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Uncharted Waters Online is a sandbox MMORPG made by Koei, which merged with Tecmo a few years ago to create (surprise!) Tecmo-Koei. The combined company has revenue of about 30 billion yen per year, which is equivalent to several hundred million dollars. If that's not an AAA game developer, than I don't know what is. So basically, people complaining about the lack of AAA sandbox MMORPGs seem to have missed this one.
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Apprentice Member
Joined: 1/13/08
Yes, but what do you think?
Novice Member
Joined: 10/15/09
Nice detailed post Quiz.
I dont play UWO but I've often wondered about what the game is like beneath its appearance and I think you've done a good job at being objective about it.
UO beta, etc etc ---> present day.
I'm not going to add this to the original post, as it's already long enough, but there are a number of major game mechanics that I completely missed, including dungeons, aides, companies (guilds), imperial quests, and private farms. That's not counting the stuff added in the recent Tierra Americana expansion, which includes company colonies (i.e., go build your own port) and some cultural stuff based in Paris that I haven't looked into. And there are probably some major game mechanics that I'm not even aware of, so I can't tell you about them.
How about if I add some major game mechanics that I missed before.
First is aides. There are a hundred or so aides that you can hire, and each major city has several. Aides have three types of skills. One is language skills. Most aides know a language or two, and can interpret for you. If an aide has a languge skill, it functions exactly as if you had it.
The next type of aide skill is support skills. If you have a skill, and your aide has the matching support skill, then your skill function as one rank higher. For example, if you have gunnery level 4, and your aide has gunnery, then when you use gunnery, it acts as if you had gunnery level 5.
The third type of skill is skills that are unique to aides, and give you minor bonuses. For example, the fire prevention skill makes it less likely that your ship will catch on fire.
Each aide has six possible roles, and a level in each role. These are on a scale of 0-100, and start randomly, when you hire the aide. My best guess is that the starting role levels are uniformly at random from 0-50. The aide also has adventuring, trade, and battle levels. These levels start at 0 for a new aide, and can go up to 50.
When you gain experience, your aide gains corresponding experience. Furthermore, your aide gains 20 experience for each day at sea, with the type of experience depending on the aide's role. For example, an aide in the navigator role will gain 20 adventuring experience for each day at sea, while a lookout will gain 10 adventuring experience and 10 trade experience.
Aides also get a limited amount of bonus experience each day. The first time you log in in a real-life day, your aides each gain 20 experience bonus days. While an aide has experience bonus days left, it gains much more experience for each day at sea. The bonus is the aide's level times the normal experience for being at sea. For example, an aide with adventuring level 20 in the navigator role would gain a 400 bonus adventuring experience for each day at sea. This is in addition to the 20 normal experience, as well as whatever you gain.
In order for an aide to reach a given level, it takes 10 times as much experience as it would take you, so aides really do need this extra experience for days at sea.
Any time your aide gains an adventuring, trade, or battle level, he has a chance of gaining a level in each role. You also may get a point or two to assign to increase the aide's level in a role. These points are non-refundable, so choose wisely.
The skills that an aide has are fixed by each aide. Most skills have some main level requirements, and also a role level requirement. For example, my aide Edgar has the "search" support skill, but only once his main levels are at least 15/0/3 (adventuring at least 15, etc.) and his lookout level is at least 40.
Furthermore, all skills except some language skills require an aide to be in a particular role to use the skill. So my aide only provides me with +1 to my search skill when he's in the lookout role. You can switch your aide's role freely, but this sometimes means you cannot get a bonus to multiple skills simultaneously. For example, my aide Edgar can provide +1 to search in the lookout role, or +1 to archaeology in the store keeper role, but cannot provide both simultaneously.
The skills that an aide will eventually learn, and the levels at which he learns them are fixed for each aide. You can find a list on uwodb, and should consult that list when deciding which aides to hire.
An aide's starting role levels are random at creation of the aide. Furthermore, it will not tell you the levels until your aide has his corresponding adventuring, trade, and battle levels get high enough. The requirements are a bit complicated, but the minimums are 8-12.
You can eventually have up to four aides, but can only have two with you simultaneously. You can also fire one aide to hire another, but the new aide starts with low levels, and will be useless except for a language skill for a while.
Next, let's talk about companies, which is what UWO calls the game mechanic that goes by "guilds" in most other games. The "guilds" in UWO are something different.
A company can be created in any city with a company office. This means any of the major cities in Europe except for Stockholm, as well as Calicut (India). There can be up to 50 players in a company. In order to join a company, a player must go to the company administration office and apply, and then the company leader can accept him. In particular, company leaders can't spam you with offers to join, though they can send you private messages.
Each company gets a company chat channel, which is a pretty standard guild mechanic in online games. Each company also gets a company shop, which acts similarly to bazaars. Each company member can list up to three items for sale in the company shop. While you can list items in a bazaar for free, you have to pay 5% of your proposed sell price to list an item in a company shop. Company shops allow players looking for items to look through what many players have posted at once.
There are also company contribution points. Each month on the 15th, the contribution points reset, and company members can contribute various goods to act as points for their company. Each player can only contribute four times, however, so in order to get a lot of contribution points, a company needs many players to contribute. This can consist of a high level player handing goods to a low level player, which the low level player immediately contributes.
The list of companies for both company shops and recruiting is sorted by the number of contribution points. If your company is 10th on the list of 100 companies in a city, then it is likely that a lot of people will look at your company shop. If you've got 0 contribution points, then your company shop will probably rarely be seen by shoppers.
There are also company houses, for the top 20 companies based in a city. I don't know what these do. The leader of my company seems to think they're really great and we should try really hard to get one, but doesn't know what they do.
Companies can also build a colony on the east coast of the modern US or Canada. This can eventually function like a normal port. You can register three company colonies to get access to them--meaning, you can enter the colony of other companies.
Another mechanic is private farms. There are four places in the game (Ascension, Diego Garcia, Savaii, and St. Lucia) that you can use for a farm. You sail to one of them, land there, and claim some farmland. You can only have one private farm, but you can scrap your old farm if you want to build one elsewhere.
You can have up to 14 structures on your private farm. You can make a little bit of progress toward building structures from the bank of any major city each day, but it will take months to fully build everything. Each structure will produce a little bit of some trade good each day. It will slowly accumulate in a warehouse, and you can have the trade goods delivered to you in any major city. Which trade goods are produced depends on the structure, which island you built your farm on, and some other factors.
Private farms work somewhat like production in Pirates of the Burning Sea, at least for simple goods there, in that it's basically a passive source of income.
When a new character starts, he has only a handful of port permits, so he can only land in certain ports near where he begins. Once your total fame gets high enough, you get more port permits, so that you can land in more areas. If you don't have a permit, you can resupply, but can't enter the city.
If you do the storyline, then you can get port permits much sooner. For example, as England, you need 28000 fame to unlock the Caribbean without doing the storyline. The chapter that gives you access to the Caribbean only takes 16000 fame to unlock it, however.
Once you have access to the Caribbean, the remaining port permits come from imperial quests. At this point, an NPC in your capital city's palace will offer you imperial quests that will take you to the east coast of South America. He gives you a choice of a number of quests, and they could easily be classified as adventuring, trade, or battle quests. Once you do one of his imperial quests, he will give you the port permits for the east coast of the Americas.
After this, you can get an imperial quest in India to unlock Southeast Asia, then one in Rio de Janeiro to unlock the west coast of the Americas. After this, if you go back to the NPC in your nation's palace and start the circumnavigation storyline, he'll give you the port permits for the rest of the world. After this, you can get an imperial quest in Santiago for the Panama Canal, then one from your nation's palace for the Suez Canal. Eventually, it will be possible to get an imperial quest in Manila to unlock east Asia (China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan), but that expansion hasn't yet been released.
You can have an imperial quest and a normal quest simultaneously. You only have to do one imperial quest to get the port permits for a given region. After you have done that one imperial quest, you still can do other imperial quests that could have unlocked the same region, so you don't have to do only one quest.
There are liners that will take you directly from one city to another city, without having to sail. They're expensive and make you wait a long time--and longer than it would take to sail there yourself--so hardly anyone uses them.
The exception is the canals. The Panama Canal connects Portobelo to Panama. The Suez Canal connects Cairo to (surprise!) Suez. These are still expensive, but much faster than sailing all the way around South America or Africa, respectively.
You cannot have any trade goods in your ship when you use a liner. So liners aren't a way to save time bringing a bunch of trade goods back to Europe from Southeast Asia or India. But if you're on one side of the canal and want to get to the other side to do something over there, the canals can save a lot of time.
The game has dungeons at Giza and Luxor (both in Egypt). From what I gather, they're landing points that are meant for combat, with a bunch of mobs for you to kill, and drops that aren't obtainable elsewhere. You can do dungeons solo, or in a group of up to five. I haven't done them, so I don't really know what they're like. You'll probably want some gear designed for land combat, though.
Some errata that are nice to know:
You need a job change card the first time you switch to a given job. After that, you can switch back without a card, by paying a fee. The fee is in the tens of thousands of ducats for the beginner jobs, which is basically just a nominal fee. But it can go into the millions of ducats for more advanced job, which is not something you want to switch to every day. For a high level player to pay that once a week wouldn't be unduly burdensome, however.
Making an adventuring discovery requires one of (archaeology, geography, theology, art, appraisal, biology), as well as one of (recognition, search, ecological research), and sometimes requires unlock. A map will say the required level for the skill from the list of six, and will list the other skill(s) required. The level required for the other skills is 2 lower than for the skill from the list of six. For example, if a map requires archaeology, search, and unlock, and says it requires archaeology level 4, then it also requires search and unlock to be at least level 2. The other skills do not have to be at least level 4.
Major cities tend to have an interpreter, who sells language notes. These are consumables that basically give you a temporary language skill. If a quest unexpectedly requires you to read archives, and you don't have the necessary language skill, then an interpreter's notes can suffice.
Your sailors will consume water maybe 40%-50% faster than normal when in sea zones near the equator. This actually includes the bulk of the game's sea zones outside of Europe. The game's counter for how many days worth of water you have left does not take this into account.
Many landing points have two separate maps. In order to get access to the second map which goes deeper inland, you need to do a quest that takes you there. Such quests aren't clearly labeled, so you have to find them on your own. But once you've done a quest to go further inland, you'll have permanent access to the second map. All such quests that I've seen were adventuring quests to make an archaeology discovery.
Novice Member
Joined: 12/07/05
holy crap!
Remember Old School Ultima Online
Apprentice Member
Joined: 2/28/10
Originally posted by EndDream
Holy crap indeed.
I plan on reading this one day, to help me decide if I want to try the game again. My only hesitation is that when I tried the game the first time, the client installed some kind of anti-cheating software I didn't want on my computer. I forget it's name, but I refuse to have it on my computer. I won't bother with UWO until the company decides to get rid of this software.
If you mean Game Guard, then yes, it's still there.
Hard Core Member
Joined: 12/23/05
Being an avid Uncharted Waters fan (and still are), I tried the game during beta. While I like what I saw, I must say this is exactly like Pirates of the Burning Sea! The gameplay, the combat, in fact I think they shares the same game engine. But UWO goes much more in detail than POtBS.
The game itself is very different from any MMO, being a KOEI product and all. Well, KOEI used to make kickass games during DOS heyday. Liberty or death, Uncharted waters 1 and 2 to name a few. They slowed down a bit these days though. Nonetheless, UWO have great potential, I always wondered if I can be a pirate ingame. Never had the chance to explore that route during beta.
I might give it a second go.
It's not so much that Koei slowed down as that they stopped translating a lot of their games into English. There were four Uncharted Waters console games, for example, but only two ever got translated into English.
You can be a pirate, but there are some serious drawbacks to it. For starters, many areas are safe waters, including most of Europe, and other parts of the world sporadically. Most players can't be attacked if they're in safe waters, but anyone can attack pirates at any time.
Another is that NPC navy ships will attack you if you're a pirate, while they'll leave everyone else alone.
Another is that if countries hate you, they won't let you dock in their ports, or rather, they'll make you pay 1 million ducats to put into port, every single time. Jolo and Nassau are pirate ports where pirates can land, but that's it. You can probably be more selective in your targets and only make some countries hate you.
There are some players who are full-time pirates in the game, but there aren't very many of them.
The game has mostly caught up to what is on the Asian servers. There is still the El Oriente expansion yet to come, but that will probably come to American servers in a month or two. The American servers already have the rest of the expansions (Aztec, Angkor, Inca, Ottoman, Tierra Americana).
Apprentice Member
Joined: 10/20/11
Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie.
Like the above poster said "Holy Crap!" I will start by saying your "review" has A LOT of information in it. I'm getting the feeling it's somewhat of a guide as much as it is a review. I tried this game in beta and after reading your "review" I can see I barely scratched the surface. I'm beginning to think I might not be intelligent enough to play this game. I have a few questions before I even attempt to get into this game.
1. When I was in beta i surfed the forum a bit and read something about how Item Mall players have an extreme advantage in this game. Is that true? Also could you specify?
2. If I decided to play I would want to feel like I was making an impact on the game. I would probably roll a pirate, considering the fact that you said not many people play them. Is it hard for non cash shop players to play pirates? Are all three Expertise's Trade/Exploration/Battle equally viable for a pirate?
3. I know i could easily surf the forums for guide's, but as an experienced player I assume you have already done enough surfing for the both of us. I get the feeling that half the people who play the game don't understand the game as in the depth that you do. Can you post a link to a reliable "Pirate Guide"?
Thats about all the questions I have for now. If I do decide to get into this game you can be assured I will be back to rack your brain.
I would like to thank you and give you props for taking the time out of your gaming to post such a well written review/guide. We shall see if it is what could take me out of the boredom that I consider the genre to be.
"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."
Elite Member
Joined: 1/13/10
Currently playing EVE, SMITE, ArcheAge, and Combat Arms
Holy crap, Quiz! Nice writeup, man. I had given up on UWO early on when I couldnt get that NetMarble installer and its odd proceudre to work properly, but I'm downloading now and planning to give it another try this weekend.
Thanks for the detaield review!
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
Originally posted by ForumTroll
1) The nature of the game is that even if Netmarble were inclined to have an item mall unbalance the game, it would take quite a bit of doing. In most games, if the company offered item mall stuff for +10% damage that didn't basically amount to making it a subscription game (see Champions Online for the latter), I'd be appalled and quit. In Uncharted Waters Online, that wouldn't amount to much more than a rounding error.
There were two things that the poster in question was complaining about. One is NC ships, which basically let you use a high level ship at low levels. For comparison to WoW, suppose that the game had an item mall that let you use level 80 greens at level 20. That would make you vastly more powerful than normal level 20 players. It wouldn't make you nearly as powerful as level 80 players, though, as you'd still be stuck with level 20 skills. And it wouldn't have any impact on the endgame at all, where those level 80 greens are useless.
The other thing he was complaining about is the blue flag. For $2, you can be immune to PVP for a day. You can have the item in your inventory, see the pirate coming for you, and pop it, rather than having to pay $2 every single day. A blue flag means both that others can't attack you in PVP, and also that you can't attack others. They don't get used very often, but a trader who wants to spend a lot of time around Ambon might consider it, as that's a pirate hotbed.
Now, the power gap between lower levels and higher isn't nearly so dramatic in UWO as in WoW. A level 60 ship might be 20% better at everything than a level 40 ship with the same focus. (E.g., a level 40 ship built for combat will be dramatically better at combat than a level 60 ship built for speed.)
There are a number of NC items that are clearly better than anything available otherwise. But they're expensive, they're not that much better ($10 so you can move 1% faster!), and they wear out, so hardly anyone gets them.
There are also NC items for 30% faster ship speed outside of combat (but has no effect in combat), 30% faster experience gain, 30% faster fame gain, and 30% faster skill gain. If you wanted to keep all of those active, it might cost something like $30/month. I'm not sure how widely used they are, but you're hardly crippled without them. As best as I can tell, the game seems to be tuned to assume that you won't have them, as it was originally a subscription game in Japan. Netmarble was presumably looking for something they could tack on to sell, and that's what they came up with.
If you're really going to spend $0 ever, that means you can't upgrade your ship very much. But fully upgrading a ship costs about $5, and you can keep the ship forever. Right now, I'm level 41/31/28, and have never upgraded a ship. I'm planning on upgrading the ship I have now, but probably only to 2/5, as that's enough to get max speed, and that's the only upgrade that I care about.
2) It's hard for low level players to play pirates, as being a pirate means that anyone can attack you without being penalized for it, even in safe waters. And high level players who aren't pirates often will.
3) I don't do much combat so I'm really the wrong person to ask about it. I will say that if you want to be a pirate, however, you should be a privateer instead. If you really want to attack everyone and everything, you'll have to pay 1 million ducats to dock anywhere besides Jolo and Nassau. If you decide to only attack players from England, Spain, or Portugal (while playing as some other country yourself), you'll have a much easier time of it while still being able to attack a substantial majority of the players in the game.
Novice Member
Joined: 8/12/03
holy... incredible, thanks for this.
It is a shame MMOs like this swim in almost dead waters.
Originally posted by Herodes
What's really a shame is when people on this forum insist that there aren't any AAA sandbox games, but they want to play one and they're hoping that some future AAA theme park will be slightly sandboxy. I'll reply to say, sure there are, and here's one. But then people immediately go on to making the same claims in other threads.
I have actually played Atlantica, but if I were to write a review about it, it would be much shorter than this. That's mainly because there's much less to do there. Actually, that's true of every other game I've ever played except possibly for A Tale in the Desert.
For what it's worth, I liked the combat in Atlantica, but can't think of anything else I liked about the game. I didn't like the quests, grouping, leveling curve, pvp, dungeons, mob pulling mechanics, alt-unfriendliness, item mall, crafting, maintenance times (during prime time? seriously?), or anything else that comes to mind. If there's only one thing I'm going to like about a game, for it to be combat is a good choice. But the game really needed to get at least some of the supplementary stuff right in order to be all that good.
"I'm getting the feeling it's somewhat of a guide as much as it is a review."
I really hate it when supposed guides don't go into any more detail than what I showed above. So when I write a guide, I'll give a lot more detail. See here:
Nearly as long as the first post in this thread, and it's all about adventuring discoveries, a topic that only gets eight paragraphs above.
Advanced Member
Joined: 3/20/04
Thanks for the in-depth and well written overview Quizzical. After reading about UWO for a couple of days now, I've decided to give the game a shot.
No huge deal breaker - I'm expecting a good exploration and trade game, not a sim. But I'm curious.
Originally posted by Pynda
1) Originally it was Netmarble only. My understanding is that now you're supposed to sign up with Gpotato. I'm not sure if you can still sign up through Netmarble and play the game that way. If you sign up through Gpotato, then to use the item mall, you buy through Gpotato and then can convert Gpotatoes to Netmarble Cash.
2) The naval combat is somewhat similar to Pirates of the Burning Sea. The wind still has effects in combat, so if a galley-type ship is fighting a ship that is heavy on horizontal sails, the galley will probably be the faster ship if they're going into the wind, and slower if they're going with the wind.
Battles are usually between rather unequal ships. If it's a pvp battle, then it's often a pirate attacking a trader, and the pirate wants to board the trader to steal his stuff, while the trader only wants to get away and end the battle. Sometimes it's a few players in a group trying to catch and kill a pirate. Typically in pvp battles, a side wants to board the enemy ship so they can steal his stuff, not merely sink him.
In pve battles, it's different. There, you often know whether you'll win or lose in case of a melee battle. If you'll win, then you try to board the enemy ship while you're not disordered. If it's close or you'll lose, then you try to disorder the enemy ship and then board. Or maybe you try to kite and kill the enemy with cannons.
Much of ship combat is about boarding or not boarding, or perhaps rather, boarding when you'll win and not when you'll lose.
3) You can buy master craftsman tools for about 30k ducats each, and those will restore 1 maximum durability on your ship. If you've heavily upgraded a ship, this is worth doing rather than replacing the ship. For example, the xebec I use now cost about 26 million ducats to buy and upgrade, in addition to hours of trying to track down parts and shipbuilders. That's not counting the money I spent (a pro-rated $1.20) to buy the special shipbuilding permits to upgrade it to 2/5 (which got all the upgrades I wanted, so I'm not going to upgrade it further). If it gets down to 50% durability, then I'd need 330 MCTs to fully repair it. That would cost about 10 million ducats, which is a lot cheaper than buying another one.
On the other hand, my combat ship is a galleon that wasn't upgraded at all. It cost me 2.7 million ducats new, and is now at 50% durability. It would be dramatically cheaper to simply vendor the ship (and get back about 1 million ducats for that) and buy a new one rather than to use MCTs to fix it. That's true of pretty much any ship that isn't upgraded, except for the NC ships.
Then again, there's also the question of whether I'd care if my xebec is at 50% durability. It's not a combat ship, so if I'm attacked, I try to run away. For PVE purposes, I'm not likely to lose 330 durability before escaping. For PVP purposes, I'd rather be sunk than boarded, so having less durability isn't necessarily bad there, either. But this is largely moot, as in several days of use, it has only lost 9 off of its max durability. For it to get down to 50% durability might take most of a year, and it will be replaced long before then--likely in a couple of weeks or so.
4) Claiming that the economy is broken is completely nuts. At the top end, with people dumping hundreds of millions of ducats into ports to try to flip them, things might be crazy. I say "might be" because I don't know. But for anything else, prices have seemed fairly stable to me in the few months that I've played the game. By the time your first main level hits 30, you'll rarely see anything for sale other than NC items that you couldn't buy if you wanted it.
There are several different things that multiboxers did, and they're fundamentally rather different types. One was to have an alt to store stuff, basically as a mule. That was a convenience to the player, and if anything, made crafitng services more widely widely available. Another was perpetual bazaars. A player might have an alt constantly running a bazaar selling various things, while his "real" character goes out and plays the game as normal. That really only made goods more widely available, albeit sometimes at stupid prices.
The thing that got multiboxers a bad name is that you'd sometimes see two basically identical characters, with one constantly following the other around. That would mean both characters buy the same goods at the same time, and so forth, and thus the player makes money twice as fast. That's what I think needed to be cracked down on. I do think that was detrimental to the game economy, but hardly ruinous.
For end-game port flipping, the current distribution of the number of ports for each country is:
England 32
Portugal 31
Netherlands 28
Spain 27
Venice 20
Ottoman 14
France 8
There are a lot of NPC ships that sail around doing investments, and ships of certain countries heavily invest in certain areas. Ottomans have fewer than most other countries in part because you can't start as Ottoman, so few players play them. Each country has about six or so ports that are "territories" rather than "allied ports", and they can never lose those.
I could see why players who choose France might think the system is broken. But hardly anyone plays France. Some speculation is that it's because France wasn't available in the old console games, so while a significant chunk of the playerbase has an affinity for one country or another from the console games, it's never for France. For no country to have more than 1/5 of the game's ports looks like pretty good balance to me.
Advanced Member
Joined: 3/20/04
If you hang on the "Downloading Version Check" screen.
Uninstall Adobe Flash. Then download and install the latest full version of Flash from Adobe. I then ran the UWO launcher, it seemed to do a further Flash update (almost like it was installing a special plugin), and then I was good to go.
Google "downloading version check" + UWO, and you'll find a lot of other ideas. It seems this problem can be caused by a few different things. Good luck.
Why not just start the download before you go to bed for the night, and leave it running overnight?


