Version-specific content searching

PRODUCT-CONFIGURATION-SPECIFIC CONTENT AND VERSION-SPECIFIC CONTENT PROVIDED METHOD, COMPUTER SYSTEMS AND COMPUTER readable media {VERSION-SPECIFIC CONTENT SEARCHING}

Many organizations make multiple versions of software or other products. For example, Microsoft provides multiple versions of its core operating system software, such as Windows XP, Windows NT and Windows 2000, and multiple versions of office productivity software, such as Office XP, Office 2000; Offers Office 2003 and Office X. In another example, a car manufacturer creates a new basic version of a car model each year, typically having multiple versions of each model within the same year. For example, General Motors could produce largely identical pickup trucks for Chevrolet (Silverado) and GMC (Sierra), but each will have slightly different characteristics. Moreover, each brand truck has, for example, engine size (1500, 2500, 3500, hybrid), drive train (two or four wheel drive), suspension, passenger compartment (regular), extended cab (regular) It may have several versions based on extended cab), crew cab) and feature packages (WT, LT, LS, SS). Many of these organizations publish rich and in-depth auxiliary content for these products, such as product demonstrations, product training, support information and articles. Often, such content is posted for access via a public network, for example on the World Wide Web accessed via the Internet. Unfortunately, although technically accessible, it is often difficult for users to find topics directly related to their specific needs. In part, these problems are the result of different information and content applied to different versions of a product. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that most users do not know which version of a particular product they are actually using in order to select the most appropriate information to address their needs.

The information contained in this background portion of the specification is included for technical reference only, and is not considered a subject to limit the scope of the present invention.

The techniques described and claimed herein may be considered as example implementations of a method for providing content in response to a search query relating to a software product. The content returned by the search is specific to the version of the software product installed on the computer system of the user performing the search. A typical search is done over the Internet, where a user of a software product sends a search request for content related to the software product to a web server. Upon receipt of the search query, the web server accesses a persistent descriptor corresponding to the detected version of the software product. The persistent descriptor can be a cookie file stored on the user's computer system, information stored in persistent storage on the web server itself (eg indexed by some unique identifier assigned to the user), or both.

The cookie file may be created by a software detection module sent to the user's computer by a web server as an initial response to a search request. The software detection module obtains information from the user's computer system to identify the installed software product, including a specific version of the installed software product. A search of a repository of generic content related to a software product is searched using a persistent descriptor (eg, a cookie file) as a search filter to provide version-specific content related to a detected version of the software product in response to a search query. .

In some implementations, the article of manufacture is provided as a computer program product. One implementation of the computer program product provides a computer program storage medium readable by a computer system and encoding a computer program. Another implementation of the computer program product may be provided as a computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave by a computer system and encoding the computer program. This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described in the Detailed Description below. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter. Other features, details, usefulness and advantages of the claimed subject matter will become apparent from the following detailed description, more particularly shown in the accompanying drawings and set forth more particularly with respect to various embodiments and implementations as defined in the appended claims.

1 is a schematic diagram of a typical prior art search result for finding information related to a product;

2 is a schematic diagram of a search result for finding information related to a product according to the process described herein;

3 is a schematic diagram of a networked system for detecting a version of a product on a user's system;

Fig. 4 is a flow diagram of operations executed by a web server computer to generate and place a product version cookie on a user's computer;

Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of a networked system for returning search results to a user for a particular product used by the user;

Fig. 6 is a flow diagram of operations executed by a web server computer to return to a user search results that were searched for a particular product used by the user;

7 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary computer system for accessing or publishing content over a network;

In a typical implementation of the techniques described herein, the content returned by a search query is specific to the version of the product installed on or associated with the computer system requesting the search. Upon receipt of the search query, the search system, eg, a web server, accesses a permanent descriptor corresponding to the detected version of the product. The persistent descriptor may be a cookie file stored on the requesting computer system, a file stored in a database or other repository on the server and indexed by some unique user or machine identifier, or both. The product detection module obtains information from the computer system to identify a related or installed product, including a specific version of the related or installed product. Searches of repositories of product-related generic content are searched using persistent descriptors as search filters to provide version-specific content.

