Finding Stuff

Computers are great tools, however, one of the biggest weaknesses of the computer is that they are notoriously good at hiding information. They don’t hide the information intentionally it’s just so easy to loose where you saved something. In my time in the computer industry, I don’t know how many people I have seen with the root directory of their hard drive packed with hundreds of files. (I can’t tell you how bad of an idea that is, by the way) Windows 2000 and Windows XP helped with some of that by creating a “My Documents” folder that most programs save to by default. But that didn’t control where the documents go. Most people don’t know how a hard drive, and file system, are organized, so that makes it incredible hard for them to locate something.

If you use a computer, at some point in time, you could not find a document or file that you know you saved, but you just don’t know where. There are two free tools available to you know to help you find things.

Google Desktop (http://desktop.google.com)
Windows Desktop Search (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/default.mspx)

As you may know, your computer already has a “find” function. This is useful for finding filenames, but can be painfully slow. Also, the “find” function doesn’t search for non-file names. With both of the solutions above you can search for more and have faster and more accurate results.

With both Google Desktop and Windows Desktop Search you can search not only for a file, but for something inside the file. For example, if you want to know that you worked on a document about John Mullins. You can search for John Mullins, and it will show you all the files that have John Mullins either in the contents or in the filename. In addition, both these solutions allow you to index your email, this is most useful because it means, using the previous example, you would also receive results for any emails that contain “John Mullins.” When we say “contains” we mean you will see results if “John Mullins” appears in the To:; From:; Subject:; or Body: of the email message. Additionally, you can configure the solutions to search inside an email attachment. This means that if you received an attachment, say a Word Document that contained “John Mullins” it would be returned in your results as well. This is, as you can imagine, incredibly useful.

Both tools are most useful to have installed. Which you choose is up to you. They both have their pluses and minuses. Google Desktop returns its results in a web browser and can be configured to return results from your desktop when you search for something on Google.com. Windows Desktop Search feels more like its own application. Both can be configured to have a search bar in your task bar for easy access, however, Google Desktop will allow you to access it through a keyboard shortcut (by default the shortcut is tapping the CTRL key twice in a row). The results by both are similarly, and you would be well served by either. In addition, they can be configured to search additional drives and the network as well. This can be very helpful if you are in a business with a file server. It’s very helpful to be able to search everywhere your files might reside.

In the end, the choice is yours. The Mac has its own solution for searching built in, as does Windows Vista. Something else to keep in mind. If you run an older version of Windows like Windows 95/98,/ME you cannot utilize either of these solutions. For Windows 2000 you can utilize both, however, Windows Desktop Search is an older version and will probably not be updated as Microsoft does not support Windows 2000 any longer. If you are using Windows 2000 Google Desktop is probably your best solution.

Download the version you choose and get started saving a ton of time. You will not regret it.