126 results about "Program maintenance" patented technology

A system for the display and editing of scheduled tasks and timeslots represented in the form of user interface elements embedded in the calendar regions of the graphical user interface of electronic calendaring systems. It provides structures and methods for editing schedule data in the form of individual tasks and timeslots, sub-groups of tasks and timeslots, and related collections of scheduled tasks and timeslots. It provides for the automated generation of scheduled tasks and timeslots information using a template structure, thereby reducing the amount of decisions and key strokes required for the user to generate and load into their personal calendars a predefined program of recurring tasks and timeslots. Methods are employed to minimize routine program maintenance requirements. In particular, a structure is provided which allows scheduled tasks information to be defined in such a way that particular tasks may be added or removed from a user's schedule either after predefined intervals of time, or, dynamically in response to changes in a predefined metric such as might be used to measure a user's skill level or efficiency.

The present invention provides systems and methods for conducting electronic transactions in a distributed computing environment. A communications protocol is provided that enables reliable transactional state synchronization for peers participating in a distributed transaction. A transaction processing application is deployed on a local computer system to manage transactions thereon. The local computer system contacts a remote computer system to obtain authorization to execute a transaction. The local computer system initiates a failure-recovery job that is operable to automatically resend status signals and other information to the remote system if the communication with the remote system exhibits certain predefined fault conditions. The remote system is able to dynamically adjust the definition of the predefined fault conditions. If the transaction concludes without triggering the predefined fault conditions, the failure-recovery job is cancelled. The transaction processing application may also allow deferred transactions between remote parties. The transaction processing application maintains a record of the transactions performed by the consumer on the consumer's local system. Upon the occurrence of predefined conditions, transactional records are sent to a remote vendor or clearinghouse. The vendor or clearinghouse can manage the risk it bears by setting the predefined conditions appropriately.