~The Catch-All Drawer~
Friday, October 15, 2004
Google Labs
Background: When I studied Microsoft technical stuff, one of the installable services on their servers was a program called "Index Server". The idea was that instead of taking a long time to search for something in your database, or files, hard drives, or whatever, this index server would make an initial scan, and build an index. Then from then on it would keep track of each item as it is added, on the fly, keeping the index ready. Then when you searched for something, boom! it would be in the index, and you would immediately find it. Then, low and behold, they integrated it into Windows XP for free! You can turn it on and seach quickly.
Trouble is, it never worked well -- for me anyhow. After trying many configurations, I actually turned it off, not finding the benefit outweighing the overhead.
Now. . . . Google has offered a free PC tool to search your computer just like their web search engine. Want to find that email you wrote last year and all you remember is that you used the word "Infrastructure"? Search and ye shall find. Microsoft must be worried, and admit that their index server is not the answer, because they announced that they will have something like Google's offering "Soon."
Anyhow, try it for yourself from Google Labs
Tossed in by: R.G.B.
. . . Friday, October 15, 20040 Comments:
