A couple of months ago I put the three leading free desktop search utilities to the test to see which one was the best. 

The following versions were tested: Windows Search 4, Copernic Desktop Search 2 and Google Desktop Search.  The test was done using WIndows XP. WIndows Vista has Windows Search built into it and that is an improved version, as far as I understand, of what I was testing on XP. First to the test was…

Google Desktop Search

Google Desktop has two main features, a desktop search engine that will index the files on your computer and search through them instantly, and side bar similar to the one that comes with Windows Vista, to which you add lots of gadgets including news readers, email notifications, calendar, slide shows… the list goes on. Personally I find side bars distracting and I have enough distractions off-screen without a side bar giving me more, but this feature is easily disabled. Once Google Desktop Search has indexed the computer it is extremely fast to find results in most file formats including Outlook emails. The software can be accessed in several different ways, my favourite method is as a search box docked onto the task bar at the bottom of the screen. As you type a search query into the box the search engines starts to provide matches to the partial word you have entered. What is particularly good about Google Desktop Search is that the results are all shown with a content preview, showing the text that surrounds your search string where it has been matched, this makes it extremely easy to find the very document you are looking for. The only problem I found is that not all the documents on my computer were being indexed. I uninstalled the software, re-installed it and ran a full index and still found that many of the documents I had were not indexed by the Google Desktop Search.

Windows Search

I was optimistic when I installed this given that the product should be as well designed for Windows as such a product could be. Windows Search did index all of my files but it lacked the context to the results on the search bar. When used as a full application the software offered the ability to open the found documents in a preview window so that you could then search for the result inside the document and realise the context, but this worked very slowly. On the whole I didn’t feel that Windows Search 4 made searching much easier than using the search features already built into Windows and Outlook, having used Google Desktop Search I had had a glimpse of how quickly a search tool could work, and by comparison Windows Search was painful to use.

Copernic Desktop Search

Copernic Desktop Search is similar to Windows Search in appearance and in its interface, it does offer filename matches very quickly from a search box on the task bar at the bottom of the screen but in order to get context you have to use the application Window and preview the matched document in a preview window, this was, however, considerably faster in Copernic than it was in Windows Search. Copernic also seemed to index every one of the files on my computer, including Outlook email, and the application interface is very easy to use. I found that once I had used Copernic a few times I was able to use its features to find the documents and emails I needed very quickly. 

Conclusions

My favourite desktop search for WIndows XP is Copernic Desktop Search. I found the instant contextual results in Google Desktop Search superior to both Windows and Copernic but the incomplete indexing made it inadequate at the most important task of searching files on my computer. I did check through the support forums but,  like others before me who had had the same problem, I could not find, nor was offered, any solutions. Copernic was fast and intuitive, had I not seen the way in which Google presented results I would not have even thought it might be lacking in any department.

My tests were limited to the free version of Copernic Desktop Search 2, they have since released version 3 and that appears to offer “results as you type” in the commercial (non-free) versions, their web site does not specify if these are contextual results or not. If Google added an option that would allow you to force indexing of files and folders it had missed out then Google Desktop Search would be my winner, but at the time of testing there was no known way of doing this.

Links: Winner: Copernic Desktop Search, Second: Windows Search 4, Third: Google Desktop Search

Trying to work from Ladan’s side I have used a number of old, second hand laptop computers that have been on their way to the the microchip graveyard. When a computer dies, be it a recoverable error or not, it often takes a while to get a system up and running with my email and important data in place, especially if I am in need of another computer.

I decided I needed a solution that would enable me to get working quickly from any computer, and i bought a 4GB USB Disk to try to set somehting up. Now, had I bought a 2GB disk I now realise I could have done something a little more clever that would have worked without the need for WIndows being installed, but I may well come back to that in a future post, for now I have a 4GB disk and am very happy with what I have got, which is this…

• An encrytped, password protected, briefcase of my most important documents
• An encrypted, password protected, backup of my Outlook email folders and settings
• A one-click facility to synchronise my public and private documents, and email, with any WIndows computer (in the case of email it needs to have Outllok XP or better installed)
• All my essential applications installed on the USB disk and launchable from there
• A nice launcher that sits in the Windows system tray and accesses all the facilities from the disk

So, not only do I have my data backed up but I can use almost all of it without interefering with another machine. If I want to use my email on a friends machine I will have to configure a user account under my name to use a fresh copy of Outlook, but I can use webmail for email too. I did consider using Thunderbird as my primary email client and then not needing access to Outlook on any machine (as I can run Thunderbird from the USB Drive), but I prefer Outlook for email management tools.

