Google Experiments With Local Filesystem Search 482
Teoti writes "No, Puffin is not the next name of your favorite email client, but, according to the New York Times (NSA reg. req.), the project codename for a new Google search application coming directly into your desktop, that will let you search your local filesystem efficiently. This is different from, but complementary of, the Google DeskBar that already lets you search the Web. The article also gives a few words on the end of the stand alone browser in Longhorn."
What operating systems does it work on? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:5, Insightful)
They might be windows only, but there is a chance they'll decide to please the rest of us, too.
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:5, Interesting)
Having done quite a bit of both in the past several years, I'd highly disagree. There are plenty of off the shelf products or methods to create cross-platform applications and very very few (and generally poor in quality) tools or even documentation to write cross-platform websites (modern ones, with dhtml and heavy usage of DOM).
But a lot of the code (particularly for interacting with the file system and the GUI bits) will be platform-specific.
Nope, that's pretty much been standardized, assuming you're writing from scratch. Now porting an application written platform specific is a completely different story. But this example is an application written from scratch.
And as for filesystems, well... nowadays filesystems are much more consistant than, say, SysV versus VMS versus the dozen variants of CP/M. Subdirectories and pretty consistant meta information (date created, date modified, date accessed, etc) on every file is the accepted standard. They may do things different under the hood, but (at this time) they are all pretty much POSIX.
--
Evan
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google has a vested interest in trying to help diminish Microsoft's desktop market share. Doing so increases the relative market value of Google's products relative to Microsoft's products.
To help drive a wedge between Microsoft and their current desktop customers, Google will almost certainly port this kind of tool to other OSes. They would then get into various "enterprise" partnerships with IT solution providers to push pre-canned non-Windows desktops into corporate accounts. This product in particular would help to sell alternative desktops against Longhorn's alleged new filesystem features.
If this strategy were successful, Google would stand to pick up a good bit of revenue and mindshare at Microsoft's expense. My guess is definitely: Cross platform.
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Has Google distributed something that you can install on your Linux or Mac OS computer? Ever?
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Google folks are smart. Surely they've developed something that is more capable than merely find and grep, or file-hunting-dog, or Sherlock...
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:5, Informative)
See Lucene for a good open source inverted text index search engine.
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Grep and find don't pre-index the files. So searching my machine takes me longer than searching the entire web. Google has indexing and caching down to a science. I can't wait for this to be on the market.
--
Lessons from Microsoft [blogspot.com]
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:3, Informative)
"locate" does, but the index is never up to date.
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:4, Insightful)
Any tool from google or microsoft or anyone else would need some functional equivalent to updatedb to run at regular intervals. The index has to be made some way or another. Maybe an updatedb type of process that runs whenever there are idle cpu cycles?
Re:What operating systems does it work on? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lotus Magellan for my linux server (Score:4, Funny)
Obviously a new guy.
But the real question is.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But the real question is.. (Score:4, Insightful)
If searching is such a critical a problem, why does MS keep making their local file search utility less and less useful? Windows 98 had it just right for me -- maybe move the "containing text" box to the front tab, but otherwise perfect. Win2K made it worse by making the "search subdirs", "hidden" and "system files" options non-sticky and hidden. WinXP?! Too much damn clicking, waiting and NON-DOINGSTUFF! Let's just say "thank heaven for TweakUI" or someone in Redmond would have gotten a VERY unpleasent letter and a flaming pile of dog poo from me.
Re:But the real question is.. (Score:3, Funny)
My advice is GO BIG (German Shepherd, Retriever, Laborador, etc.) It'll cost more in supplies, but from the feature list for WinLH, it looks like you're going to need more volume than a small dog can handle. You don't want poor fido to wear out after a week on the job, eh?
Re:But the real question is.. (Score:5, Funny)
I think most of us already know... (Score:5, Funny)
Finally, a way to effectively search through my gigabytes of pr0n!
