Any thoughts on Desktop Search apps?

[bobogs]

I've been using Google Desktop Search for about a year, at work and at home. When I recently switched my wife and I from sharing one XP Pro account to separate accounts, I noticed that GDS runs oddly. Sometimes I'd see the systray icon on my account, other times my wife's systray would show the icon. I thought GDS was related to my weird "web pages with flash video spiking the cpu" problem, so I uninstalled it (also, the index files were getting huge). The uninstall brought me to a web page, and from there I found a FAQ entry about how GDS can not run simultaneously under two XP accounts (fast user switching) (http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10110). This kind of sucks, eh?

When I last tried MSN Desktop Search, it had trouble running under a limited account...whenever my daughter would log into XP, she'd get a bunch of messageboxes about how MDS had this problem or that problem.

I always liked Yahoo's offering, even when it was X1, but after seeing the way the other desktop search apps (including Spotlight) do their thing via an "additive" search (matching items show in the results list as you type), I began not to like the X1/Yahoo "subtractive" method (the results list starts out completely full before you type anything, and as you type, it wittles the list down).

Anyone have any comments or suggestions on a good desktop search app?

Thanks!
Gary

[lordsmurf]

Where's spectate_swamp at?

[mats.hogberg]

I use Agent Ransack - Hate those "always active" desktop search engines.

/Mats

[guns1inger]

Where's spectate_swamp at?

Out on the trap trail with his banjo playing cousins. Unedited film at 11.

[bobogs]

Funny...I found spectate-swamp's "desktop search" post during my pre-post forum search. It was a tough read...I stopped about a quarter of the way through.

[guns1inger]

You have far more patience that I, Gunga-Din.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

Any thoughts on Desktop Search apps?

After looking at Google's, my thought is that they are ultimately pointless.
at http://desktop.google.com/?utm_source=en-et-more&utm_medium=et&utm_campaign=en it says "Quickly search your computer for emails, web history, and files".

Windows already has the capability to do all of this quickly with the exception of the email search, and every email program I've ever used had that functionality built into it.

just seems like a whole lot of worthless bloat-ware.

[Soopafresh]

Considering how Google tracks internet searches, why would anyone trust them with an invasive app like that one ?

[Xylob the Destroyer]

and there's that too...
Google be sleeping with the CIA man, you want them snoopin' in yer PC??

[SpectateSwamp]

Where's spectate_swamp at?

Out on the trap trail with his banjo playing cousins. Unedited film at 11.

I've learned my lesson.

Unedited video got my trapper friend in deep doo doo.

Watch out what video you post on the web.

The trapper and hunter forum folks loved my unedited video at 11pm and 6am
The Fish Cops didn't. We shot a Weasel from the truck window. Should have cut
that part out. We didn't signal at corners and didn't wear seat belts. Thank god
I didn't video that.

[ssj2_goha]

Spotlight......... oh wait thats Mac OSX....... Sorry I had to do it. Well anyway....

[shelbyGT]

Windows already has the capability to do all of this quickly with the exception of the email search, and every email program I've ever used had that functionality built into it.

Wait, you think windows is FAST at searching? When I use GDS, my search comes back in a flash. When I use Windows search, I sit and stare at that dang dog for a few minutes and get results that are nowhere what I wanted.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

I dunno -- I've never had any problems with the built-in search that comes with Windoze.
maybe it comes down to the first basic rule of computing: Garbage in = garbage out.

[SpectateSwamp]

Funny...I found spectate-swamp's "desktop search" post during my pre-post forum search. It was a tough read...I stopped about a quarter of the way through.

If you really want the lowdown on desktop search go to my posts on channel9.msdn.com
maybe then you will know what you are talking about when you discuss Desktop Search.

They wouldn't stand a chance in any ShowDown. A non techie audience would see more
clearly than the techies. Techies look at the code or the interface and boo. My search gets
the data up on the screen much much faster.

Search hasn't found anything untill it's up on the screen and in context. Counting matches
is a useless exercise.

[Soopafresh]

Posted at 02:39 PM ET, 02/21/2007
Serious Flaw in Google Desktop Prompts Patch

Search engine giant Google has issued an update for people running its powerful Desktop software. Researchers had demonstrated a potentially devastating security hole in the software that could allow bad guys to snoop on users' computers or even to install additional software.

[Dr. DOS]

Our IT group does not allow Google desktop search for security reasons but has blessed the MSN
desktop search. Works great. allows you to search across servers for multiple outlook pst files. Right
now I have 163,000 items indexed and it still performs very fast searches.

[SpectateSwamp]

The new features that evolved from doing video at 2 golf tournaments sure are cool.

Feature #1 Catalog with the "golf" option and the video will play then the last 3 seconds (the swing) will play in slow motion.

Feature #2 Shoot a very short video clip to create a break point in the video catalog. Capture the short clip as the foursome comes to the tee. This allows for random playback 'by foursome'

Use 2 camcorders with the file name format like mine: yyyymmddhhmmss.mpg. Makes it extremely simple to play the video from behind then the one off to the side.

The 180 videos are up and playing on large screens before they start their awards supper. DVD's are being burned right away. Nobody does video faster than this.

The capability is there to have the 2 camcorder views up on 2 large screens. Only with Swamp video