Comments on: Google Desktop Embarrassment

By: jack

jack — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:23:49 +0000

Why do people always insist on getting Apple? Macs aren’t compatible with most programs, they’re expensive, and they’re only good at doing design and image/video editing. Sure, the interface is “aqua”, but there’s nothing that a good skin for windows can’t do (some even find the Mac interface cumbersome) There’s no way that people are gonna spent over a thousand dollars just to get a decent desktop search program.

By: chicken

chicken — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:26:58 +0000

“I do not want the content of my hard drive indexed on Google’s servers.”

Maybe you should reconsider commenting on applications you don’t understand.

Apple’s spotlight is obviously the answer to this problem.

By: RealPlayer for Windows

RealPlayer for Windows — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 20:40:21 +0000

RealPlayer for Windows…

Open source highlights that the source code is viewable to all and…

By: kaliaragorn

kaliaragorn — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 18:46:54 +0000

I do agree. Windows Desktop Search seem to be the best, the faster, the simpler.

By: Luke

Luke — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 17:05:54 +0000

Its true, all thay hype about google and its high stock price and the recent news of the release of their online spreadsheet… its all useless… besides the core search engine.

Google Desktop is a great concept but you would expect it to work. Out of all the emails it is soposed to index I can’t ever find one after I clean up my inbox.

Google Earth - cool but useless.

Google Maps - Very good, but not intuitive and the stupid markers it generates when you are looking for something are simply just that - stupid.

Google spreadsheet - good to wipe your ass with. No real scientific application.

The google bubble will burst… they don’t have anything that improves productivity or will likelly become a necessity for the workplace of home use.

By: Teenage tantrums.

Teenage tantrums. — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 04:40:28 +0000

What’s out to beat Google ?…

Sure Google might be reigning search king right now , but will it be so after a year? Right now the search engine world is teeming with new and emerging search technologies , incorporated by various corporations. What do I see right now, Google losing …

By: Svizzer Blog » Blog Archive » Indexaktualisierung [Update]

Svizzer Blog » Blog Archive » Indexaktualisierung [Update] — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 00:13:53 +0000

[...] Update vom 7.3.2006: Michael Arrington erwähnt das Thema nun auch bei TechCrunch (unter dem Titel Google Desktop Embarrassment), wo es mit mittlerweile 27 Beiträgen heiss diskutiert wird. [...]

By: HappyDeveloper » Google Bashing

HappyDeveloper » Google Bashing — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 03:55:11 +0000

[...] Their desktop search has this big flaw; if you move files to somewhere else, it will never find them. I wouldn’t call that a smart application. But it’s okay because it’s “beta”. That’s the new thing for all these WEB 2.0 companies these days. Their apps never get out of beta, so users can’t really bitch about it. You can say whatever you want about Bill Gates and his Micro$oft, but at least they have balls to bring their products out of beta and take blames like a man. [...]

By: g-WH!Z

g-WH!Z — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 22:28:15 +0000

Google’s Not Embarassed… They’re Refining!…

You know. So what… Google’s Desktop thingy doesn’t reindex moved files on the fly. Apple’s Spotlight does. I gather (though I won’t waste the cycles) that MSN’s equivalent does too. Yahoo’s?
Once upon a time th…

By: Damien Stevens

Damien Stevens — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 18:48:04 +0000

I think this is ridiculous. To make matters worse - if you move around your email in Outlook it “loses” the email!

I know this does not require file-system-level hooks as our backup software product scans and finds all new, updated, deleted, and moved files on every backup!

By: Rootman

Rootman — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 14:59:52 +0000

Add TweakGDS, it will allow you to delete and rebuild the index. Also, it can MOVE the index.
http://www.podsync.com/tweakgds.htm

Google Desktop Extreme is also good - better interface, some customization.
http://www.podsync.com/gdx.htm

I am not associated with this software or company, I just like it.