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subset: commoncrawl


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- Largo, MD
- Laurel, MD
- Lexington Park, MD
- Linthicum, MD
- Linthicum Heights, MD
- Lutherville Timonium, MD
- North Beach, MD
- North East, MD
- Nottingham, MD
- Ocean City, MD
- Owings Mills, MD
- Oxon Hill, MD
- Perryville, MD
- Pocomoke City, MD
- Prince Frederick, MD
- Princess Anne, MD
- Rockville, MD
- Salisbury, MD
- Silver Spring, MD
- Solomons, MD
- St Michaels, MD
- Thurmont, MD
- Towson, MD
- Upper Marlboro, MD
- Waldorf, MD
- Westminster, MD
- White Marsh, MD
- Williamsport, MD


text:
I just used plumbing solder for the AK.45 barrel blocks. Since there was essentially no stress on them, the low temp solder works fine. I figure if it was good enough for the Mauser, it's good enough for me.
I used a Chinese gas block on mine because the Chicom barrel has a diameter of 0.630" at that point. I enlarged the hole in the gas block with a reamer to allow me to keep the barrel wall as thick as possible. The barrel O.D. on my .45 coversion is 0.670" at the gas block, so the block I.D. is around 0.680" It's a slip fit to allow for soldering.
This is a view of the modified Chicom block as installed on my barrel
The wall may not look that thin, but keep in mind that no gas goes through the block to operate the rifle. My barrel wall thickness is 0.106" at the gas block. This is perfectly acceptable for .45ACP, but there's NO way I would trust .45-70 with a barrel that thin.
This pic shows the location of the pilot hole for the retaining pin. Take note of the position of the barrel O.D. compared to the center of the pilot hole. If you drilled the pin hole as is shown, you would DEFINITELY bulge the barrel if a press-fit pin was installed.
The land on the bottom of the block isn't thick enough (after reaming) to allow for repositioning the pin holes.
I haven't been keeping up on too many projects lately, so I don't know if you've already got your barrel blank selected or machined. If you haven't turned it yet, consider using an RPK gas block. As a matter of fact, I would recommend RPK barrel blocks for everything on your conversion.
With an RPK gas block, you'll have a much thicker barrel wall. It'll save you a TON of work, too. Instead of making sleeves and welding, just turn the barrel to the needed diameter. There will be plenty of barrel thickness for the retaining pins as well, except the front sight block. If you try to drill and pin the FSB, you will bulge the barrel with press-fit pins. Just solder the FSB and call it good.
As I recall...
Chamber 0.908"
Rear Sight Base 0.885"
Handguard Retainer 0.847"
Gas Block 0.758"
Front Sight Base 0.608"


text:
A method and apparatus for peer-to-peer services have been described.
1. A method comprising:
receiving a request for a file, wherein the request for the file is received from a first client of a plurality of clients within a network;
determining a first source for a latest version of the file, the first source representing a nearest source including a second client of the plurality of clients, wherein the determining of the first source includes referencing a prioritized list of clients of the plurality of clients, each client of the prioritized list of clients having the file;
communicating the first source having the file to the first client;
directing the first client to the first source to obtain the file; and
redirecting the first client to a second source away from the first source, if the second source contains a version of the file that is latest than the latest version of the file at the first source, the second source including a third client of the plurality of clients.
2. The method of
3. The method of
4. The method of
5. The method of
6. A system comprising:
a directory server having a bi-directional communications port, a directory server output, and a directory server input, the bi-directional communications port coupled to receive a request for a file, wherein the request for the file is received from a first client of a plurality of clients within a network; and
a nearest data locating engine having an engine input, and an engine output, the engine input to receive the directory server output, and the engine output to receive the directory saver input, the nearest data locating engine to determine a first source for a latest version of the file, the first source representing a nearest source including a second client of the plurality of clients, wherein the determining of the first source includes referencing a prioritized list of clients of the plurality of clients, each client of the prioritized list of clients having the file, wherein the nearest data locating engine to communicate the first source having the file to the first client, direct the first client to the first source to obtain the file, and redirect the first client to a second source away from the first source, if the second source contains a version of the file that is latest than the latest version of the file at the first source, the second source including a third client of the plurality of clients.
7. The system of
8. A machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions which, when executed, cause a machine to:
receive a request for a file, wherein the request for the file is received from a first client of a plurality of clients within a network;
determine a first source for a latest version of the file, the first source representing a nearest source including a second client of the plurality of clients, wherein the determining of the first source includes referencing a prioritized list of clients of the plurality of clients, each client of the prioritized list of clients having the file;
communicate the first source having the file to the first client;
direct the first client to the first source to obtain the file; and
redirecting the first client to a second source away from the first source, if the second source contains a version of the file that is latest than the latest version of the file at the first source, the second source including a third client of the plurality of clients.
9. The machine-readable storage medium of
10. The machine-readable storage medium of
11. The machine-readable storage medium of
12. The machine-readable storage medium of
The present patent application claims priority of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/303,706 filed Jul. 6, 2001 titled "Share and Learn Software", which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention pertains to networks. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for peer-to-peer services.
Many companies are adopting the use of networks for sharing information. The Internet and Intranets are examples of such a networks. This information may be shared within a company, university, local group, or to users around the world, etc.
As the information shared becomes richer in content, such as streaming video, etc., it may place more demands on servers, which may lower available bandwidth, and slow down access to the information on, for example, a Wide Area Network (WAN), etc. One approach to improving performance is to "widen the pipe" or bandwidth that the WAN may handle. This may be a very expensive approach particularly where peak or spikes in traffic may be a limiting factor. This may present a problem.
The present invention is illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which like references indicate similar elements and in which:
A method and apparatus for peer-to-peer services are described.
The present invention by providing a capability whereby network traffic may be shifted to another network may allow more efficient transfer of information, data, etc. One such example of shifting network traffic may be shifting WAN traffic to LAN peer-to-peer traffic.
Both a WAN such as the Internet and a WAN such as a corporate Intranet may find this traffic shifting capability to be useful. To better illustrate the present invention, references will be made to an Intranet, however, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that the present invention may be practiced on other networks, such as the Internet.
Intranets and particularly large corporate Intranets are host to, and are sharing and transferring, much more information than in the past. The advent of streaming video is an example of content which may require more instantaneous bandwidth than the network was designed for. Shifting WAN traffic to a LAN communication may free up WAN bandwidth. If a server based content is able to be placed on a client on a LAN, then another client on the LAN may be able to access the information through peer-to-peer client interaction. This shifting of WAN server based content to a LAN client for peer-to-peer transfer allows for file sharing.
Thus, rather than Client A 304-A having to retrieve the file from a server possibly located on a WAN, the directory server 302 has communicated to Client A 304-A that the file may be retrieved from another Client D 304-D. Thus, traffic that may have originally had to occur on a WAN has been shifted to a peer-to-peer transfer, possibly on a LAN
Note that since directory server 302 maintains a list of files and locations, after Client A 304-A has a copy of the file, directory server 302 will have this information also. Now, for example, if Client B 304-B requests from directory server 302 a copy of the file, the directory server 302 would know that Client A 304-A and Client D 304-D both have copies. Directory server 302 may then inform Client B 304-B that Client A 304-A is the nearest client that has a copy. Client B 304-B may then effect a peer-to-peer transfer with Client A 304-A. After this transfer, directory sever 302 would then know that Clients A 304-A, Client B 304-B, and Client D 304-D have a copy of the file.
One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the file sharing approach may "propagate" files across networks. This propagation will allow directory server 302 to communicate to any requesting client the closest client having a file for a transfer. When the clients are located on the same local network then a LAN peer-to-peer transfer will be possible. LAN transfers are generally faster than WAN to LAN transfers because of fewer intervening routers, switches, proxies, firewalls, etc.
If there is no local client that has the file requested, then the directory server 302 may direct the client to get the file from a client on a WAN and/or a file server. For example, Client D 304-D may have originally placed a file request with the directory server 302 and been informed that there was no copy of the file on a local client. Client D 304-D may have had to obtain a copy of the file, for example, over the Internet from some remote server. Once Client D 304-D has a copy of the file, directory server 302 knows this and so as explained above, if Client A 304-A then requests the file directory server 302 can inform Client A 304-A that Client D 304-D has a copy.
As discussed above, the capability for shifting of WAN server based content to a LAN client for peer-to-peer transfer allows for file sharing. One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that by practicing the present invention in such an environment, a client based proxy service used to redirect data transfers from the network in a peer-to-peer environment may be achieved. That is, by redirecting, for example, Internet web requests to a more local network copy of the file, a web proxy service may be effected with the present invention.
