[shuttertalk]

Google certainly brings out lots of funky stuff...

There's a new desktop search utility which indexes all your office files, email and web pages that you've browsed, and allows you to search them like you would search google. Looks pretty good so far, as I find Outlook searching very slow and tedious...

Not everyone is happy with it though... potential privacy threat if installed on a public computer.

What do you think?

[Petographer]

I didn't install it. I figured I can use the search option I already have.

[StudioJ]

I'm a Google Toolbar fanatic, I like being able to go straight up there and search without having to go to the site to search it, it also blocks popups quite well.

[slejhamer]

Love the toolbar, too, though at first I though this desktop thing looks silly to me.

Then I figured how many times I use Microsoft's "find" feature to locate a specific document on my computer at work ... if the Google search is superior and I can locate client files faster, then I may give it a try.

[shuttertalk]

I agree with you Mitch - I hate how slow the Windows/Outlook find feature is...

I've been giving the Google Desktop a go. It's quite awesome actually... it pre-indexes all your files/emails/web pages so that when you search, the results come up almost immediately. With emails it also groups your results into conversation threads ...


I'm loving it so far...

[Petographer]

I agree with you Mitch - I hate how slow the Windows/Outlook find feature is...

I've been giving the Google Desktop a go. It's quite awesome actually... it pre-indexes all your files/emails/web pages so that when you search, the results come up almost immediately. With emails it also groups your results into conversation threads ...


I'm loving it so far...

Good. I'll let you be the Guinea pig then.

[peter]

hahha .. i got google deskbar ages ago .. when they had a more basic version ..
i used it heaps at first .. but later the novelty wore off ..

[smelly]

I find it a bit dodgy how it won't let you install the Google Desktop Toolbar unless you uninstall your firewall first. You gotta wonder why.. :/

[shuttertalk]

Hehe... yeah... come to think of it smelly, I had to uninstall some socks stuff before it would let me install...

Welcome to shuttertalk by the way! I believe you're the first from South Australia!

[smelly]

Thanks dude! I'll have to make sure then to represent South Australia in the best light possible. hehe.

And socks stuff? What exactly is that?

[shuttertalk]

Some port tunneling software to get through firewalls and stuff...

[litchilove]

it is great but i have no secret any more

[EnglishBob]

I installed it with my firewall in place, had no issues. I use Zonealarm firewall.

I've been using the desktop for about a month I think, like it so far, apart from the dead links it gives me when I have deleted, moved files

[shuttertalk]

Looks like Microsoft is at it too, with their new toolbar suite:

http://beta.toolbar.msn.com/

[Petographer]

I like the idea and am tempted to try one of these but I can't bring myself to installing another program that runs in the background. Does the Google desktop search or msn search do that?

[shuttertalk]

Yeah... it runs in the background (1) indexing documents when your computer is idle, and (2) I think they must run some sort of web server on your computer because the search screen and results for Google come up in your browser.

But I find it very cool - I use it every day at work to find email messages from people or on a particular subject. And I used it not five minutes ago to find a document that I accidentally saved somewhere else and I thought I had lost. Phew!


Now if only they had a search function for my socks...