Desktop Search Tools & New Search Features
I was taking a break from studying and started digging through my old emails for an old document I had written a while ago. For those of you who don’t know, I have saved every email that I ever recieved or sent (unless it’s spam) since 1994. Actually, I only get maybe one spam email every 2 weeks or so across 8 different email addresses, so it’s not that bad at all. Anyway, being able to sift through almost 85,000 emails has always been a pain until the whole Desktop Search Revolution. I’ve tried Google Desktop Search but it didn’t search as many different file types as I would have liked. That has now been fixed with Google’s Plug-In Community. In the end I settled on MSN Desktop Search because it can index almost any kind of file I can find an iFilter (more here) for. The Microsoft developers have a fairly active weblog for their search product that I check for neat new tricks.
The last major piece of software in this class that I have not tried yet is Yahoo!’s Desktop Search (Yahoo! Search Blog). It is based on X1’s Enterprise search product which is great but I don’t think it benefits most users out there. Sure, Yahoo’s software can search 200+ file types, but other than people like me who have been using computers from the DOS days, who needs that? Not many. I’ll stick with MSN for now.
For completeness here are the rest of the desktop search products out there: Ask Jeeves Desktop Search (sp.ask.com/docs/desktop/), Blinkx v2.0 (www.blinkx.com), Copernic Desktop Search 1.2 (www.copernic.com; a version of this should be offered by America Online soon).
Here are some new features on the web search engines:
- Flight tracking, for example, has been available for some time through both Google and Yahoo!. Just type an airline name or code as well as a flight number, as in “UA 45″, and you’ll be able to check the status of a flight using Travelocity or Expedia.
- Enter a tracking number from Fedex or UPS into Google or Yahoo!, and you can click a link to get instantaneous tracking status of a package. In Yahoo!, you’ll have to prefix the tracking number with “Fedex” or “UPS”.
- Localised search has made its way into the big three search engines - Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Enter an area code into the search field of Google, for example, and you’ll be given mapping or city information.
- Log in to Google Movies and find reviews, search for films by actor or director, or even locate theatres that are playing a film you want to see. Or just type in the movie title and Google will aggregate reviews and other info.
- Google’s new mapping feature makes is simple to find maps of a particular country, city, or region. The mapping feature gives you the unique ability to pan through adjacent regions by clicking your mouse button on a map and dragging it. That way, you can views maps of adjoining areas interactively, without having to enter new coordinates. Hit the “Satellite” button and you can view a fair high-res satellite photo of the area you are searching. Although Microsoft’s Terraserver has higher resolution shots, Google’s service is seemlessly integrated.
- Google has a Video Search option which searches through the recent TV show’s closed captioning to return results. Right now only Bay Area stations are included.
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