Here are the tools I am using, and hereby recommending…

• Truecrypt - This creates an encrypted briefcase file that I can “mount” as a drive when I need access to it.
• Allway Sync - A utility that can be set to synchronize between certain folders on the USB and the host computer]
• PStart - An application launcher, like the WIndows start button, that can be configured to work for all the programs on a USB stick.

I also have OpenOffice, Firefox, Mozilla, FileZilla, Gimp, GeoClock, CCleaner, Process Explorer, InfraRecorder, VLC Media Player, Notepad++, Audacity, and a large number of other portable applications installed which can run from the USB drive. Using PStart I can open my briefcase as Drive J: with just one click, and carry out synchronization of Outlook between computers I use with just one click.

One note about Outlook and Encryption, if you are familiar with creating a new .pst file in Outlook then you will know that you are offered three levels of encryption for your messages… None, Compressible or Best… Outlook does not compress the .pst file itself so unless you are going to compress it then the Best option is best!

Most of my blog visitors are not that technical minded to want to know more details about this, so if you do want to know more please le tme know.

Blog Action Day…

How to Save the Environment at Home

51 Things We Can Do to Save the Environment

The BBC Green Room

The latest beta version of Google Earth, available from http://earth.google.com/ has two new sky related features.

I was wondering if anybody had found a hack to make it feel like you were flying a plane over Google Earth scenery, and I was pleased to find that Google have done it themselves. If you hold down CTRL+ALT+A (according to their instructions) you launch a flight simulator, choose your aicraft from two available, choose a starting point, and you can take to the skies. I have tested it by crashing into some trees in Venice. Details on all the controls are here.

On my computer CTRL+ALT+A didn’t work, something to do with having a British keyboard layout, but using the right hand (as opposed to left) CTRL with A (no ALT) worked instead.

There is also an option, which I have not tested yet, to explore space. You choose a location on earth from which to look at the skies and then click the sky button, from there you can explore our solar system and much of the known universe beyond it.

I’m sorry if this isn’t of interest to you but the BBC have an article about how the word sorry has lost much of its sincerity in Britain…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6241411.stm

BBC Radio 4 - Uncovering Iran: From Tehran with Laughter

Omid Djalili presents a programme on BBC Radio 4 looking at comedy in Iran. You will be able to hear it on their website for a few more days.

The documentary lasts about thirty minutes and has many clips from Iranian comedians.

welcome to relaxingTV.com : your everyday vacation

Here’s a novel site I just found, they have several free video clips of relaxing scenes, such as plants waving in the breeze, the sea crashing against some cliffs, sunrises, sunsets, and the classic fireplace videos. You can enjoy a few moments of something different and you may well wish you could book a holiday in Hawaii afterwards.

I used to be keen on the stars and planets, as a child I spent many a night looking at the craters on the moon in my 40x magnification telescope. I always planned to have my own observatory built into our mansion when I became a multi-millionaire… I would have observed the nine planets of the solar system and taken amazing photos of them through my enormous telescope… well, I guess that just won’t come to pass now as there are only eight real planets in our solar system. Pluto has been voted out by a group of about 2,500 scientists meeting in Prague! They’ve tried to lessen the blow on Pluto a little bit by introducing a new category of “dwarf planet”, of which there are now at least three in our solar-system including Ceres between Mars and Jupiter.

Link: BBC News Story: Pluto loses status as a planet

Here’s a cute video that may bring a smile to some faces, particularly Persian faces…

THE UNIVERSAL LOVE: A BAHA’I VIDEO - open for votes