I just downloaded the new Google Desktop Search feature. It seems so much faster than using windows to search for files. You can search through your cache as well. Some have said they fear this software invades privacy, but I don't think it is a big deal for home users. What do you all think?

I admit I haven't looked too much into this. I would definantly look twice at the privacy policy; don't want anything phoning home. I trust Google not to do stupid stuff because it's what sets them apart from other companies, but I don't trust blindly.

On the other hand, I don't have too much stuff on my drives yet that I need a super search program. I still have my old DOS habits of deleting unnecessary things (or archiving them to CD) and I put most things in reasonable directories. It's usually faster for me to go browse through folders than to search the entire drive, especially if I have an idea of where my data might be.

The only time I want something better than normal search is when I'm in Linux and have to find a configuration file or similar; there's so many places to stash these things is stupid. "Is it in /home/cody/foo? How about /usr/share/local/foo? Maybe /usr/local/foo? Perhaps is in the /bin directory." And searching the entire drive takes way too long, even in Linux.

Yeah that is probably a good idea. Good reading material when I want to fall asleep :-) But I probably still should check it out, just to be safe.

I will say that it seems it does not search all the files like you can do with windows search. I tried searching for a file last night, and couldn't find it with google desktop, but windows found in fairly quick with its search.

I don't think there is a version ported to Linux yet, perhaps someday!

Interesting dichotomy -- DOS habits and archiving to CD

If you don't mind an extremely powerful disk utility program (makes Windows Explorer look like a piker) and prefer the speed of keyboard rather than mouse input, I'd recommend looking at a program called ZTree. Don't let the console window put you off, this is an extremely powerful, fast, and small (can fit on a floppy) program that is under constant enhancement. It's based on the XTree paradigm, so its command set makes sense. And studies show the keyboard interface is still much faster than using the mouse.

As usual I get excited when it's something new from Google.

I REALLY wanted to download and install this desktop search thingy of theirs but alas... it's not available for my operating system, Windows ME.

Windows ME?!?!? At your experience? Hmmmmm...

I am getting a really mean machine soon, so I can wait a while longer...