Re:I think most of us already know... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I think most of us already know... (Score:4, Informative)
Not to mention that if he ever gets raided I am *sure* there has to be at least a few child pr0n photos in there (even accidentally).
I decided long ago that keeping around lots of pr0n is just a bad idea. Binge and purge! That's my new motto!
Re:I think most of us already know... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I think most of us already know... (Score:5, Funny)
Strangely enough, Google will help you Go Ogle your porn!
Re:I think most of us already know... (Score:3, Funny)
Finally, a way to effectively search through my gigabytes of pr0n!
Just imagine the embedded text and (soon) image ads returned with your search results...
Re:I think most of us already know... (Score:4, Funny)
About time (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm guessing in a year (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I'm guessing in a year (Score:5, Funny)
(Taken from this [fark.com] Fark thread. Warning/Warnung/Advertencia/Avertissement: "Adult" language contained within link.)
RFID tag (Score:3, Funny)
Also on CNET... No NYT Registration (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Also on CNET... No NYT Registration (Score:5, Informative)
SAN FRANCISCO, May 18 - Edging closer to a direct confrontation with Microsoft [slashdot.org], Google, the Web search engine, is preparing to introduce a powerful file and text software search tool for locating information stored on personal computers.
Google's software, which is expected to be introduced soon, according to several people with knowledge of the company's plans, is the clearest indication to date that the company, based in Mountain View, Calif., hopes to extend its search business to compete directly with Microsoft's control of desktop computing.
Improved technology for searching information stored on a PC will also be a crucial feature of Microsoft's long-delayed version of its Windows operating system called Longhorn. That version, which is not expected before 2006 at the earliest, will have a redesigned file system, making it possible to track and retrieve information in ways not currently possible with Windows software.
Google's move is in part a defensive one, because the company is concerned about Microsoft's ability to make searching on the Web as well as on a PC a central part of its operating system. By integrating more search functions into Windows, Microsoft could conceivably challenge Google the way it threatened, and destroyed, an earlier rival, Netscape, by incorporating Web browsing into the Windows 98 operating system.
A Google spokesman declined to comment about the new search tool.
Although Google's core business rests on huge farms of server computers that permit fast searching on the Internet, the company has already taken several steps to move beyond that business.
Last year, Google began testing a free program called the Google Deskbar that makes it possible to search the Web by entering words and phrases in a small dialog box placed in the Windows desktop taskbar at the bottom of the computer screen.
Google also sells a computer search system designed to index and retrieve information created and stored by a single organization.
There is a rich history of less-than-successful attempts to create information search tools for personal computers. In the 1980's, for example, Mitchell Kapor's On Technology developed On Location for retrieving information on Macintosh computers and Bill Gross, a prominent software developer, led a group of programmers to create Lotus Magellan for the PC.
Digital Equipment's Alta Vista search engine group also developed a search tool for data stored on desktop PC's. Today there are a number of commercial products for desktop searches like X1 and dtSearch. Moreover, both the Macintosh and Windows operating systems have file and text retrieval capabilities.
The Google software project, which is code-named Puffin and which will be available as a free download from Google's Web site, has been running internally at the company for about a year.
The project was started, in part, to prepare Google for competing with Windows Longhorn, which according to industry analysts will dispense with the need for a stand-alone browser.
The disappearance of the Web browser and the integration of both Web search and PC search into the Windows operating system could potentially marginalize Google's search engine. Google, well aware of this threat, hired a Microsoft product manager last year to oversee the Puffin project as part of its strategy to compete with Microsoft's incursion into its territory.
Microsoft has shown demonstrations of its new search technology, which emphasizes the use of natural language in queries like "Where are my vacation photos?" or "What is a firewall?" Microsoft believes that Longhorn users will no longer think about where information is stored; they will ins
Re:Also on CNET... No NYT Registration (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't imagine not having this feature and it floors me that Microsoft can't imagine anyone ever needing it.