1 illustrates a typical conventional search scheme through a networked system 100 in which a user attempts to access information and content about a product having multiple versions. In the exemplary diagram of FIG. 1 , a user's computer system 102 may be loaded with an operating system and various software products. Exemplary product listing 104 may include MS Windows XP as the operating system of computer system 102 . Certain productivity software products may include MS Office 2003, which consists of several independent programs including MS Word 2003, MS Excel 2003, MS Outlook 2003 and MS PowerPoint. Computer system 102 may also have other programs, such as MS Visio 2000.

Often, users of computer system 102 are interested in finding information related to a particular software program. For example, a user may want to learn how to automatically number paragraphs in MS Word or create a graph using data entered into an MS Excel spreadsheet. Often, product producers create significant amounts of supplemental information and content regarding those features of their software products. However, it is often impractical for several reasons to provide this product information to product software in electronic or printed form. First, printing such vast amounts of information on paper is quite expensive. Second, the memory requirements for storing such a large amount of information, even if presented in electronic form on the user's computer system, are excessive. Third, when provided in printed or electronic form at the time of software purchase, the information is static and there is no simple and inexpensive way to provide change, update, correction or other additional information. Therefore, product information is often made available for access by a user via the Internet or other communication network 110 .

In the example of Figure 1, a computer file server or web server 106 maintains a large repository 108 of information related to various products. In some cases, the information may relate only to a particular version of a product. In other cases, the information may relate to multiple versions of a product. For example, as shown in FIG. 1 , the repository 108 includes three versions of MS Windows, seven versions of MS Office, seven versions of MS Word, seven versions of MS Excel, and three versions of MS Outlook. It stores information related to version, 7 versions of MS PowerPoint and 3 versions of MS Visio.

When a user of computer system 102 submits a query 112 over network 110 to web server 106 looking for information about a particular issue, web server 106 searches repository 108 for response information. access However, the information returned in response 114 by web server 106 may not specifically relate to the configuration of the user's computer system 102 . For example, as shown in FIG. 1 , a query 112 submitted by computer system 102 may request information related to an MS Word product. Computer system 102 is running MS Word 2003, but web server 106 has no information about the version of MS Word used on computer system 102 . Therefore, the response 114 to the query 112 returned by the web server 106 is MS Word 97, MS Word 2000, MS Word 2002, MS Word 2003, MS Word 2002 (Macintosh), MS Word X (Macintosh). ) and MS Word 2004 (Macintosh).

Some of the information may be the same between different versions of MS Word products, but some of the information may differ from each other due to improvements or new features included in later versions or versions made for different operating systems. If the user does not know which version of MS Word is running on the computer system 102 , and if any operating system is running on the computer system 102 , the user returns a response 114 to the query 112 . You may not know which of the information presented is actually relevant to the user's needs. Also, a particular outcome may be only partially relevant, not completely unrelated, depending on the particular product version correlated with the outcome. Therefore, the user must screen the information returned in response 114 to determine which results within a particular result and which information may be relevant to the request expressed in query 112 .

FIG. 2 shows a networked system 200 similar to that shown in FIG. 1 . Again, the user of the computer system 202 is interested in finding information related to a particular software program. The computer system 202 may be loaded with an operating system and various software products. Exemplary product listing 204 may again include MS Windows XP as the operating system of computer system 202 . Certain productivity software products may include MS Office 2003, which consists of several independent programs including MS Word 2003, MS Excel 2003, MS Outlook 2003 and MS PowerPoint. The computer system 202 may also have other programs, such as MS Visio 2000.

The computer file server or web server 206 in turn maintains a large repository 208 of information related to various products. As before, information may relate only to a particular version of a product, or information may relate to multiple versions of a product. For example, the repository 208 may contain 3 versions of MS Windows, 7 versions of MS Office, 7 versions of MS Word, 7 versions of MS Excel, 3 versions of MS Outlook, and 7 versions of MS PowerPoint. and information related to three versions of MS Visio.

