Goggle Desktop Beta

[Darat]

Just started to use the new Google Desktop Beta and so far it seems very good at what it does.

being able to use my browser to search my local docs by just by using my google search box is a godsend.

A while ago I posted here for suggestions on how to search a lot of word docs and eventually Tez suggested dtSearch - which is superb and does a lot of things Google Desktop doesn't (e.g. index pdf files, filters, multiple indexes and the like) but for a quick to install and nicely integrated tool Google Desktop is superb.

Highly recommend it (or I do for today - until it screws up my system somehow – it is only a beta. )

See http://desktop.google.com/ for more details.

 

[richardm]

Funnily enough, I saw this the other day and remembered you looking for DTSearch.

I've installed it and it's running - but I've just read this in the system requirements:

Google Desktop Search is currently available for Windows XP and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 and above. To install, you must have administrator privileges (home users shouldn't have this problem; people in offices might). It also requires 500MB of space available on your hard disk.

So far it's 1000+ docs into the indexing, but it's only taken up about 1.5Mb in total. What's with the half gig?

 

[Darat]

Funnily enough, I saw this the other day and remembered you looking for DTSearch.

I've installed it and it's running - but I've just read this in the system requirements:



So far it's 1000+ docs into the indexing, but it's only taken up about 1.5Mb in total. What's with the half gig?

That's probably because they tried it on computer geeks first of all and with all the porn and warez they have it seemed an average figure!

Or alternatively they are just reserving the space to download the adverts... I mean you did read the licence agreement didn’t you?

Not checked the cache size yet (not even sure where it is) but it's indexed over 42,000 items since this morning.


(Edited to add.)

Data files are taking about 235Mb at the moment.

 

[evildave]

I don't need no stinkin' browser plugin to search for files - that's what 'grep' is for! If I know what it's named, 'dir /s "D:\my documents\name"' will always cough it up (alternately find|grep name for BASH).

That aside, taking a few seconds to organize your work so you can find things would help more than any gee-whiz find-o-matic.

Make yourself a proper 'Work' folder and move your 'My Documents' folder somewhere sane and build a hierarchy of folders for documents.

Another little 'trick' is you can drag around things in your start menu bar and make new folders for them. It's really annoying when I click 'start' on someone's machine, go to 'Programs' and get a popup as tall as the screen with scroll indicators. I have three broad categories: gadgets, development, internet, that supplement the existing categories. It keeps everything from getting out of hand.

A little personal organization skills really do go a long way.

 

[Smike]

Hey, that's what I do!

I'm so amazingly organized that I end up with more folders than files.

It does annoy me when i have to help someone else with some work and spend about 1/2 an hour looking for the file:

Me:Where did you put it?

Them: Dunno. I just pressed save.

Me: Okay, what did you call it?

Them: Uh..... can't remember. Might have been "elephantexplosion"

Me: Nope. There's one called "Mydogisfat".

Them: Yeah, that might be it.

 

[Darat]

I don't need no stinkin' browser plugin to search for files - that's what 'grep' is for! If I know what it's named, 'dir /s "D:\my documents\name"' will always cough it up (alternately find|grep name for BASH).

...snip...

Pah I don't even use a computer - that's what file index cards are for!