Re:Also on CNET... No NYT Registration (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the silliest notions I've ever heard. If they make no distinction between local files (in user's control) and files "on the internet" (beyond user's control), what kind of crap are we going to have to put up with when people start saying "hey, where's that document I was looking at yesterday?" because they never knew it was on someone else's hard drive and got erased.
Advertisements (Score:5, Insightful)
Gulp! (Score:3, Funny)
I hope not... That could get embarassing!
OTOH, I might finally get word about those wild lesbian orgies in my area that I've heretofore only found out about after the fact [welivetogether.com].
privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
Google seems to be as anti-ad as most people on Slashdot. I personally hate ads, but I feel that most of Google's ads are non-invasive and in good taste.
interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Answer: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Google researchers are allotted 20% of their working time to do outside projects or to follow personal interests. Google News and Gmail were both results of work done during this "20%" time. So in short, no, I don't think Google has really stretched their resources any more so than before.
Research and Development (Score:3, Insightful)
But to remain profitable in the long term, you diversify -- so you're not as likely to take a massive downfall from a single competing company. And you try to find new products and solutions, to improve what offerings you have (that whole concept of innovation).
Google
I can't frickin' wait (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I can't frickin' wait (Score:3, Insightful)
Wouldn't the speed of the search be influenced mostly be the capabilities of your own computer?
I haven't seen the code for either the client or the windows find utility, however I would expect that not too much can be done about your problems in there.
That is to say, Google's utility won't cut your search time to 20 minutes just because they have better code.
Then again, you never know with Microsoft...maybe the code is just that bad.
I doubt it though.
Re:I can't frickin' wait (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know about that... it used to take me several months to find a document on the Internet when I had to download and grep the entire World Wide Web. My bandwidth bills were astronomical. Since I started using Google, I can now find the same files in a few milliseconds. I say they have much better code than my old "wget -r http://*.*|grep foo".
Re:I can't frickin' wait (Score:4, Informative)
Ultimately, yes, but there's searching and then there's searching. For example, searching a hashed index is much faster than just searching through files in a filesystem. You could generate an index of data and metadata for all files on the system and incrementally update it during idle times, for example, or do certain kinds of updates on an as-needed basis.
GNOME used to have something like this, called Medusa. I think it was dropped because the existing implementation had performance problems (and possibly security issues?). However, it seems to be under redevelopment [cox.net], and it looks like it will be quite useful when it gets a bit further along.
Re:I can't frickin' wait (Score:5, Funny)
I use Enfish find (Score:4, Informative)
I purchased Find from <a href="http://www.enfish.com">Enfish</a> and it saves me several minutes everyday. They have fancier products, but $50 for the Find application is all that I needed.
Re:I can't frickin' wait (Score:3, Interesting)
On my XP machine I have in the neighborhood of 300,000 files, and a full-text search takes 1 minute, tops. On my Mac it's closer to 150,000, and a full text search takes about 25 seconds. 90 minutes sounds like something is seriously wrong.
Re:I can't frickin' wait (Score:3, Insightful)
Competing with Microsoft? (Score:5, Informative)
X1 [x1.com] seems to be the most popular one out there.
DiskMeta [diskmeta.com], they had this project in beta for a while, the Windows product went into relese just last week, the site says
DT Search [dtsearch.com], I remember their ads in bunch of computer magazines, although have never used them myself.
EFS [com.com], found it on download.com, supports MS Office and PDF as well as other formats.
Actually yes (Score:5, Informative)
If you have followed Microsoft developments around Longhorn you might have noticed that search is one of the top priority features that microsoft is going to integrate directly into the operating system. So once Longhorn is released Microsoft would become the biggest competitor to Google's search applications on the web as well the desktop(with this application)
Search is the next big thing on which a lot of players are concentrating and Microsoft entering the field has skewed the competition towards the desktop and everyone including Google is preparing for the battle.
Re:Actually yes (Score:3, Funny)
Excellent! So I can have proper searching in 2008.