Thus, rather than Client A 404-A having to retrieve the file from a web server 422 connected via 420 to the Internet 418, and via connection 416 to the directory server 402, Client A 404-A has retrieved the file from Client D 404-D. Thus, possible Internet traffic has been redirected resulting in a peer-to-peer transfer, possibly on a LAN. Thus, "local" storage of the file, plus the redirection allowing access to the local copy of the file, serves the function of a proxy.
Note that since directory server 402 maintains a list of files and locations, after Client A 404-A has a copy of the file, directory server 402 will have this information also. Now, for example, if Client B 404-B requests the same file while, for example, web browsing, the directory server 402 would know that Client A 404-A and Client D 404-D both have copies. Directory server 402 may then inform Client B 404-B that Client A 404-A is the nearest client that has a copy. Client B 304-B may then affect a peer-to-peer transfer with Client A 404-A. After this transfer, directory sever 402 would then know that Clients A 404-A, Client B 404-B, and Client D 404-D have a copy of the file.
One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that this file sharing approach may "propagate" web files across networks. Web sites have information that changes on a regular basis. As was detailed previously, the directory server 402 maintains where the latest files are located. Thus, for example, assume it is time X, in
The directory server 402 may also have an expiration timeout feature. That is, after say 10 minutes, the directory server 402 may direct a client to retrieve a copy of the file from the web server 422. In this way web content on a local network would be updated after being on the local network for more than 10 minutes. This timeout feature may be tailored to the web content. For example, a website dealing with word definitions may not need to be updated as frequently as a website having current news events.
As discussed above, the capability for shifting of WAN server based content to a LAN client for peer-to-peer transfer allows for file sharing. The clients discussed above were assumed, for convenience of discussion, to be connected to the network for most of the time. This may not be the case. For example, portable computers, PDAs, etc. may be connected and disconnected as needed. One example may be a sales office, where the outside sales people only connect to the network when they are in the office. Portable computers may not be connected to the network long enough to download a large file, such as a video presentation. This may be due to a time constraint or a bandwidth constraint. However, if the user of the portable computer could affect a LAN peer-to-peer transfer of the information, the bandwidth may be higher than from, for example, a server on the WAN. By allowing the user of the portable to select what information needs to be downloaded and having that information directed to a nearby client on the LAN, then the next time the user connects to the network, a LAN peer-to-peer transfer may be possible. Thus, the portable computer user, in effect, is a third party controlling the WAN to LAN transfer.
In another embodiment, when Client P 504-P is connected to the network, directory server 502 may query Client P 504-P to see if Client P 504-P has selected files to be downloaded while offline. This download list may have previously been retrieved from a directory file server (either 502 and/or other directory file servers).
In another embodiment, when Client P 504-P is connected to the network, files resident on Client P 504-P may be communicated to a directory server, such as directory server 502. If new files, or files modified having a more recent date are communicated to directory server 502, then other clients will now have access to these files. Thus, for example, a portable computer used by a salesperson may be used to detail customer visit information while the salesperson is at the customer. Upon returning to the sales office and plugging into the network, the Client P 504-P may send to the directory server 502 information regarding files on Client P 504-P. These updated files would then be available via directory server 502 knowing they were on Client P 504-P.
In another embodiment, when Client P 504-P returns with updated files, the directory server 502 and/or the Client P 504-P may direct that a local copy of the updated files be made on a non-portable computer. In this embodiment then, the third party control may effect a transfer of files so that when the portable client is disconnected from the network a local copy is available to the rest of the network. The directory server 502 and/or the Client P 504-P may also direct that a copy of the updated files be sent to a central and/or web server. Thus, third party control of transfers is to and from any source and/or destination. The ability for a portable client, such as Client P 504-P to send files to another client serves as a backup of those files.
New and updated files are not limited to a portable client, such as Client P 504-P. Other clients, such as desktop clients, with new files or updated files may also use the techniques discussed above. Thus, in one embodiment of the present invention clients may use the network services for distributed backup and storage. Clients are not the only source of content and In yet another embodiment, files from all sources, clients, servers, etc., may make use of the present invention to effect shifting of content for distributed backup and storage.
As discussed above, the capability for shifting of content from one network to another allows for many capabilities. Reference has been made to clients, servers, WAN, LAN, peer-to-peer, etc. In many cases the benefit of peer-to-peer transfers occurs when the clients are "nearest" to each other. From a network viewpoint the "nearest" client for file sharing, transfer, etc. may not be the closest physically. From a network performance standpoint the "nearest" client may be that client and/or clients, that may transfer the information the fastest. Thus, all the above approaches for shifting traffic may benefit from such an analysis of the network. One such approach to generating the "nearest" client information may use router table analysis.
Thus, what has been described are embodiments of the present invention for use in such areas as file sharing, redirected data transfers, third party control of transfers, distributed backup and storage, and router table analysis.
The descriptions above have been kept simple to not obscure and yet illustrate the present invention. What now follows are more detailed possible embodiments of the present invention. Screen shots are used to illustrate possible features and capabilities of the present invention. However, it is to be understood that these are other embodiments of the present invention and that many others are possible.
Today's Intranet is rather one-dimensional enabling the transfer of information, text, files etc. Intel� Share and Learn Software (SLS) introduces the ability to significantly improve the capability and effectiveness of an Intranet by enabling much more efficient transport of video and rich media files by shifting the bottleneck for Video Intranet from the network to the computer. Note that, for purposes of illustrating this embodiment of the present invention, an intranet may be defined as: a computer network connecting an affiliated set of clients using standard internet protocols, such as, TCP/IP and HTTP; and/or: an IP-based network of nodes behind a firewall, or behind several firewalls connected by secure, possibly virtual, networks.
In traditional Intranet configurations, rich multimedia communications are streamed across the network to a desktop. The network is almost always the bottleneck as typically the file will have to be streamed across the network and as Wide Area Networking (WAN) is expensive there is typically not enough bandwidth to support more than just a couple of simultaneously streamed files. SLS allows moving compressed video, rich multimedia files, and large files rapidly to multiple desktop or mobile machines. SLS in effect creates a new protocol for sharing large files (such as, video, multimedia, etc) across the network or Intranet. SLS moves the bottleneck for video transfer across the Intranet from the network to the processor in a personal computer (PC).
One example is using SLS on a laptop to download video. The laptop when connected to a LAN may rapidly download a file from a local device connected to the LAN thus avoiding WAN transfers. This type of peer-to-peer transfer is preferable to WAN to LAN transfers because of the generally higher sustained transfer rates. SLS may increase performance for a number of different applications including Knowledge Management, Corporate Video Communications, eLearning, etc.
SLS has implications for Knowledge Management—one opportunity is that much codified knowledge exists in the form of presentations, text documents, etc. on individuals' PC hard drives. In traditional network environments this information and knowledge may not be available to others for sharing and reuse. SLS introduces a capability, which through a drop and share mechanism, this codified information may be shared with many others in a corporation. In one embodiment, by right clicking on the files and adding some meta data (either manually and/or in an automated fashion) a file may be made available to all others on the network. The file and relevant meta data is registered in a mediating directory server and other users may search this directory server based on several criteria including keywords, author etc. If a user wishes to retrieve the file, the file may be pulled from the originally publishing client, or else if it has been previously copied, from the nearest available client. Thus, much of the codified information and/or knowledge in an organization that may have previously been unavailable for use is now available through the registering of the file. This make the content available to users throughout the enterprise, creating an enterprise knowledge management system, which may save money and creating new opportunities through knowledge sharing and re-use. In yet another embodiment, the ability to index content and/or produce a corporate index of relevant knowledge/information may be enabled through SLS.
In a large company such as Intel it is often difficult to communicate to all employees simultaneously. Email can be delivered to all employees simultaneously but it is a relatively flat (not very rich) media. However, having the potential to have 80000 employees worldwide have access to video communications in a very short space of time may have potential for effecting better communication. Prior to the introduction of SLS, this would have been difficult as it would have been prohibitively expensive to provision the bandwidth and/or edge servers to allow streaming of video to 80,000 PC's. Now through SLS, little additional investment is necessary in infrastructure to allow this—video, rich multimedia or large files can be distributed from client to client using SLS's peer-to-peer file sharing protocol over existing networks and using hard drives on existing clients for storage. This capability delivered through SLS is another embodiment of the present invention.
eLearning may be considered similar to corporate communications, SLS allows near seamless transmission of large multimedia files across a corporation without the need for additional investment. As eLearning is an important new emerging application of technology, SLS and may change the economics and performance of eLearning.
Additionally, Other information may make use of SLS. SLS allows the substitution of one form of a computing resource for another, for example, in viewing a video file, a traditional mechanism for doing this is via streaming the file over a network to a client PC, one embodiment of the SLS mechanism is to copy a compressed video file over a local network giving near equivalent performance yet requiring a smaller network.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the Intel� Share and Learn Software (SLS), is a windows based application used for peer-to-peer file sharing. It consists of a client application written in a visual programming language and uses a database server component hosted on an SQL (Structured Query Language) server. The application is used to transfer files across the network in an enterprise environment. The SLS application uses a directory-mediated approach to determine the closest (or nearest) client containing the latest revision of the requested material; the material is then copied to the requesting machine.
Peer-to-peer in the most general sense is the sharing of resources between clients, where a client can range from a larger server to a handheld device. In the context of this document, it is defined as the ability to share content directly between clients, where clients may be servers, desktops, laptops, PDAs, (Personal Digital Assistants), handheld devices, or any other device capable of communicating with other devices.
In one embodiment SLS uses a directory mediated peer-to-peer file sharing approach. The directory consists of a database which tracks all transfers of files and is used to determine the nearest available client. The following flow-charts describe what occurs in one embodiment when a user launches SLS (
The SLS Launch Flow proceeds as follows. As illustrated in Section 1 of
At Section 2 of
At Section 3 of
At Section 4 of
At Section 5 of
At Section 6 of
At Section 7 of
The SLS Select File Flow proceeds as follows. As illustrated in Section 1 of
At Section 2 of
At Section 3 of
At Section 4 of
At Section 5 of
One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that many alternative embodiments of the present invention are possible using a variety of techniques. Some such techniques, but by no means limited to these alone, are client locator, publishing, logical drive, purging content, controlling flow, parallel copies, third party control, router analysis, network database. These are briefly described below, and some of these have been described above as well.
Client Locator using Ping was discussed above. This method used the windows Ping function to get an estimated transfer time between the requesting client and a remote machine. One implementation may use the ping between the requesting client and every other machine that has a copy of the file. This may be done by issuing the ping command in sequence to every other machine and then choosing the lowest value for transfer. Another approach may use the ping transfer time between subnets. Once a value is established between two subnets, it may be entered into the SubnetTransferInfo table for future reference. Yet another approach is to ping for site level transfers. This approach may be used, for example, in
Generic Publishing would allow any user to publish content into the peer-to-peer system. This could be done by allowing them to right-click on any file and select to add it to SLS. Essentially each PC would be used as a peer-to-peer server, with a shared directory providing the distribution platform from the PC.
Logical Drives would take the shared folders from a number of PCs and use them to form a logical drive made up of an array of disks. This may be linked with a methodology such as RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) to allow for any content stored across this drive, to be restored when a certain number of the disks (but not necessarily all) are online. This could be used for backing up data to client PCs and restoring as necessary.
Purging of content in the Peer-to-Peer System relates to the ability to remove distributed copies of a file from the systems the files were distributed to. This may be tied into the expiry date of a file, which may be set by the author, or the necessity to recall a file which had already been distributed. One method of doing this may be by using a domain administrator's account to automatically connect to each PC and purge the relevant content. Another way of doing this would be to have an agent program running on each PC which would listen for requests from the system. On receiving a request to delete a file, it would remove the file from the local directory on the user's PC.
Controlled Flow of Content refers to the ability of restricting the flow of content into particular sites so as not to impact the overall network capacity. By analyzing the network topology, it may be seen what the total bandwidth into a particular site is. A restriction may then be placed on the transfer of data which would only allow SLS to consume a percentage of available bandwidth. This may be used, for example, in
Parallel Copy is where a file may be split into chunks of data by the application and each chunk may be copied from a different machine which is making the file available. This type of parallel copy may improve the overall speed of download to the requesting client and may also lessen the impact seen to the client which is sharing the file, as a lesser amount of data is being taken from it. This may be used, for example, in
Third-party control of File Transfer uses an intermediary client to control the transfer of data to another device. For example, client A requests content from client B. However client A is a handheld device and is not always on the network. Client B is located across the WAN from client A. At this point client C is requested by client A to download and store the content until client A comes back on the network.
Router Table Analysis may allow SLS to query the network routers directly in order to determine the nearest copy of a file. Since the router tables are dynamic, any information obtained from them would be more accurate at a point in time than a static network topology set-up. This may improve the overall speed of transferring files as it would take into account any significant network activity which was taking place at that time. This may be used, for example, in
Dynamic Network Database may involve the creation of a stand-alone database which would give a dynamic status as to the latencies in the network at any point in time. The database would be constantly updated by network monitors and would look for patterns in network traffic. The database would then be used to determine the optimum path and closest client for file-transfers. This would be used, for example, in
Examples of possible embodiments of the present invention user interface are illustrated in
Yet another embodiment of the present invention may be used redirect data transfer in a peer-to-peer network environment. In a peer-to-peer network, data is transferred between clients instead of from a server to a client. To gain the most efficient transfer of data, files should be copied from the nearest available client that has the information which is being requested. In general, peer-to-peer applications use their own interface to manage and control content distribution. By implementing a client-based web proxy, it may be possible to bring the speed of peer-to-peer transfers to any website which had been catalogued by a peer-to-peer service, without necessitating the user to changing their user interface.
In one embodiment, a peer-to-peer file database may be established to track the transfer of files from particular websites. If a website provider wanted to make use of this service they would run an application which would catalogue and index all files available from their site, uniquely identify them, and record a reference to them in the peer-to-peer database. Any subsequent transfers of these files would be tracked by the proxy service. A client based web proxy would reside on the client PC and run as a service. The proxy service would intercept all HTTP requests from the client and enable communication between the client and the peer-to-peer file database. When the user requests a file over HTTP, the proxy service would query the peer-to-peer database to see if it was tracking the location of this file. If the file was not being tracked, the request would proceed to the web server as per normal, and nothing unusual would happen. However, if the file was one of those being tracked by the system, the proxy service would query the peer-to-peer database for the nearest location of this file (usually on another user's PC) and retrieve the file directly from there, preferably on its own local network. This may have the benefit of reducing the download time for the user (if the file is greater than a certain size), and for the IT department by reducing the utilization on its Wide Area Network.
Such an embodiment is illustrated in
The proxy service acts as an intermediary for all traffic being requested over HTTP by the user. It queries the peer-to-peer tracking database for specific filenames and URLs. If filenames are found in the database, the request for the file is essentially redirected to the local copy. This reduces the download time for the user and minimizes the impact to available bandwidth.
From a practical implementation standpoint, for the system to be effective, a number of conditions may have to be applied at the proxy level. A minimum size may have to be specified for the file being downloaded. If the file is below a certain size, it may take longer to query the database and retrieve the file locally than it would to get the file directly. Another condition may be on the types of files available in this fashion. Also, an expiry time on the content may be applied to ensure that the user retrieves a new version of the file being requested if one is available.
In yet another embodiment of the present invention, a client which is intermittently connected to a network (e.g. a handheld PC) can select a file for download from a remote location (slow WAN connection) using a peer-to-peer application. The user may then request that the file be downloaded to another client which is permanently connected to the network, e.g. a desktop PC, at a location near the handheld PC (fast LAN connection). The next time they connect they can download the file from the nearby client over the fast connection in a fraction of the time. This service may be controlled by a directory server and a peer-to-peer application or an agent which may be installed on PCs and the handheld devices.
