selected (at 440). In one embodiment, the e-mail management module may also provide the user with an option to select (at 440) the portion of the e-mail.
In one embodiment, illustrated in
The e-mails, portions, and/or attachments displayed in the dialog box 505 may be determined in a variety of ways. In one embodiment, a user may determine the e-mails, portions, and/or attachments displayed in the dialog box 505. For example, a user may create an e-mail including one or more tags that indicate which e-mail portions and/or attachments should be displayed in the dialog box 505. For another example, a user may highlight a portion of the e-mail by clicking-and-dragging over the desired portion of the e-mail using a controllable pointer element, e.g. a mouse, a joystick, and the like. The user may then indicate that the highlighted portion should be displayed in the dialog box 505 by, for example, selecting an option from a drop-down menu using the controllable pointer element. The e-mail management module may then determine displayable information associated with the e-mails including, but not limited to, the size and estimated download time of the e-mail portions and/or attachments. However, persons of ordinary skill in the art should appreciate that the present invention is not limited to embodiments wherein the user determines the portions and/or attachments displayed in the dialog box 505. In alternative embodiments, the e-mail management module may determine the portions and/or attachments displayed in the dialog box 505. For example, the e-mail management module may determine the portions and/or attachments displayed in the dialog box 505 using information such as the user profile, the device profile, the file size, the connection speed, the estimated download time, and the like.
In one embodiment, the e-mail management module may select (at 440) portions of the e-mails to be downloaded. For example, based upon the user profile 500, the e-mail management module may select (at 440) the “header” of the “test message,” the “other message,” and the “header” of the “another message,” as indicated by the X-marks in selection field 530. Alternatively, the user may select (at 440) portions of the e-mail to be downloaded. For example, the user may control a pointer element on the graphical user display with a pointer controller having position and selection status responsive to operation by the user, such as a mouse, a joystick, and the like, to select (at 440) the text_attachment. For example, the user may use a mouse to click the box in the selection field, thereby selecting (at 440) the text_attachment, as indicated by the check-mark in the selection field 530.
The selected portion of the e-mail is then provided (at 450) to, for example, a processor-based device and/or a server. In one embodiment, the e-mail management module 125 automatically provides (at 450) the selected portion of the e-mail. In one alternative embodiment, the e-mail management module 125 may provide the user with an option to instruct the e-mail management module 125 to provide (at 450) the selected portion of the e-mail. For example, the user may dynamically instruct the e-mail management module 125 to provide (at 450) portions of the e-mail using, e.g., a download button 535 that may be provided, as shown in
In one embodiment, a pause button 540 may be provided so that the user may select (e.g., by clicking using a mouse or other controller) the pause button 540 to stop a download that is in progress. In one alternative embodiment, the pause button 540 may be provided within the e-mail. A progress field 545, or similar user interface widget, may also be provided to indicate how much of the selected portions have been downloaded. For example, the progress field 545 indicates that the header of the test message has been downloaded and approximately 50% of the text_attachment has been downloaded, i.e. approximately 16% of the e-mail has been downloaded.
In one embodiment, the e-mail is queued and/or stored, e.g. on a client or on a server, after the selected portion of the e-mail is provided (at 450). The e-mail may remain queued until it becomes desirable to provide the complete e-mail. In one embodiment, a user may create the e-mail on a processor-based device and the selected portion of the e-mail may be provided (at 450) to a server and/or another processor-based device. The e-mail may remain queued and/or stored on the processor-based device until it becomes desirable to provide the complete e-mail to the server and/or other processor-based device. Alternatively, the e-mail may remain queued and/or stored on a server until it becomes desirable to provide the complete e-mail. As discussed above, one or more notifications may be provided to the user indicating that the e-mail is queued and/or stored.
The device 600 comprises a control unit 610, which in one embodiment may be a processor that is communicatively coupled to a storage unit 620. The software installed in the storage unit 620 may depend on the features to be performed by the device 600. For example, if the device 600 represents one of the processor-based devices 105(1-2), 110, 301, 305 then the storage unit 620 may include the e-mail management modules 125, 320, as well as the e-mail modules 160(1-2). The e-mail management modules 125, 320 and the e-mail modules 160(1-2) may be executable by the control unit 610. Although not shown, it should be appreciated that in one embodiment an operating system, such as Windows®, Disk Operating System®, Unix®, OS/2®, Linux®, MAC OS®, or the like, may be stored on the storage unit 620 and be executable by the control unit 610. The storage unit 620 may also include device drivers for the various hardware components of the device 600.
In the illustrated embodiment, the device 600 includes a display interface 630. The device 600 may display information on a display device 635 via the display interface 630. In the illustrated embodiment, a user may input information using an input device, such as a keyboard 640 and/or a mouse 645, through an input interface 650. The control unit 610 is coupled to a network interface 660, which may be adapted to receive, for example, a local area network card. In an alternative embodiment, the network interface 660 may be a Universal Serial Bus interface or an interface for wireless communications. The device 600 communicates with other devices through the network interface 660. Although not shown, associated with the network interface 660 may be a network protocol stack, with one example being a UDP/IP or a TCP/IP stack. In one embodiment, both inbound and outbound packets may be passed through the network interface 660 and the network protocol stack.
It should be appreciated that the block diagram of the device 600 of
The various system layers, routines, or modules may be executable on control units, such as the control unit 610. The control unit 610 may include a microprocessor, a microcontroller, a digital signal processor, a processor card (including one or more microprocessors or controllers), or other control or computing devices. The storage devices referred to in this discussion may include one or more machine-readable storage media for storing data and instructions. The storage media may include different forms of memory including semiconductor memory devices such as dynamic or static random access memories (DRAMs or SRAMs), erasable and programmable read-only memories (EPROMs), electrically erasable and programmable read-only memories (EEPROMs) and flash memories; magnetic disks such as fixed, floppy, removable disks; other magnetic media including tape; and optical media such as compact disks (CDs) or digital video disks (DVDs). Instructions that make up the various software layers, routines, or modules in the various systems may be stored in respective storage devices. The instructions when executed by a respective control unit 610 cause the corresponding system to perform programmed acts.
The particular embodiments disclosed above are illustrative only, as the invention may be modified and practiced in different but equivalent manners apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of the teachings herein. Furthermore, no limitations are intended to the details of construction or design herein shown, other than as described in the claims below. It is therefore evident that the particular embodiments disclosed above may be altered or modified and all such variations are considered within the scope and spirit of the invention. Accordingly, the protection sought herein is as set forth in the claims below.