Re:Competing with Microsoft? -- in 2006! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Competing with Microsoft? (Score:3, Funny)
The more important question: can it compete with grep?
NYT Article (Score:5, Informative)
Coming from the company... (Score:4, Insightful)
Call me paranoid, and mod me down because I'm sharing a negative opinion of Google, but I don't think I'm going to be giving this same company the ability to sift through my entire hard drive.
Re:Coming from the company... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Coming from the company... (Score:5, Informative)
I wish a could beat the creator of google-watch.org and every person who ever linked to it with a gigantic clue stick.
First of all, the creator of google-watch.org has a really big axe to grind [google-watch-watch.org] with Google.
Second, HTTP is a stateless protocol. If you want a user's preferences to to persist within a session you need to use cookies or attach a lot of state information to each GET/POST request. If you want the preferences to persist after you close and re-open your browser you have to have the user log in every time and store the prefs on the server or store the prefs on the client side in a cookie like Google does. This simple fact seems to fly right over the head of google-watch.org and their ridiculous cookie conspiracy theories.
But hey, we've been over this in every Google story since the anti-Google FUD crowd started coming out of the woodwork. Here's a thought: if you really need a tinfoil hat then disable cookies, don't use Orkut and sleep better at night. But please stop subjecting people to google-watch.org FUD.
Re:Coming from the company... (Score:4, Insightful)
Deleting a cookie is easy by comparison.
Re:Coming from the company... (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, seems to me .... (Score:5, Funny)
I keep looking at Google and thinking "wow, this is just like AltaVista, without the death spiral!"
Everything Old is New Again (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember Alta Vista offered this sort of search-your-own-computer software back in *1998*. This seems to be the most recent version: http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.ph
Similar ideas (Score:5, Informative)
Second, an indexing software that does the same thing is already available today and worked very well when I tried it out. It's actually almost perfect, except for the fact that it causes occasional hard drive thrashing as it tries to keep the index up-to-date. This is unfortunately a rather major downside, but if you can bear with this, you'll get literally instant file searches on your entire hard drive -- it narrows down the possible matches as you type each letter. It even indexes file contents for small files. I'm talking about X1 [x1.com].
Antitrust settlement (Score:5, Funny)
That's nothing. (Score:5, Funny)
Google should distribute Mozilla (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Google should distribute Mozilla (Score:4, Interesting)
They do, in a way [google.com].
Mozilla.org and firefox are the top 2 results if you search for web browser [mozilla.org]. Interestingly, the top links are: Mozilla, Firefox, Opera (twice), Safari, Netscape (twice), Galeon, evolt.org's legacy browser archive, and webstandards.org, in that order. The first page doesn't mention MSIE at all. MSIE is listed 5th on the 2nd page, after lynx, anybrowser.org, amaya, and Konqueror.
It seems people who talk about browsers don't like to mention MSIE.
Altavista did it 6 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps Google can fill this void in the pathetic Windows power tool-set ("Windows power tool-set" being close to an oxymoron).
But, despite my love for Google, in these more Orwellian times, I'm glad that I have the tools (not from MS) to monitor port activity.
Isn't it better just to be organized? (Score:5, Interesting)
Even when a file crosses multiple logical groups, (picture, jpg, family, nephews, 2004) if my information categories are sensible, and I use a heirarchy that makes sense to me, I don't need search that often. In fact, I can't recall the last time I had to do a search of my drive to find a file. (I should probably mention that my work requires a lot of information mapping, so creating and maintaining such a structure is trivial for me)
Of course, since Windows search is so inefficient and (sometimes) problematic, I learned long ago not to rely on it.
bluez3
The *nix way ... (Score:5, Funny)
b) have fun!
Sunny Dubey
*STILL* trying to unify the net w/local files? (Score:4, Insightful)
Per the article's comments about Longhorn and the "end of the browser" and how MS is planning to integrate network access with local services and applications to the point where a browser won't be necessary.:
Did I miss something? I thought Microsoft integerated the net with the local pc back in 1997 when they released IE4 and Windows 98 with desktop integration. Hrmmph... Go figure.
