Google Desktop Search

kevlar557

Jul 9 2005, 12:56 AM

I was up searching for some green day lyrics today, when I stumbled upon a banner at the bottom of the google search page. From what I've read about it, it is a glorified version of the windows search tool that searches your entire hard drive for offline web pages, IM conversations, and more.It looks very interisting, but I'm still not ready to help google take over the world by downloading it. I haven't really read up on it too much, but you can for yourself here.

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BlueMountain

Jul 9 2005, 08:19 AM

I haven't tried it out yet, but from it's description the functions are more or less the same as the MAC OS Tiger Spotlight, but the difference is, this is not intergrated in the system by M$.

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Grafitti

Jul 9 2005, 06:30 PM

for me, the speed of serching for files doesn't balance out the loss in speed of having google desktop constantly running and indexing your files. i turned this feature off in Windows XP and noticed a marked improvement. and no, i'm not interested either in helping google archive everything i look at on the net.

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saxsux

Jul 15 2005, 02:20 PM

I think Google's Desktop Search is brilliant. It works so well, and is so much better than windows's built in search. All though it doesn't provide "real time" results like windows does (it collects an index, a bit like the Google search engine) the results are still accurate and up to date, seeing as Google Desktop Search automatically updates the index whenever your computer is idle.
Everyone goes on and on about Google stealing everyone's privacy and everything, but they don't! In my opinion, its all stupid paranoia. Why are you so afraid of it?

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patchcr

Jul 21 2005, 12:02 AM

The Google Desktop Search is a fine tool that I almost never use. I find it a bit dull. Yes it is great for logging conversations but there is no way to easily transport those logs and archive them forever, ready to be accessed by any program that can read html.

Also if for some reason the crawler/indexer messes up and your index gets either broken or corrupt, you have to start all over and have it index all your files again. But its not as easy as it sounds. You have to locate the index and delete it by hand, what a pain.

I think it is cool that it can recognize music and browser history and chat logs and pdfs and all that other stuff. But the reality is that I don't ever search for any of that stuff. If I have a need for a file with specific content I usually know exactly where it is located in my highly organized file tree. The only time i really need to "search" for something is when a program crashes and I need to search for the specific DLL that broke and see if I can find a replacement. The problem with Google Desktop Search is that it won't help me find those system files. Oh well, I guess i'm just too organized.

I keep Google Desktop running because I know there will be one day that I really need to get to something quick and I have no idea where I put or even if I have it at all. And if it is content-based, Google Desktop will be there to answer my question in a flash.

Also, the MS Desktop competitor and the Yahoo competitor Desktop Searches are very inferior. They are slower, less intuitive, and not as productive. But the one thing they do have going for them is their customizibility. But still i'll stick with google.

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patchcr

Jul 21 2005, 12:29 AM

I would also like to digress on Google as a company if I may. I don't like these accusations that Google is planning to take over the world. Just do a little research on how Microsoft started up as opposed to how Google started up. Microsoft STOLE an operating system and has since consistently done everything in its power to keep the monopoly. Google on the other hand started with a couple of really smart guys who had a very very good idea. They also had a vision, not of world domination but of peace and symbiosis. They got rich very fast but once they were rich, did they start crowding out other markets? No, they offered fair competition to their direct competetors and then started a whole whirl wind of novel products. Next, you should look at the Google Foundation. 1% of all their profits are donated to the Foundation which "hopes to eclipse Google itself." Google was built with the Hacker Ethic in mind. Information is to be shared, progress is to be swift, create only if it is fun, and don't be evil.

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Cassandra

Aug 2 2005, 09:45 PM

QUOTE (patchcr @ Jul 21 2005, 12:29 AM)

Microsoft STOLE an operating system

That's quite an accusation. Could you give us the URLs of some authoritative sites with the details, please.

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wutske

Aug 4 2005, 07:24 AM

I've tried it once, but I removed it a few days later because something on my computer caused it to loose it's index file, so it had to re-index everytime I rebooted

. And I hardly search a thing on my computer, I just know where my files are, because I use my own system, organized chaos

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abhiram

Aug 4 2005, 07:32 AM

Google Desktop search is still in it's beta stage (as are everything else google has started

). I used it once but removed it because it wasn't of much use and once when I really had a use for it, it didn't find the files I wanted !!! I had a doc file in a sub-directory and after google had finished indexing, I searched for it, but couldn't find it. Finally after a hard search, I found it myself. Then, after editing it, I closed it and searched again. But this time, instead of showing the actual file, it showed the temporary file generated by MS-WORD which was in the same folder. I mean like WTF ?!! This got me really pissed off and I uninstalled it.

The only thing worthwhile mentioning about google desktop is that it indexes the files in the background so that you don't even know that it is there. If you leave your computer idle for a few minutes, it starts indexing fast, otherwise it does it slowly.

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kaputnik

Aug 4 2005, 01:16 PM

I had Google desktop search for a while and I found it quite helpful while I was using it. This was with my previous employer. I joined the firm to find that there was a huge history of files, relating to all sorts of stuff that could be and was actually useful to me. Unfortunately, nearly everything was on seperate computers. What I did was to dump all document, spreadsheet, presentation and media files onto the server into folders dedicated to the perticular type of files. Then I installed Google Desktop search and let it index the bunch of files.

This was especially helpful to anyone, who needed to find files that may have reffered to ground level advertising events etc... on finding the file this could be instantly transferred to the person's individual computer.

As a document management software it has a few failings. Although the corporate version does have search capabilities across a network, this instantly becomes an expense, that individuals of small groups can not easily afford or access.

As soon as one is willing to pay for a software, it always makes the best sence to go for the best, and with a little bit of investment, a software called ZyLab can be implemented. Now, this is like a mother of all desktop, network as well as intra application search program. Primarily, the program can be run as a stand-alone desktop version, and, it can also be run as a network based search, through a server.

Now, this software is not just geared to search for nearly all known file types, through the contents of each file type, but it can also do image and video search where there are key words inserted through xml tags, or the software can actually scan through the files to extract text, which may then be searched for. Also, the software is best suited for scanning and running OCR of huge ammounts of documents. Infact, the FBI used the software as a primary solution when they needed to feed reams and reams of documents and scan through it all during the investigation into the Microsoft case. Files can be searched with parameters and any file in whichever format, when located may be always automatically redirected to the searcher (anywhere in the world through e-mail or FTP) while the original file is stored on a central server. This server also supports multiple copying to support redundency; so if there's a fire and a whole building goes down , the data generated may be replicated in multiple locations acrosss the globe and instantly accessed.

Google desktop search is great for the individual personal computer user, but for enterprise wide search and document management solutions, there's a lot of work that could still go into the software to make it the very best. But, when Google does manage a mega cool software like the type I was mentioning above, and, it is free, wow... that would be really the best... !!

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Google Desktop Search - Yes, another google "tool"

Google Desktop Search - Yes, another google "tool"