In another embodiment of the present invention, it may be used for distributed backup and storage using peer-to-peer technology. This involves the usage of a portion of disk space from a number of computers on a network and using them to form a logical or virtual drive made up of an array of disks. This may also be linked with a methodology such as RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) to allow for any content stored across this drive to be restored when a certain number of the disks (but not necessarily all) are online. This may be used for backing up data to client PCs and restoring as necessary. Another approach would be to backup a complete dataset to a statistically sound number of PCs ensuring that files may be restored a certain high percentage of the time.
A portion of users' hard disk space would be reserved by an administrator for this purpose and it may or may not be visible to the user on that PC. In addition, all data stored may be encrypted to maintain the security and privacy of the owner's data. The backing up of files may be mediated by a server. This server would track available clients and the location of files that have been backed up, in addition to controlling the security of the system.
In yet another embodiment of the present invention, an agent program may be deployed on a client PC which would monitor the user's files which have changed. The, at a predefined interval this agent would connect to the central control server to determine what peer PCs the files should be backed-up to. Once determined, the agent may initiate a file copy to each of the identified peers, either carrying out a complete copy of the files to each of the peers or a copy determined by a RAID algorithm, etc. In addition, only the parts of the files that have changed or new files added to the system may get backed up. To restore files, the agent may once again connect to the central control server to determine the location of the files to be restored and initiate the transfer back.
In another embodiment of the present invention the present invention may be used to speed up peer-to-peer transfers. In a peer-to-peer network, data is transferred between clients instead of from a server to a client. At present, many peer-to-peer applications operate by using predefined routes across a network to transfer date from one place to the other. Theoretically this method will result in the fastest download times for the user; however it does not take into account delays which may be caused by network congestion or outages. By implementing a system of collecting information from routers, the paths through a network are more dynamic and up-to-date. A peer-to-peer software application would be able to leverage this information if it was stored in a manner which was readily accessible to it, such as a database. When a user would select a file for download, the peer-to-peer application would query the database in its normal manner for the available copies of a file. In addition, it would now query a database for the best paths to these files, ruling out ones which were inaccessible, due to outages and congestion for example, and ordering the list of available copies in terms of shortest download times. This reduces the time to access content for the user and also minimizes the impact on various segments of the network.
To gain the most efficient transfer of data, files should be copied from the nearest available client that has the information which is being requested. While a peer-to-peer system may know the location of the nearest available client, this machine is not always necessarily the one from where the fastest data transfer may occur. This may be due to network congestion or other problems on the network. In general, a network router will be aware of impacts like this on the network and route general data transfers using a more appropriate path. This information is stored in router tables and is updated frequently through broadcasts that are sent around the network.
An embodiment of the present invention in the form of a software application may run on a server and proactively listen on the network for update broadcasts between network routers. The application would interpret these broadcasts and store the information in tables located on a network accessible database. This information may then be obtained and used by a peer-to-peer application by issuing a query to the database to determine the most appropriate path to begin copying information from.
In another embodiment, a software application would be deployed on a server which would listen to broadcasts on the network between the routers deployed on it as well as network traffic. The information gathered would give details on the best path to take if someone was copying information, from one client to another on a different part of the network. The application would interpret the broadcasts and traffic, and this information would be stored in database tables which may be interrogated by a software application. The information in the database would be updated by the software listening to further broadcasts and traffic, and inserting the data when appropriate, ensuring that it was current and up to date.
Thus, various other embodiments of the present invention have been described.
Referring back to
Referring back to
For purposes of discussing and understanding the invention, it is to be understood that various terms are used by those knowledgeable in the art to describe techniques and approaches. Furthermore, in the description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be evident, however, to one of ordinary skill in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form, rather than in detail, in order to avoid obscuring the present invention. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those of ordinary skill in the art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that logical, mechanical, electrical, and other changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
Some portions of the description may be presented in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on, for example, data bits within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions and representations are the means used by those of ordinary skill in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others of ordinary skill in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of acts leading to a desired result. The acts are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like.
It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the discussion, it is appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizing terms such as "processing" or "computing" or "calculating" or "determining" or "displaying" or the like, can refer to the action and processes of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission, or display devices.
The present invention can be implemented by an apparatus for performing the operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes, or it may comprise a general-purpose computer, selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, such as, but not limited to, any type of disk including floppy disks, hard disks, optical disks, compact disk-read only memories (CD-ROMs), and magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs), electrically programmable read-only memories (EPROM)s, electrically erasable programmable read-only memories (EEPROMs), FLASH memories, magnetic or optical cards, etc., or any type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions either local to the computer or remote to the computer.
The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purpose systems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct more specialized apparatus to perform the required method. For example, any of the methods according to the present invention can be implemented in hard-wired circuitry, by programming a general-purpose processor, or by any combination of hardware and software. One of ordinary skill in the art will immediately appreciate that the invention can be practiced with computer system configurations other than those described, including hand-held devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, digital signal processing (DSP) devices, set top boxes, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention can also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network.
The methods of the invention may be implemented using computer software. If written in a programming language conforming to a recognized standard, sequences of instructions designed to implement the methods can be compiled for execution on a variety of hardware platforms and for interface to a variety of operating systems. It will be appreciated that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of the invention as described herein. Furthermore, it is common in the art to speak of software, in one form or another (e.g., program, procedure, application, driver, . . . ), as taking an action or causing a result. Such expressions are merely a shorthand way of saying that execution of the software by a computer causes the processor of the computer to perform an action or produce a result.
It is to be understood that various terms and techniques are used by those knowledgeable in the art to describe communications, protocols, applications, implementations, mechanisms, etc. One such technique is the description of an implementation of a technique in terms of an algorithm or mathematical expression. That is, while the technique may be, for example, implemented as executing code on a computer, the expression of that technique may be more aptly and succinctly conveyed and communicated as a formula, algorithm, or mathematical expression. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize a block denoting A+B=C as an additive function whose implementation in hardware and/or software would take two inputs (A and B) and produce a summation output (C). Thus, the use of formula, algorithm, or mathematical expression as descriptions is to be understood as having a physical embodiment in at least hardware and/or software (such as a computer system in which the techniques of the present invention may be practiced as well as implemented as an embodiment).
A machine-readable medium is understood to include any mechanism for storing or transmitting information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, a machine-readable medium includes read only memory (ROM); random access memory (RAM); magnetic disk storage media; optical storage media; flash memory devices; electrical, optical, acoustical or other form of propagated signals (e.g., carrier waves, infrared signals, digital signals, etc.); etc.
Reference has been made to LAN (Local Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network). What is to be understood, as is understood by those of ordinary skill in the art, is that LAN and WAN are relative terms. For example, the Internet may be considered a WAN with respect to a large corporate network, and the large corporate network may be considered a WAN with respect to a department network within the large corporation network. Likewise, the small department network may be considered a LAN with respect to a large corporate network, and the large corporate network may be considered a LAN when compared to the Internet. As such, what one is to appreciate, is that where discussions have related LANs to WANs, they are relating smaller networks to larger networks, and that this comparison is not fixed as to where the comparison takes place. Thus, one network may appear as a WAN to a smaller network, and yet to another network appear as a LAN. What is to be appreciated is that in the art, the words sometimes have meanings commensurate with the surrounding environment, and yet often the words are used interchangeably without respect to the specific structure or environment, i.e. one of ordinary skill in the art understands the use and meaning.
Thus, a method and apparatus for peer-to-peer services have been described.
Patent Citations
Non-Patent Citations
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Halloween Photo Gallery and related media
Trick or Treat
Costumed kids trick-or-treating on Halloween.
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State Advisory Council on Education of Students with Disabilities (SAC)
Friday, September 12, 2014 - 9:30am
Friday, September 12, 2014 - 9:30am
All SAC meetings are held at the H. Dean Evans Community and Education Center, 8550 Woodfield Crossing Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46240, beginning at 9:30 a.m., unless otherwise noted on the agenda for the meeting. The meetings are open to the public. The meeting agenda is available approximately two weeks prior to each SAC meeting. You may request a copy of the next SAC meeting agenda via email at email@example.com.