Ok, I'm being facetious.
Still, I'm not so certain this is a feature I want. In fact, until someone can demonstrate an example of why it would be useful, I'm certain I don't. I like having the local PC as a distinct domain separate from the net! I like that I have to open a program to access information that isn't stored locally! What am I missing about this -- is their focus group testing indicating that using a browser is just too confusing?
You know what's confusing? Windows HELP -- and not just how you use it, but THAT IT EVEN EXISTS AT ALL! My lusers come up to me all the time with questions that could easily be answered with good ole' F1.
What bothers me is that all of the work going on at Microsoft is pointed at new ways to annoy me. You want to make me a happyuser? Get your lousy freaking vendor partners to stop auto-running useless programs in my system tray; cancel ActiveX (*without* adding the TDMA crap I don't want) and get rid of the Windows registry. My main concern whenever I hear about these new thingamabobbers they're cooking ip is "Eeek! How hard is it going to be to turn *that* off? I sure hope R&D cancels it before Longhorn gets out of beta." I honestly think it's time they consider forking the project, or XP is my last version of Windows. Period.
There's just no joy in Windows anymore, you know what I mean?
Sincerely,
Eagerly awaiting Debian Sarge going stable in Ohio.
Color me suspicious (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft believes that Longhorn users will no longer think about where information is stored; they will instead see a unified view of documents stored on both the Internet and on the desktop.
I don't like this idea. At all.
The main problem from my point of view has to do with ownership and control. Generally speaking, what's physically on my machine(s) is *mine*, that is subject to my total control (we'll leave aside intellectual property issues). I can add, change, delete, etc.
Still generally speaking, what's on some machine I access over the net is *not mine* in the sense that my control is reduced. Usually other people can do something with that information (again, add, change, delete) and if the machnine is taken offline, I have no access and no control at all.
As a simple example, consider a web page. In one case I make a local copy of it on my machine. In the other case I just have a bookmark. The difference in control is fairly obvious...
Now, what happens if we make users believe there's no difference between their local hard drive and Internet? That we drill into their heads that they are the same?
Well, you still have no control over information stored on the 'net. Thus, if you were trained to think that the local drive and the 'net are basically the same, then you would expect to have no control over information stored on your hard drive.
Note that by an amazing coincidence, that's also the goal of DRM -- that you have no control over information (that they call content) stored on your hard drive.
Also note that the flip side of the coin -- making your hard drive irrelevant by switching to a subscription service for everything, from OS to applications to content, is also a highly popular idea in Redmond and elsewhere.
So color me highly suspicious with regard to that idea...
Re:Color me suspicious (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you still have no control over information stored on the 'net. Thus, if you were trained to think that the local drive and the 'net are basically the same, then you would expect to have no control over information stored on your hard drive.
People are already looking to do this voluntarily. Even among the pseudoenlightened here. Look through some of the comments regarding Gmail. And especially the (false) 1TB announcement.
Scripting your wordprocessor to autosave to your 1TB (or 1GB) Gmail acct.
Online hard drive.
No more backup worries! I can store all my stuff on Gmail!
Will they release the API so I can automate this?
People won't need to be forced into this...they will come running.
But I do agree with you. I don't like it either.
Longhorn? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, because IE is such a compelling product today that I have little need for an alternative.
I'm holding out for... (Score:3, Funny)
The Browser Formerly Known As... (Score:3, Funny)
But how do we know it's not the next name of my favorite web browser [mozilla.org]?
- Neil Wehneman
Microsoft will Lose (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Microsoft doesn't understand that people LOVE Google. Nobody particularly LOVES Microsoft anymore. Product activation, high prices, and security flaws are causing too many headaches.
2. Google is more innovative. What has Microsoft innovated in the past few years? Their products keep changing their look, but what about user behavior? AD changed admin behavior, but how has IE or Word gotten easier to use? Google has all kinds of creative stuff in the pipe. The Google toolbar has not only changed the way many of my users search, but it prevents a lot of popup related spyware installations as well.