As shown in FIG. 2 , when a user of computer system 102 submits a query 212 looking for information about a particular issue to web server 206 over network 210 , web server 206 responds Repository 208 is accessed for information. In this case, however, the web server 206 is provided with information from the user's computer system 202 identifying the operating system version and software product type and version present on the computer system 202 . Thus, the information returned in response 214 by web server 206 may now specifically relate to the configuration of the user's computer system 102 .

For example, as shown in FIG. 2 , a query 212 submitted by computer system 202 may request information related to an MS Word product. As before, query 212 only requests information related to MS Word issues. The query 212 made by the user contains no further information about the version of MS Word or the operating system running on the computer system 202 . In this case, computer system 202 is running MS Word 2003. However, version information, which is encoded in a persistent descriptor written on the user's computer system 202, ie, a cookie, and may also contain additional state information for the computer system 202, is also sent to the web server 206.

The version information may be sent to the web server 206 as part of a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request to transfer the query information. This follows the general rule of the HTTP protocol that a cookie related to a particular web site is automatically included in every HTTP request sent by the user's computer 202 to the web server 206 of that web site.

Once the version information in the cookie is received at the web server 206 , the version information may also be stored in a central user information database on the web server 206 . A central repository of version information may be desirable if cookies are deleted on the user's computer system, or if the user is using a public computer (as opposed to the user's own computer system) to request a retrieval. By storing server-side version information in a password-protected user store, users can log in from the web server and grant access to the version information. Therefore, if the version detection cookie does not exist, the search request may use version information from a persistent descriptor in the user store on the web server.

When a user logs into a web server, a "session cookie" is created that contains a unique user identifier. The user identifier can be used to index the repository to determine if the user's version information exists, even if the version information is not sent in the version detection cookie. The search protocol may first rely on the version cookie in the HTTP request, which if it does not exist and the session cookie is present meaning that the user logged in successfully during the session, then the search indexes the user store and accesses the version information from there. You can use session cookies to do this. Alternatively, the user or machine identifier may be sent by the computer system 202 to the web server 206 along with the query 212 , which uniquely identifying information is information regarding the configuration of the user's computer system 202 . may be used by the web server 206 to find

Because the web server 206 now further receives information regarding the version of MS Word used on the computer system 202, the response is tailored to provide a response 214 limited to information related to MS Word 2003, or It is tailored to differently classify the results in response 214 to initially place MS Word 2003 information among the results. A method of achieving this improved search response 214 is further described herein with respect to the remaining figures.

Although FIG. 2 and other figures herein depict information query transactions occurring between a user computer and a remote computer system illustrated herein as a web server, the remote computer may be any other computer system. Moreover, information queries do not have to be transacted over a network, they may just be queries in a help file stored on the user's computer system. For example, let's say you have a version of Word called "Professional" that contains features that the version called "Essentials" doesn't have. It may be the same program for both versions installed on the user's computer, but the use of the license key determines which features are available to the user depending on which product was purchased. In this case, the help file associated with the program and installed on the user's computer may contain information about all features, which provides a superset of information for users of the Professional version. By using the version information, a local search on the help file can be used to search the search to return only a subset of results pertaining to the Essentials version, in this case if the user only has an Essentials license.

3 illustrates another conceptualization of a networked system 300 for generating product version specific content. User computer system 302 is connected to web server computer system 306 via network 304 . The web server 306 may include various components including a version detection module 308 , a cookie generation module 310 , a search module 312 , and a content database 314 . The version detection module 308 may be a software program, eg, a Java applet or an ActiveX control, stored on the web server 306 for transmission to the user computer system 302 over the network 304 . When the copy of the version detection module 308 is sent to the user computer system 302 over the network 304 , the copy of the version detection module 316 is stored on the user computer system 302 .

