Google's Desktop Search is a Must Have
May 2005
Computers are about managing information. But for many people using a personal computer it's easy to lose track of what and where much of this information is stored.
For example, when the author of this article just took a detailed look through his ‘My Documents’ folder he was amazed to find articles, letters and other Word documents going back several years which he’d forgotten were ever there. And chances are you’re in the same boat.
Never forget that Microsoft on the whole is a pretty useless company when it comes to software innovation. Most, if not all its ideas have been copied from others including the ubiquitous Windows operating system which was first invented by Apple (the windows interface, not the actual code).
Case in point is the ‘Find’ utility built into both Windows and programs like Word. In a word it’s useless. So what can we do to find and keep track of information on our PCs? Simple, look to Google for help.
Google have designed a fantastic piece of software called Google Desktop Search. Google are masters of internet search as we all know and they’ve bought their skill to the Desktop as well. Install the free utility and let it index your computer files (Word, Excel, Emails, Favourites, Photos, IM chats etc). Then when you want to find something (perhaps a file or a piece of text) type your query in, a Google type page (similar to how searches are presented on the internet) pops up with the most relevant information.
Google Desktop Search is slick and above all simple to install. In fact it’s just the piece of programming you’d expect from a company that thinks rather than plagiarises as Microsoft does.
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