System and method for providing status information from multiple information sources in a single display
View Patent ↗The present invention is a system and method for providing and displaying information collected from a variety of information providers such as an electronic mail server or an information content server. Each of the variety of information providers provides information updates which are captured and rendered in a variety of status images which are provided to a user via a Web page or similar facility. The display of information on the Web page is robust against displays from one or more of the information providers since each of the status images and the remainder of the Web page content are rendered independently.
1. A method for providing status information from multiple electronic mail accounts, the method comprising:
accessing account information from a plurality of electronic mail accounts; and
rendering status images related to the account information received from the electronic mail accounts, wherein the rendering of any one of the status images is not affected by any delay in acquiring status information from any one of the other electronic mail accounts.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
displaying the rendered status images in a Web page, wherein the rendered status images are displayed as soon as they are individually rendered without regard to whether any one of the other status images are rendered.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein a temporary status image is provided for status images which are delayed in rendering.
4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of receiving login information related to one or more of the multiple electronic mail accounts.
5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the login information is an electronic mail login name and password.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein one or more of the multiple electronic mail accounts is an electronic mail server.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein accessing account information from a plurality of electronic mail accounts is performed on a periodic basis.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the status images may be in any one of the following formats including GIF, JPEG, and MPEG.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the request for status information identifies a server side CGI script which renders the status images.
10. A method for providing status information from multiple information servers, the method comprising:
acquiring status information from each of the multiple information servers; and
rendering status images related to the status information received from each of the multiple information servers, wherein the rendering of any one of the status images is not affected by any delay in acquiring status information from any one of the other multiple information servers.
11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
displaying the rendered status images in a Web page, wherein the rendered status images are displayed as soon as they are individually rendered without regard to whether any one of the other status images are rendered.
12. The method of claim 10 , wherein a temporary status image is provided for status images which are delayed in rendering.
13. The method of claim 10 , further comprising the step of receiving login information related to one or more of the multiple information servers.
14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the login information is an electronic mail login name and password.
15. The method of claim 10 , wherein one or more of the multiple information servers is an electronic mail server.
16. The method of claim 10 , wherein acquiring status information from each of the multiple information servers is performed on a periodic basis.
17. The method of claim 10 , wherein the status images may be in any one of the following formats including GIF, JPEG, and MPEG.
18. The method of claim 10 , wherein the request for status information identifies a server side CGI script which renders the status images.
19. The method of claim 1 , further wherein the accessing of account information from a plurality of electronic mail accounts is performed in a parallel fashion.
20. The method of claim 10 , further wherein the acquiring of status information from each of the multiple information servers is performed in a parallel fashion.