Desktop Search Recommendations

jons — 2007-03-06T18:05:52Z

What is desktop search? Why should I care?

Ever have trouble finding a document on your computer? Or an old email? Sure, your operating system or your email program might offer a "find files" tool, or a "search email" button, but if you've ever tried them, you've probably noticed that they're incredibly slow. And their results aren't very user-friendly. That's where desktop search tools come in.

Desktop search tools are add-on software packages that let you search content on your computer really fast, and present the results to you in a user-friendly way. Desktop search tools accomplish this trick in much the same way that a web search engine delivers fast results -- they "crawl" your computer for documents, emails, etc., and build an index that you can quickly search.

Desktop search is incredibly useful to an average information-overloaded activist, because it allows you to spend less energy on your filing systems, and less effort trying to remember exactly where you put each important document or email. Want to find something? Just search for it.

The contenders

In 2004 and early 2005, the market was suddenly flooded with polished desktop search tools from names you know -- and a few you don't. The leading free products on the market include:

There are also a variety of commercial tools targeted at large corporations, and Apple's OS X 10.4 ("Tiger") operating system has some desktop search features built right in.

Lots of folks have reviewed the ins and outs of these desktop search products. All of them perform the basic tasks of indexing content and providing reasonably solid search results. Different reviewers have favored different products, for different reasons. We used each for a few days, and here's what we found:

Google Desktop Search 2

Very spare and elegant, in typical Google fashion. Version 2 is now our top choice, because it's fast, easy to use and is able to search network drives -- a huge plus in a small office.

Copernic Desktop Search

Our second-place choice. The user interface is not quite as good as others, but it's still very solid. There's no annoying advertising or cross-promotion of products, which we greatly appreciate in a tool we use every day.

MSN Desktop Search

MSN Desktop Search was surprisingly good. Great user interface, solid search features, and good performance. But we found its cross-promotion of consumer-oriented MSN services intensely annoying. It can't search network drives.

Yahoo! Desktop Search

Searches a huge range of file formats, but its user interface just wasn't on a par with the others, nor can it search network drives.

Our recommendation

If you're interested in trying out desktop search, we recommend trying Google Desktop Search. It's a solid performer, has a simple and clean user interface, and its ability to search a network drive make it our top choice for small organizations. Copernic is a nice choice if you don't mind a more cluttered user interface and appreciate an advertising-free environment. However, it's not clear how long Copernic can prosper amongst big tough competitors like Google, MSN and Yahoo.

Bloglines and Del.icio.us: Two Tools For Uncluttering Your Inbox

jons — 2007-03-06T18:05:55Z

If you're like most environmental activists, you probably feel that you're simultaneously drowning in information and missing out on important stuff. For example:

Chances are you often come across new and interesting websites, but then forget to visit them again, thereby missing out on information you wish you'd known about. Or else you spend too much time visiting the same old sites looking for new information, only to be disappointed when there's nothing fresh to be found.
Your email inbox is probably flooded with messages you barely have time to read, including email newsletters that tell you about new content available on still more websites.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were an easy way to have all this information come to you in a way that was easy to manage, timely, and put you back in control?

And wouldn't it be nice if you had an easy way to share interesting websites and articles you find with your friends, colleagues and allies -- without cluttering their email inboxes?

Well, we're not into selling technological nirvana here, but there are a two tools we've been using here at ONE/Northwest the past few months that we think you might find useful:

Information mangement tool #1: Bloglines -- http://www.bloglines.com

Bloglines is a free web-based "RSS feed reader." Bloglines lets you subscribe to "feeds" of content from millions of websites and other information services that produce content in a simple, standard format known as RSS. (RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary, depending on who's telling the story. For more geeky details about RSS, check out the Digital Divide Network's "What's RSS and Why Should I Care About It?" and Fagan Finder's All About RSS.)

By subscribing to RSS feeds using an RSS feed reader like Bloglines, you can quickly and easily read the newest content items from a website in a single, easy-to-skim screen without having to visit each site individually. Using Bloglines lets you quickly read (or skim) content when you want to, while keeping clutter out of your email inbox.

Using Bloglines to read RSS feeds is a great way to keep on top of what's new on the web. Tons of leading websites produce RSS feeds, including virtually every major news outlet and an increasing number of nonprofit environmental groups, too! (We'll talk more about publishing your own RSS feeds in a follow-up article.)

To get started with Bloglines, just visit: http://www.bloglines.com/register/ and create a free account.

Once you're logged in, you might want to add some feeds. We've created a "starter file" of feeds for Northwest environmental groups. Here's how to import it into Bloglines:

Browse to http://www.bloglines.com/export?id=onenw
Save this file to your hard drive. (File>Save Page As...) Put it where you can find it.
Go to http://www.bloglines.com/import -- log into Bloglines if you aren't already logged in
Hit the Browse... button, and browse to the file you just saved -- it's called export.xml, unless you renamed it.
Hit the Import button and voila! You've got ONE/Northwest's "starter" feeds -- you can remove, rename, rearrange and add to this list however you like!

Information management tool #2: Del.icio.us -- http://del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is a simple, easy-to-use tool for saving and sharing web bookmarks (aka "favorites"). Why might you want do to this? And doesn't your web browser do it already? Well, not quite. Here's why:

Del.icio.us makes it easy to browse, organize and annotate your bookmarks. Del.icio.us lets you quickly "tag" your bookmarks with keywords so that you can create simple, flexible categories for your bookmarks. You can also write very short desciptions of each bookmark so you can remember why it's useful or important. Del.icio.us provides a very well-crafted interface for browsing and your bookmarks by date, keyword, etc. It's way faster and easier than using your web brower's anemic bookmarks or favorites menu.

Del.icio.us lets you share your bookmarks without lifiting a finger. Because Del.icio.us is a web-based application, the information you put into isn't trapped on your computer -- it can be easily shared with others. For example, you can check out the bookmarks of Gideon Rosenblatt, ONE/Northwest's Executive Director, at http://del.icio.us/gideonro. And del.icio.us speaks RSS, so you can use Bloglines to subscribe to an RSS feed of a person's bookmarks, making it really easy to keep tabs on what your friends and colleagues are bookmarking. Over time, this leads to a greater sense of "shared situational awareness" among your network of colleagues.

Del.icio.us makes it easy to find other folks who are interested in the same stuff as you. For each bookmark you save in del.icio.us, it shows you which other del.icio.us users have already saved that bookmark. This helps you find other folks who are interested in the same things you are, which helps you...

Del.icio.us helps you find useful stuff you don't already know about. Because del.icio.us lets you browse and search other people's bookmarks, it can be a very powerful way to find useful links that you don't already know about. And because stuff is organized in reverse chronological order, del.icio.us is particularly good at helping you find interesting new stuff before it hits the mainstream.

To get started with del.icio.us, just head on over to http://del.icio.us/register. It's quick, painless and free.

Keep in touch with us!

We've just scratched the surface in this article. Bloglines and del.icio.us are powerful tools that are still growing and developing rapidly. If you decide to start using Bloglines and/or del.icio.us, and you'd like us to keep you in the loop as we think more about how to wield the full power of these tools, drop us a note at feeds@onenw.org. Let us know how you're putting these tools to work, and don't forget to tell us your del.icio.us username so we can subscribe to your bookmarks!

Parts of this article are inspired by and adapted from TechSoup's RSS for Nonprofits.

Managing Your Information Effectively