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)."

Comments

Slick... very slick

[lamasquerade]

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?

Re:Slick... very slick

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

I just made a GDS "Quick Search" for Firefox. Here's what I did:
1) Do a blank search with GDS in Firefox.
2) Bookmark it and open up its properties page.
3) The URL should look something like this --> http://127.0.0.1:4664/search&s=FGJsWAKx2-kWjzxnpdJ wgjkb5lU?q=&ie=UTF-8&btnG=Search
4) Insert a "%s" after the "q=" in the URL.
5) Enter something memorable in the Keyword box (I used "gd")
6) Look here for clarification --> http://filebox.vt.edu/s/seiglert/images/clipboard0 1.jpg
Now, whenever you want to search for something on your desktop in Firefox, just go to the Address bar, and type "gd" and whatever you want to search for! :-D

--Acercanto

Re:Does anyone actually USE Google Desktop?

[MBCook]

I've installed it on all the family Windows boxes, and it is helpful once in a while at finding documents (my parents are permanently unorganized in file structure). The ability of search your web history is neat, I'd probably use that a lot.

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.