3. Google is clean. If I see that damn dog show up one more time I'll kill myself. When I search my file system I don't want to hide the stupid mutt, change my options so that subfolders are searched, then click through three screens to say I want to search my file system. Google will cut through this nonsense because they believe in simple/clean interfaces.
4. The technology Microsoft seeks doesn't exist. Nobody can create a search engine based on current technology that takes plain speech user input and magically transforms it into accurate search results. Everyone I've seen that's tried this has failed to an extent. You can't just try your best to fuzzy match and pass it off as good results.
Re:Microsoft will Lose (Score:5, Informative)
Create HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr
You'll have the old windows 2000 search dialogue.
Re:Microsoft will Lose (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Microsoft will Lose (Score:4, Insightful)
they'll break an API so that the Google toolbar doesn't work anymore,
they'll keep changing the specs of Office documents so that the indexer produces crap,
they'll rebundle their Windows search service as a 'new' app, tie it to some online service they offer (password-protect it with Passport, access it via MSN, etc.),
they'll fund zillions of bogus studies that declare their engine 5 times faster than Google's,
they'll offer an add-on for SQL Server that lets you search the documents via SQL. Eventhough this feature will be buggy as hell, it'll help MS sell the whole thing to CIOs (hey, we could even integrate this with Outlook server as well! isn't that swell?)
finally they'll start a patent war with Google on anything that's remotely connected to Windows (see recent Longhorn article on /.).
I'm a little bit less optimistic.
Re:Microsoft will Lose (Score:5, Insightful)
So... hate Microsoft all you want. I've used and loved Google since 1998 (ie forever), and I'm not betting on this race.
Good for the goose? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's the first time that I've ever read of it going in a direction away from Microsoft. Usually, it's the other way around, Redmond sucking up the managers and staff if they can't buy or steal the technology.
...and all you need is... (Score:5, Funny)
An Expected Move, but Complex (Score:3, Interesting)
However I don't see a lot of overlap with web search. The major pieces won't work the same:
Crawling: People want fresh information, eg that marketing report that just went out five minutes ago. Many web sites are happy to be crawled once a month. Keeping up with user edits on a filesystem is going to be a lot harder, and users will probably not be happy with heavy reindexing cycles. The ultimate would be heavily integrated with the filesystem, keeping an eye on all file activity, and refreshing the index appropriately. I believe Longhorn's delays are related to this problem.
Indexing: Desktops have a lot of file types, and strange crypts like the Outlook. Certainly Google has some support in this area, but more may be needed. There are also other document units like email messages instead of files, or even database records.
Fetching: Granted, a simple search toolbar will work, but I've been more impressed with, for example, Apple's Sherlock protocol, which allows multiple search "channels", eg Web, News, Stocks, etc., some from third party providers. IIRC this is what Firefox uses.
Ranking: Pagerank is definitely not going to work, although that may not be such a handicap when hit counts are in the one or two-digit range. Still, it's not a competitive advantage.
The real question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Would people be willing to live with ads sprinkled throughout their search items ?
Existing Google search appliance... (Score:4, Informative)
It's sweet. Some features include...
Find the highest quality and most relevant documents; Google factors in more than 100 variables for each query.
Search for secure information and view only those documents to which you have access; results are returned securely for documents protected by either NTLM or basic HTTP authentication.
Judge relevance of results more easily via dynamically generated snippets showing your query in the context of the page.
Navigate search results easily and clearly using intelligent grouping of documents residing in the same narrow subdirectories.
Avoid missing results through typos or misspellings as Google automatically suggests corrections with startling accuracy, even on company-specific words and phrases.
View search results even when the sites are down via cached copies of pages included in the search results.
Quickly find the most relevant section of a document via highlighted query terms displayed on cached documents.
Glimpse documents without needing the original client application of the file format via automatic reformatting of over 220 file types into HTML.