The version detection module 308 is designed to obtain information from the user computer system 302 to determine which version of the product is associated with the user computer system 302 . As in the example of FIG. 2 , the version detection module 316 may detect the operating system version of the user computer system 302 , or versions of various software products installed on the user computer system 302 . In another example, the computer system 302 itself may be a component of a product, such as an automobile. Computer system 302 may be connected to a wireless network such as General Motors OnStar<sp>®</sp> It may be connected to the web server 304 via a network. In this example, the version information collected by the version detection module 316 may include the vehicle model, year of production, and any specific version of the vehicle (eg, engine size, trim package, suspension package, safety device package). , brake packages, etc.). Detection of additional products and versions is also contemplated here.

Once the version information is collected, the version detection module 316 sends the version information to the web server computer system 306 over the network 304 . The cookie creation module 310 in the web server 306 is a persistent descriptor of a product version that can be used by the search module 312 when examining search results for relevance to a product version associated with a particular user computer system 302 . , for example, to use the version information to create a cookie file. The web server 306 sends a cookie file to the user computer system 302 over the network 304, which cookie file is executed by the user computer system 302 on future searches on the web server computer system 306. It is stored on the user's computer system 302 as a version cookie 318 for use.

When a search is later requested by the user computer system 302 , the search module 312 accesses the version cookie 318 from the user computer system 302 . The search module uses the version information in the version cookie 318 to examine the search of the web site content 314 , limiting the search results to content information most relevant to the product version on the user's computer system 302 or prioritizing the search results. rank them

An exemplary process 400 of developing a version cookie at a web server is shown in FIG. 4 . Process 400 begins with a first receive operation 402 , where the web server receives a request from the user computer system for automatic detection of a product version associated with the user computer system. The request may also include granting permission from the user computer system for collection and transmission of version information from the user computer system to the web server. Permission or authorization is a privacy law or regulation because version information may be classified as personally identifiable information, or may meet certain definitions of personal or private information that requires the user's authorization for collection. Due to this, it may be required for the collection and transmission of version information from the user's computer system.

To obtain such authorization, the user interface (UI) initially created by the web server may include a registration section that must be completed before any version information is collected. Moreover, once the persistent descriptor file has been created, the UI may indicate that the search was investigated according to certain version parameters specific to the user's computer system. The UI may also provide the user with the option to select such additional versions for inclusion in the search scope, even if the additional versions have not been detected on the user's computer.

A first sending operation 404 occurs after the first receiving operation 402 , wherein upon receipt of a request for version detection and any necessary authorizations, the version detection module is sent by the web server to the user computer system over the network. is sent As described above, once received and stored in the user's computer system, the version detection module obtains information from the user's computer system to identify the product installed on or associated with the system and the specific version thereof, and the product version. Sends information to a web server. In a second receiving operation 406 , the web server receives version data from the user computer system. In implementations where the product information relates to software installed on a user's computer system, the received information may include product version data, a stock keeping unit (SKU) number for the product version, and product license information (eg, for personal use). , licensed for business or educational use).

A create operation 408 occurs following the second receive operation 406 , wherein the version information is used to generate a version cookie for storage on the user's computer system. The version cookie contains a unique identifier for the user's computer, and a string of information about the detected or selected product.

Although version cookies can be created on the user's computer, for example with JavaScript, there are several reasons for web servers to create cookies. First, it may be desirable to store version information in a cookie as well as in a database at the web server. In order to store information on a web server, version information needs to be made available on the server somehow. Second, in addition to automatically detecting the version information, the user may be allowed to edit the detected information. For example, the user may not have Visio 2003 installed on the user's computer, so the detection module will not identify the program in the version information, but the user may still be interested in receiving information related to the program in response to a query. can Therefore, an interface for editing version information may be provided by the web server before the version cookie is created to include additional product selections beyond those detected products.

The second sending operation 410 then sends the version cookie over the network to the user's computer system for storage in memory at the user's computer system and for accessing during future searches for product content to properly examine the search. . It should be noted that the process 400 of developing the version cookie may begin at step 412 as a result of the process 600 of FIG. 6 described further below.