text:
At Penn, we offer a range of diagnostic treatment and after care services for each type of cancer. A team of expert physicians, nurses and counselors draw on their in-depth knowledge of a particular cancer to develop a care program that is right you. Our recommendations consider not only your medical situation, but emotional needs, family concerns, and quality-of-life issues as well.
Cancer Center physicians and staff build special relationships with each patient. Their expertise and understanding make them your advocate. Our patients know they have choices. From the very first evaluation, we talk about the full range of options and help you choose the most appropriate course of action.


text:
Christmas Light Display
Castaic, California
now thru Jan 2, 2011
5:15 - 10PM daily
Sara Tisdell and her husband have decorated their home with a spectacular display of lights. They say Clark Griswald has nothing on this home!
Visitors can come enjoy the display and give a free-will donation for the Foundation. Funds are already rolling in and it's grabbing local media attention! If you live nearby and would like directions contact Meredithe Drews at firstname.lastname@example.com
* The Tisdells are hosting this event in honor of the memory of their neices Bridget and Elsie Drews.


text:
There's nothing more frightening than lackluster interior decoration. Except clowns. Man, those things are scary. Don't be a home décor Bozo—grab a bombastic light switch cover from New Face. This faceplate and decal two-pack is easy to install and destroys dull and banishes boring from your walls for good.
Includes instructions, 2 easy-to-install white faceplates, screws, and 2 graphic decals.
To assemble, first install faceplate on the wall. Once in place, press graphic decal over the faceplate.
This product has no reviews yet. Be the first to review this product. Write a review
Enjoy 10% off your first order*


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Tuesday at MCAD: Prospective Transfer and Adult Student Informational Event 10/7
6:30 p.m.
Information session for prospective students interested in the BFA and BSc undergraduate degree programs at MCAD.
You are invited to visit the Minneapolis College of Art and Design! Tuesday at MCAD is hosted on four Tuesdays this fall: September 2, October 7, November 4, and December 9 at 6:30 p.m. These events are scheduled college information sessions for prospective undergraduate students interested specifically in the Bachelor of Fine Art (BFA) and Bachelor of Science (BSc) undergraduate degree programs at MCAD.
Tuesday at MCAD Dates:
Tuesday, September 2, 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday, October 7, 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday, November 4, 6:30 p.m..
Tuesday, December 9, 6:30 p.m..
The following sessions take place on each of these days:
Information Session 6:30–7:30 p.m.
Optional Campus Tour 7:30–8:30 p.m.
For Adult and Transfer Students:
If you are currently attending a college or university and have been thinking about transferring to MCAD for the Spring 2015 or Fall 2015 semesters, we encourage you to attend this scheduled event.
We also welcome adults (25 or older) who wish to pursue a four-year degree within an arts-based community. Whether returning to a college environment or investigating it for the very first time, our staff will be able to walk you through the application and enrollment process and alleviate any concerns or apprehensions you may have about returning to the classroom.
For High School Students:
If you are interested in applying for Fall 2015, we encourage you to attend this scheduled event to learn about the application and enrollment process.
Registration is required.
To sign up, pick the day you would like to attend and register for this event in one of the following ways:
- Register online.
- Call the MCAD Admissions Office at 612.874.3760 or 800.874.MCAD, Ext. 1 between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
- Email MCAD Admissions at email@example.com; please include the date and time you wish to attend, your contact information, and number of guests.
Space is limited, and reservations are held on a first come, first served basis. Upon registration you will receive an email confirmation. Admissions events at MCAD are always free and open to the public.
Please note, personal interviews and tours are always available for prospective students, by appointment only Monday–Friday 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., and may be scheduled by contacting the Admissions Office.
Free and open to the public.


text:
Jawbone UP health monitoring bracelet and iOS app available again
Jawbone just launched a (sort of) new bracelet accessory called UP that plugs into your iPhone's 3.5mm jack to document exercise and sleep habits. The iOS companion app also allows users to track what they're eating, and combine all of the data to provide tailored health tips, and even correlate everything with your current mood.
What makes the Jawbone Up only sort of new is that it was actually released last year, then quickly clawed it back due to battery issues. To show they've gone back to the drawing board and improved everything, Jawbone put together a video of their testing and design process. We talked with the Jawbone guys back at CES about UP, if you're looking for a bit more context.
Jawbone Up is going for $129.99, and is available in a few different sizes and colors. Any takers? Who bought one when they were originally available?
- Free - Download now
Have something to say about this story? Leave a comment! Need help with something else? Ask in our forums!
Reader comments
Jawbone UP health monitoring bracelet and iOS app available again
I was interested before they messed up the first time. Then I got a Nike Fuel Band and am very happy
I bought one the first time out and "battery issues" doesn't really get at the problems. The sync functionality was clunky and inconsistent. The it just stopped working a week and a half after I bought it. They were very good about refunding all of my money though. If they could work out the bugs and do a wireless BT 4.0 sync, it might be worth the money.


text:
- Willamette
- Atkinson Graduate School of Management
- For Alumni
- MBA for Professionals Alumni Referral Program
MBA for Professionals Alumni Referral Program
As a Willamette MBA alumnus, you are the greatest advocate for our program. We appreciate your continued support of our recruitment efforts and thank you for sharing the Willamette MBA story with your co-workers, friends, and family.
Our goal is to recruit exceptional students just like you. To do that, we ask for your help in identifying high achieving professionals that will benefit from the personal attention offered in our evening MBA for Professionals programs in Salem or Portland.
When you make a referral to the MBA for Professionals program, if that candidate is admitted and enrolls, we'll credit $1,000 to his or her tuition balance during the student's first semester in your name. It's a great way to empower someone to make a solid investment in his or her future and allows you to extend your legacy as a successful Willamette MBA. Your name will also be included on our Alumni Honor Roll, published via ATKINSONews, and in our annual magazine, "Directions."
Thank you for supporting the Willamette MBA and continuing our tradition of excellence and service!
Referral Instructions:
- Any graduate from the Atkinson Graduate School of Management (regardless of program format) is eligible to make a referral.
- The referred student must enroll in the evening MBA for Professionals program in Salem or Portland for the tuition credit.
- The referrer must complete the online form (below). This form will also serve as a letter of reference to the MBA for Professionals program (firstname.lastname@example.com). The letter and/or e-mail must be received prior to the completion of the candidate's application for admission and will be a part of the candidate's file.
- The $1,000 tuition credit will appear on the candidate's student account halfway through their first semester of coursework. The student must remain enrolled through the first semester to maintain eligibility.
- Current students in the MBA for Professionals may also refer students under the "MBA Referral Program" for students. Referrals from students with less than one semester left in the MBA for Professionals program fall under the rules of the Alumni Referral Programs.
Note: Field Names in Red are Required.


text:
These Potty Protectors will protect your kids from toilet germs while helping them learn the importance of hygiene! Take a Potty Protector along wherever you may go.
- Soft and waterproof
- Tape for secure positioning
- Overly large size to protect areas where kids hands may touch
- Comes with travel pouch that may be resealed
- Fits both standard and elongated toilets
- For 12 months+


text:
Quick Links
Shop All Jewelry
NL10208 In Stock Absolutely No Delay on Personalization!
A sweet heart charm hangs from this solid heart sterling silver pendant to create a delightful look. The luster and shine of the sterling silver necklace is sure to add that right feel that you've been looking for in your everyday attire. The necklace measures 16 or 18 inches to make this solid heart sterling silver necklace the choice that will never be regretted. Personalize this heart warming gift with a customized engaving. Pair this necklace up with the matching bangle bracelet.
Eve's Addiction.com wants you to be a happy customer. We want you to be completely satisfied with the sterling silver jewelry that you receive from us, as we only sell high quality silver and cubic zirconia cz jewelry. We do understand that you may not like your purchase for some reason.
You may return or exchange your jewelry within 60 days of purchase if you are not satisfied with it. The jewelry must be returned in its original condition for a refund or exchange. Engraved, personalized, photo, monogram, name and initial, chocolate and clearance items are not returnable or exchangeable.