Access time-sensitive information first via date sorting.
Perform complex and sophisticated queries with over 10 special query terms, including Boolean AND, OR, and NOT searches.
More details are available at the appliance page on Google.
#2 above probably won't show up in the personal desktop version of the search, thouhg it is really is handy for the appliance -- even if you manage a modest sized office.
Don't you all see the trend? (Score:4, Interesting)
2. Netscape IPOs and climbs to some insanely high value...
3. Microsoft integrates browser into OS...
4. Netscape crubles...
- - - - fast forward - - - -
1. Google conquers the search market...
2. Google IPOs and climbs to some insanely high value... (coming soon)
3. Microsoft integrates search into OS... [Longhorn] (coming eventually)
Where do you think the rest of this goes?
Re:Windows + F = useless (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Windows + F = useless (Score:5, Informative)
Or so I'm told. My personal experiences with allowing the Windows Indexing service to run in the background have been that it's more trouble than its worth. Yes, on the rare occasion that it's actually -not- indexing when I search, the search is blazingly fast (compared to a non-indexed search).
But if the index is currently being modified, then the Windows search feature can't use it. Period. So when you search, you get the text "Windows is currently building an index of the files on drive C:" and it falls back to the regular, non-indexed search. In addition, the indexer consumes massive amounts of RAM while indexing, so a search run when the index is being modified ends up being about two times slower than usual.
It also doesn't seem to be able to tell when the user is idle. No amount of tweaking seems to fix this, without leaving you with a days-old index. If the index is complete, but you've saved a file since it was completed, that file will not show up in the search at all. I've had it kick on while in the middle of working on something else so often that I finally just turned it off entirely and have resigned myself to slow(er) searches in Windows.
In the interest of fairness I will say that the search seems to work quite well when searching a remote server that is running the indexing service. But running it locally is just a pain.
Re:Windows + F = useless (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Windows + F = useless (Score:4, Insightful)
I can tell it's got a lot of power, and being a part of the OS, it's seamless.. but I just can't seem to make it useful to me.
Google would have a winner on it's hands if it would let me organize (and ensure I have a backup of) all the documents on the five computers in my house. I've got probably 6gb of family pictures, but no good way to organize them by where they were taken, who is in them, etc. I was in a full-blown panic when I accidentally wiped the only copy of that directory, and had to restore it from a DVD backup, copies given to relatives, sent mail, and so on. That's worth money to me, but it really needs to be transparent.
wingrep (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Will we see something like this on linux? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Will we see something like this on linux? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:site:localhost search (Score:3, Informative)
"My Documents"... [google.com]
(Not really mine)
Re:DO NO EVIL? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Warning: lack of cynicism ahead)
Seeing as they've built an empire on goodwill, a high-quality free search service, and word-of-mouth name recognition, I'm tempted to guess that their big benefit is continued goodwill and good karma from their userbase.
Yes, this is a novel concept in a business world where most companies look at customers and see numbers. Thing is, it's goodwill and a user-centric business plan have made Google the great company it is.
It could be that the 'catch' you're looking for is that Puffin will further solidify their already strong user relationship.
Re:Security... (Score:3, Interesting)
But what if they could? If google cached, online, the location of MP3s and MPEGs loaded on your system, then allowed others access (with your permission of course). Hmm... sounds like a P2P file sharing system...
Re:Nifty, but will it have any use? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's see... then there's project data collections where lots of people are putting things. Employees leave. Some folks just aren't organized. Some people get sent lots of stuff they have to save but not read right then, but which eventually becomes important.
There are lots of reasons that make this a good idea. Yeah, I have homegrown solutions on Linux, but a good, fast tool on any platform is a good idea. We all use Linux at home, but there's no way my wife is going to use grep, find, etc. She hates computers. If she can click on a button, type a word or phrase and get a list, just like any web-based search engine, she'll use that. And I know quite a few folks like that - on every platform with more than a few thousand users.