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Google Desktop 2 Live
An anonymous reader writes "Combining desktop search and the Google Sidebar, Google Desktop 2 is now available for download. Dozens of new third-party sidebar panels are now available, Google said. Also launched was Google Desktop for Enterprise (free)."
I could swear I've got installed already.
I installed the original Desktop search, but since moving computers hadn't bothered to reinstall. I have just installed this new version and it is one very slick little app. I don't usually like giving up screen real-estate but I decided to try the sidebar and so far I'm impressed. I can see a lot I'll be able to use, not least the scratch pad instead of opening up notepad for one-liners. The to-do list is cool too - I know it sounds so simple, but my workload comes from two service desk queues, plus other projects, plus ad-hoc email requests - and I think just jotting down a few tasks to get done today in the morning might help organise things for the day rather than flitting about between tasks all day.
As I said, some simple tools, but helpful, and well organised. As for the desktop search itself, we can now specify network drives to index which is really cool for the dis-organised mess of nested folders that is my corporate drive. Gmail search can't get through my firewall unfortunately. The News search is great, it seems to have figured out my habits from history - I haven't visited any news sites except slashdot since installing and it's already got some new stories from my favourite sites... Plus some seemingly random interesting maps and blogs... no doubt these will cancel out any gains to my productivity made by ease of finding things:)
So all in all, first impression is a good one.
btw, does anyone know a way to create a firefox keyword to search the with this? It seems to need a session id to work, but maybe there's a way round?
// It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people. --Philip K. Dick, Valis
With a dash of wine while crossing over the office, perhaps it can!
Installing it forces a reboot under Windows XP Pro.
:(
I thought those days were over.
Yeah, I have had that problem too and it's been in since beta and version 1. Google's customer support says they're "looking into a resolution for this particular issue". In other words, sorry, no Google Desktop for you.
"Joy is contagious," he said, peering into the microscope.
That said, I spend almost all my time on my Mac, so I have Spotlight.
I LOVE Spotlight.
With a quick key combination (based on keyboard placement, it would be like Alt-Space in the windows world) and then just type in stuff. The name of a document. A person's name. The name of an appointment. The name of a bookmark. The name of a folder. Some text in a document that I can't remember the name of. The name of a function in one of my programming projects (then just chose the header file it finds). It is fantastic. I even use it to launch programs (although I would prefer a version of the Run command in Windows, that is the one thing I miss). I know about Quicksilver and such but Spotlight works well enough for this.
It does seem to have gotten faster with the 10.4.3 update as well. Before sometimes I could type something in and it would take 15+ seconds for the first result to show up (this is a 1.677 GHz PB with 1GB of RAM), now the first results are always there in under a second (note, internal hard drive only; I don't know how it'd deal with multiple 800GB volumes some people use).
If you get Google Desktop and start using it, I think you'll love it (note: I've turned off the sidebar, just seems annoying to me). All it needs is a key command (Win-G maybe?) to launch it (note: might exist, haven't looked). While not as convenient as Spotlight (Google Desktop pulls up a web browser then you have to click, with spotlight I can use arrow keys, return, and various key combos), it will still be a major boon to you.
Now I'm a VERY organized person, and I still am. But now I can find that document by typing a few letters, instead of opening a few folders.
And if you accidently save something to the wrong place, it can be a GODSEND in finding it.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Name me one browser that can search all files, songs, web history, IM conversations, emails, etc on your desktop by typing in a single search word.
This is two products bundled together, Google Sidebar and Google Desktop. Desktop allows you to type in a single word and search all files, emails, songs, videos, etc. on your computer, similar to Beagle. I run it with the sidebar turned off, and then just click in the taskbar to open a browser to use it.
I installed it on my home PC when it first came out months ago and couldn't see any real use for it, so uninstalled it.
:]
But then I saw a colleague at work using it and saw how it could be very helpful in that environment. Being an IT consultant, just about all of my work related communications occur via email (Exchange), web browsing, PDF's and Office documents on my laptop. Google Desktop indexes *all* this information, making it very fast and easy to search it at whim, which I often have to do. The ability to search all of these sources of information at once is extremely helpful.
You can turn the dodgy sidebar off and just have a small text input area in the Windows task bar, or access the search interface through your web browser.
Often I work at customer sites and aren't able to connect my laptop to the internet. At these times I've found Google Desktop's cache to be very handy.
But I still can't see much use for it on my home PC
Serving Suggestion: Defrost
Javascript is a much maligned language that is actually pretty powerful.
I've been toying around with XUL applications on Mozilla and have been learning alot about the power of the language.
I think it's humble beginnings have stereotyped it as a toy, while the reality is that it's extremely powerful and flexible.
The new ECMA 357 spec is pretty interesting, too.