In another implementation, the version detection module may generate a version cookie on the user's computer system without first sending product and version information to a web server for generation of the version cookie. However, it may be desirable to follow the steps in Figure 4 and create a version cookie at the web server in order to ensure that the version cookie easily stores version information on the web server as well as on the user's computer system.

In addition to automatic version detection, the version detection module may provide an opportunity for the user to manually define the product and version information to be used in the search. This may be desirable when the user is looking for information that is not related to the product installed on or associated with the computer the user is currently using. For example, the user may be using a public computer rather than the user's personal computer to run the search. Manual version definitions can also be used to initially broaden the search if users know they want information about two separate product versions. This may be desirable, for example, in a situation where a user wants to compare features of two product versions.

5 depicts another implementation of a system 500 that provides search results for content searched for a particular product version running on a user's computer system 510 . The product-related content is published on the web server 508 for access by the user through the web site interface. Authoring tool 502 may be used to create content identified with a particular product version. During development, the content created by the authoring tool 502 may be stored in a content repository 504 , eg, a database used as a gathering point for content in development before the content is published to the web server 508 .

Authoring tool 502 may provide content creators with the ability to categorize or "tag" content that is applicable to, or related to, one or more versions of a product. Therefore, when a search is performed on a large amount of generic content that may or may not be related to the product that is the subject of the search query, version-specific content related to the product can be easily identified. In one example implementation, the authoring tool 502 may be used to code datatype definitions within an extensible creation language (XML) file that are associated with a particular piece of content. The XML file serves as a tag to identify the subject of a particular content entry, including the particular product and version to which the content relates.

In example implementations that include computer software products, multiple versions of a particular software product may each be installed on multiple user computers. For example, a first user may have MS Word 2000 installed on their computer, a second user may have MS Word 2003 installed on their computer, and a third user may have MS Word X for Macintosh installed on their computer. installed on your computer. Each of these versions of MS Word has common features and functions, but each version also differs from other versions. Differences may include, for example, improvements over an existing version, new features that do not exist in an existing version, or differences due to the specificity of different operating systems.

In connection with this implementation, the goal is to provide content specific to each version of MS Word for access by users. This content can be, for example, in the form of user guides or documentation information, other help or how-to information, tutorials, demonstrations and discussion threads. Note that a significant amount of informational content is applicable to each version of MS Word, it may not make sense from a resource standpoint to create completely separate content for each version of MS Word. Thus, authoring tool 502 may be used to tag distinct portions of content to identify applicability of portions of content to one or more versions of MS Word. Therefore, a portion of content applicable to each of MS Word 2000, MS Word 2003 and MS Word X may have three tags, whereas a portion of content applicable only to MS Word 2000 may have only one associated tag. .

Also, it may be beneficial from a resource standpoint to further divide the content on a specific topic into a general content part applicable to multiple versions and a specific content part applicable only to a specific version. A search related to a specific software product version can then pull together the generic content portion and the applicable specific content portion to create a complete, version-specific discussion of the topic.

Once the content has been created and properly tagged, the content is distributed and posted to a web server 508 (506). The content is stored in a web site content database 524 on the web server 508 for retrieval in response to user queries. For example, the user's computer system 510 may submit a search request over the network 514 , which is sent 516 to a web server. In receive operation 516 , web server 508 receives a search request from network 514 , and responds with request operation 518 requesting version cookie 512 from user's computer system 510 . The version cookie request is sent over the network 514 to the user's computer system 510 . The version cookie 512 stored in memory on the user's computer system 510 is then sent back to the web server 508 over the network 514 .

In a second receive operation 520 , a version cookie 512 is received at the web server 508 , and in a search operation 522 , the version cookie information is incorporated into the search query as one or more search terms. The software retrieval module stored on the web server 524 obtains information from the general content stored in the web site content database 524 . In a search return operation 526 , version-specific content is collected as a search search result to uniquely or at least hierarchically identify content tagged as relevant to a particular product version identified in version cookie 512 . In a transmit operation 528 , the version-specific search results are then transmitted over the network 514 to the user computer system 510 for display or other output.