By: Loic

Loic — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 06:53:49 +0000

i’ve been using MSN desktop search (now called windows desktop search i think) for almost a year and it’s been very good at its job, which is in my case mostly finding old/forgotten emails in outlook. It has definitely saved me a a few hours of search over a year.
As others have mentioned before, i didn’t install google desktop search as for some reason, i don’t trust it enough on the privacy level.

By: rajlogs

rajlogs — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 06:33:01 +0000

I noticed this problem couple of weeks back in google desktop search, I switched to msn desktop search engine. It seems to be updating its search index whenever I moved a document to different folder.

By: Josh Elman

Josh Elman — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 06:29:09 +0000

Wow, I’m surprised Google hasn’t figured this one out. Had to do this a while ago when I developed for RealPlayer. Windows can take care of this for you with their shortcuts (IPersistFile shell interface). Just serialize the shortcut info, and Windows will always be able to find the file for you.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 05:08:54 +0000

GDS: 1.8 M Simple Interface (if you simply use the floating bar)
CDS: 2.8 M Complicated Interface
YDS: 5.3 M Complicated Interface

GDS caches documents timely. That means it will catch the moved documents in the next round of searching&caching.

By: Ethan

Ethan — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 05:08:03 +0000

this is why I love spotlight in mac osx tiger

By: Spathis.com » Random links

Spathis.com » Random links — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 05:05:46 +0000

[...] then finally, looks like google mis-steps maybe?http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/03/06/google-desktop-embarrassement/ [...]

By: Olly

Olly — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 04:03:39 +0000

I have noticed this problem for some time. The worst thing is if you use Outlook and move items around in the folders. Half the time it loses track of the email….. Pretty shoddy product if you ask me….

By: Chris Huggins

Chris Huggins — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 03:59:04 +0000

As non-geek cred as it sounds, MSN Desktop search with it’s Outlook integration is the best I’ve tested for tracking files and email when moved. I move email all over the place, and GDS was atrocious (obviously) at keeping track of where my email messages really resided.

I have downloaded and tried ALL of the desktop search versions, and MSN is the best I’ve tried hands down.

By: Diego

Diego — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 03:45:30 +0000

Get an Apple. It has “Spotlight” feature built in and no more need for Google Desktop period.

By: i, prash : blog of prashanth narayanan | » Blog Archive » desktop search

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 03:23:38 +0000

[...] techcrunch points to an article from the mercury news about google desktop search. [...]

By: Zoli Erdos

Zoli Erdos — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 02:22:13 +0000

Sometimes you just have to look at other than the big names. Copernic Desktop Search finds the most filetypes, by filename or content, low on resources, and you can finetune backgrund tracking - see screen print in my post.

By: Mike Corrales

Mike Corrales — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 02:12:39 +0000

I agree that Google’s interface is simpler and thus may be easier to digest for the mass market. But mass market palatable doesn’t always mean a better product. Also, Yahoo! doesn’t store information about my data or have any visibility into my local hard drive because everything happens clientside.

I just think that the application is worth discussing in the same breath as Google Desktop (even though it isn’t a cool web app) as a viable alternative, especially given what appears to be people’s growing distrust of Google.

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 02:06:45 +0000

Quote: “It also apparently doesn’t index files by filename. Which is absolute insanity to me. 99% of the time, that’s how I want to find a file, not by the content inside. And when I try typing a filename into google desktop search, it returns nothing. Makes me so sad.”

William…

Many moons ago, I put together a freeware program that did just that. MyFiles Cataloger is still available on my site http://www.missingbytes.net and free for the taking. Give it a go, it does exactly what you’re asking for.

By: Serge

Serge — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 01:51:52 +0000

Google is the big company, they’ve got a big audience, they don’t care alone about computer geeks; what they do care about is reaching the masses. The masses don’t have a clue what hierarchical file system is — all they want is to have the necessary file popup in front of them when they demand it. That’s what google delivers to them. And with their audience they can afford to be a little reckless once in a while (and a few times more).