A breadcrumb may be presented as the user scrolls through the search results to help the user see the range of returned information. A breadcrumb is a textual representation of where and how information is located within the "information architecture" or hierarchy of a website or data structure. Breadcrumbs usually indicate how major categories of information are connected in a continuous sequence. Often, breadcrumbs may be indicated as a navigation path (eg, a uniform resource locator (URL) of a page) of a linked page that the user navigated to to get to the current page. Alternatively or additionally, a text ID of the version information corresponding to the returned content may be presented to the user in connection with the content to reinforce to the user that the returned content is version specific.

In addition to user guide information and other help or how-to information, hitherto considered product-related content, version-searchable content may also include product training and demonstrations, product-related articles, demonstrations, and discussion threads. Moreover, version-specific searches may also return applicable marketing or advertising content. For example, if the version cookie 512 indicates that MS Office 2003 has been installed on the user's computer system, an appropriate advertising message may suggest an upgrade to MS Office "12" upon distribution of that new product version, and the purchase transaction You can provide a link to the commerce interface to complete the

6 depicts an exemplary process 600 of running a search through a repository of generic content to find content specifically related to a product, wherein the search results are searched for relevance to a particular version of the product. In one implementation, the search may be performed by a web server that receives the search request over a network, eg, the Internet. In receive operation 602, a search request is received at the web server from the user system. Searches request content related to a particular product. In a sending operation 604 , the web server sends a request for the version cookie to the user system over the network.

Upon receipt of the return transmission from the user system, the web server executes a query operation 606 and determines if the user system has a version cookie. Confirmation of the existence of the version cookie can be confirmed simply by receiving version cookie information from the user system. If the version cookie is returned, the web server performs an add operation 608 and includes the version cookie information as a search term before searching the generic content to find the product-specific content. A search operation 610 uses the revised search query to find the version-specific content of the product most relevant to the user's system. A return operation 612 then returns the search results searched appropriately for the version of the product integrated with the user's system.

In another implementation, version-specific information may be returned to the user if the user is not currently using a computer system with a version cookie. This is made possible by the parallel storage of version information on a web server when a version cookie is created and stored on the user's computer system. For example, a user may visit a web site that provides product information from a public computer. If a user is able to register at a web site through some authentication system, then version information stored in a web server database and associated with the user can be accessed to examine searches performed by the user on a public computer. Thus, if the user is on a computer system that is not his or her own, the system can still return the exact information retrieved correctly for the version associated with the user based on the version information stored on the web server.

In addition to returning the version-specific search results shown in return operation 612 , process 600 may include one or more selection operations that provide additional content that may be of interest to the user. The first selection operation 614 may provide the user with access to additional search results that are product related but not version specific. Such search results may be presented, for example, as a list of additional search results hierarchically placed below the version-specific content. Alternatively, such search results may be made available to the user by presenting a link to a secondary display of additional, unversioned content.

The second selection operation 616 may provide the user with additional content based on the version information, but not specific to the product or product version that the user is searching for. For example, let's say you have a product A whose version 1 is integrated with a user's system, and the user sends a search request related to product A. Also, suppose that an upgrade for product A in the form of version 2 is available. While the search results are being searched for version 1, the search results may include additional content indicating that version 2 is available, providing information about version 2 and giving the user an opportunity to purchase version 2 have. Alternatively, the search results may provide additional information related to product B as a supplement to product A.

Returning to query operation 606 , if there is no version cookie on the user's system, the web server may execute a search operation 618 related to the target product of the search request, but not the specific version of the product. Process 600 may then return all possible relevant search results, regardless of product version, in return operation 620 . Although the content returned from the search is not searched for a particular product version, the process 600 may include a presentation operation 622 in which the user is presented with an option to examine the search results for a particular version associated with the user's system. . If the user selects this option, the process 600 executes a move operation 624 to begin the cookie creation process 400 shown in FIG. 4 .

7 depicts an exemplary computer system 700 that may be used as a user computer system that includes a product or a web server computer system that provides content related to such a product. In one implementation, computer system 700 may be implemented by a desktop computer, laptop computer, file server computer, or web server computer, while other implementations include, for example, video game consoles, set-top boxes, portable gaming consoles, PDAs and mobile devices. A phone may also use the described technology. Computer system 700 typically includes at least one processing unit 702 and memory 704 . Depending on the exact configuration and type of computer system 700, memory 704 may be volatile (eg, RAM), non-volatile (eg, ROM and flash memory), or some combination of the two. have. The most basic configuration of computer system 700 includes only processing unit 702 and memory 704 as indicated by dashed line 706 .

Computer system 700 may further include additional devices for memory storage and retrieval. These devices may be removable storage devices 708 or non-removable storage devices 710 , such as magnetic disk drives, magnetic tape drives, and optical drives for storage and retrieval of memory on magnetic and optical media. Storage media may include volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media, and may be provided in any of a number of configurations, such as RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory, CD-ROM, DVD, or any other optical storage medium, magnetic cassette, magnetic tape, magnetic disk, or other magnetic storage device, or any other memory technology or medium that can be used to store data and can be accessed by the processing device 702 . can be Information may be stored on a storage medium using any method or technology for storage of data, such as computer readable instructions, data structures, and program modules.

Computer system 700 may also have one or more communication interfaces 712 that allow system 700 to communicate with other devices. The communication interface 712 may be connected to a network as shown in FIGS. 2 , 3 and 5 . A network may be a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a telephony network, a cable network, an optical network, the Internet, a direct-wired connection, a wireless network, such as radio frequency, infrared, microwave or sound, or between devices. It may be any other network that enables data transfer. Data is typically transmitted to/from communication interface 712 over a network by means of a modulated data signal, eg, a carrier wave or other transmission medium. A modulated data signal is an electromagnetic signal having characteristics that can be set or changed in such a way as to encode data in the signal.

Computer system 700 may further have various input devices 714 and output devices 716 . Exemplary input devices 714 may include keyboards, mice, tablets, touch screen devices, scanners, image input devices, and microphones or other audio input devices. Exemplary output devices 716 may include display monitors, printers, and speakers. Such input device 714 and output device 716 may be integrated with computer system 700 , or may be connected to computer system 700 wired or wirelessly, for example via a Bluetooth protocol. These integrated or peripheral input and output devices are generally well known and are not further described herein. In one implementation, program instructions implementing the methods and modules for determining product and version information, generating a version cookie, or retrieving a content database are memory 704 and storage device 708 executed by processing device 702 . and 710). Other functions, such as processing of network communication transactions, may be executed by an operating system in non-volatile memory 704 of computer system 700 .

The techniques described herein may be implemented as logical operations and/or modules in one or more systems. Logical operations may be implemented as a series of processor-implemented steps executing on one or more computer systems, or as interconnected machine or circuit modules within one or more computer systems. Likewise, descriptions of various component modules may be provided in relation to operations performed or effected by the modules. The resulting implementation is a matter of choice depending on the performance requirements of the subsystems implementing the described technology. Accordingly, the logical operations that make up the embodiments of the techniques described herein are variously represented as operations, steps, entities, or modules. Moreover, logical operations may be executed in any order unless explicitly claimed otherwise, or unless a specific order is inherently required by the claimed language.

The above specification, examples and data provide a complete description of the configuration and use of exemplary embodiments of the invention. While various embodiments of the invention have been described above with some degree of specificity or in connection with one or more individual embodiments, those skilled in the art will make many changes to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. will be able In particular, it will be understood that the techniques described may be used independent of personal computers. Therefore, other embodiments are also contemplated. All content contained in the above description and shown in the accompanying drawings should be construed only as illustrative of specific embodiments and not restrictive. Changes in detail and structure may be made without departing from the basic elements of the invention as defined in the following claims.