Tools

Try Google's Picasa 2

Tejas Patel — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 17:11:00 GMT

Google yesterday (18th Jan.) launched a new version of Picasa, a picture organizer software which can do more than just organising pictures. There are quite a few good features in this version for editing the pictures as well compared to the free version of Photoshop which can be installed when Adobe Acrobat Reader 7 is installed. This new version can be downloaded from here.

Tejas Patel

List of IFilters

Tejas Patel — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 03:21:00 GMT

This is an update to my last post. As pointed out in the comments of the last post and by Will, I can use IFilters to index the file types that I want and than I can search for those files and the content within using Windows OS. I can use this to benefit MSN Desktop Search as well.

I am going to use MSN Desktop Search on my home computer now and see how it goes.

Tejas Patel

10 minutes playing with Desktop Search tools

Tejas Patel — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 19:55:00 GMT

Today I took the chance to trial out Yahoo Desktop Search and MSN Desktop Search along with Google Desktop Search. I already had 'Lookout' and 'Blinkx' installed on my system.

Yahoo Desktop Search: - I know this one is in beta, but guys make installation screens a bit better. The indexing was faster and there was simultaneous indexing done on different things i.e. email and documents and stuff ( I could see that). The things I liked about this tool was the feature of search as you type and also the integration of file viewers into the tool itself. With this feature I don't have to necessarily open Adobe Acrobat just for viewing what was in the file. I like that this can index mostly all kind of widely used file types. The integration of the search tool into Outlook can be handy as well. The ability to limit the index file size is very helpful, afterall I don't want to have a index file which is 10 GB in size!

The thing I did not necessarily like is that this tool has no integration on the web. I am sure Yahoo can tell us many good reasons for this, but having it integrated with the browser is very helpful in day to day searching. Is there any other neat feature that I should have looked at?

MSN Desktop Suite: - Although this tool came out more than what I expected from Microsoft, there are many things that I do not like. I am forced to install their whole suite of tools which I dont' want to. Firefox does not recognise the fact that Desktop Search is installed and so I cannot use Firefox to search my local files. Is this Microsoft's way of forcing us to use Internet Explorer? I wish I could add and remove document types for indexing!

Good things that I like about the tool is it's integration with browser ( I wish this can be done for browsers other than IE) and also Deskbar. What I would suggest is rather than having it only on taskbar, people should have the option of letting the search bar floating on the desktop where ever they like. I prefer not to waste precious space on my taskbar with such big tool boxes. I like what they have done on MSN Desktop Search page in the browser. I can limit my searches by the type of document, which is a good thing. I am in love with the web interface that is designed for Desktop searches.

With this tool and the new MSN Search portal, they are giving people a good reason to switch over their primary search engine.

Google Desktop Search: - After checking the above tools, I think Google should release a new update to their software soon. They are a bit behind I think on the features offered by their tool. I don't like the tool, as it takes a lot of hard disk space in the form of index file and it seems that my machine is always busy while not in use ( this might be because I have big hard disks that need to be indexed).

Lookout: - I am still in love with this tool and am not planning to move away from this tool in the coming days.

Blinkx: - The tool is good, but is there any special reason I should still keep on trying or using this tool, seeing the features of other tools as mentioned above?

For now I will keep on using MSN Desktop Search and Lookout. What are your opinions?

Tejas Patel

Installed Microsoft Anti-Spyware Beta

Tejas Patel — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 01:56:00 GMT

I had to try this. Since I came back from holidays I heard from people that Microsoft came out with a anti-spyware program. They said they won't be trying it soon as it was still in Beta. Well I could not wait nor do I care of it breaking anything on my system. So I searched for it and here it was. The installation was smooth. I started the scan and it finished scanning 15200 files on my system (Intelligent Quick Scan) in 1 mintue 30 seconds on my system. As my system is well protected by firewall and stuff, there were no spyware found on the system. I have tried some other Spyware programs before but this one is neat. 5 minutes of roaming around the system should make one familiar with the features and functionalities of the system. Well I like this application as I now won't have to install 2-3 different small apps. I used to use 'Hijackthis' and 'Lavasoft Anti-spyware' before to clean out all the spyware from my system.

Specially I liked the System tools (which contains System Explorer & Browser Hijack Restore) & Privacy tools section of this application. I think Browser Hijack Restore and Privacy tools can be handy to most of the people and can be used on a daily basis. If I continue to use this tool, I can use these features on a tool on a daily basis. I can delete my traces from my system (superficially) while leaving for home from office and while going to bed at home. Well I look forward to see a better product with better and more features in the future. Not sure if the rumours are right or wrong, but I have heard that Microsoft is going to charge for this tool as soon as this tool comes out of Beta.

A recommended tool to try out.

Tejas Patel

Remeber Onfolio

Tejas Patel — Fri, 05 Nov 2004 19:25:00 GMT

Robert Scoble posted about Onfolio 2. OK some new features and as per comments on Robert Scoble's post it will have some other features compared to the ones listed on Onfolio site. I like the product, I like the concept. I used the product for quite a while but finally gave up on it. Partly it was because of the problems I was facing and partly because my needs were greater than the features the product was supporting (Obviously not their fault!).

But for sure I will test their up coming product and will let the blog readers know what I think about this product and why I will\will not be able to see this product.

Tejas Patel

Who Locked this file/process

Tejas Patel — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 21:01:00 GMT

It happens to me many times that I am trying to install/uninstall or doing backups and I get a error message that a file could not be accessed as some other process or system is accessing the file. Now I can go in processes and kill that process or I can go into 'Computer Management' and check the opened file and end the connection from there, but I think that is too much hassle. This morning I found this small program called 'WhoLocksMe' shows us the processes and file being accessed for a selected folder or drive. We can select a process or a file and can kill that process. Upon installing the app gets attached to Windows Explorer, so it is easy to navigate. I found this tool handy, anybody knows other such tools that are freeware as well that you can recommend?

Tejas Patel

I am on Wallop now

Tejas Patel — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 19:47:00 GMT

Thanks to another blog friend of mine, I got an invite to Wallop. Cool interface or I should say different web interface than normally we use. I log in and I see that I am exposed to many new things all together. I will take my time and will explore things at my rate.

Happy Walloping to all.

Tejas Patel

Google Desktop Proxy

Tejas Patel — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 18:54:00 GMT

Well this was going to happen. Now if you are using Google Desktop and have more than few machines on which you work and want to search the primary machine while you are away from it, you can use Google Desktop Proxy to do a search than.

“How it works

This program is a very simple proxy. A browser or other program on another computer can open a connection to this program which passes the request through to the Google Desktop web server on the same machine as the proxy. Because it is on the same machine, the Google Desktop web server processes the request and passes the result back to the proxy which in turn sends it back to the originating requestor”

I will try to install it on one of my machines at a later date. Let me know if anybody else has used this proxy software and has any reviews on it.

Tejas Patel

Find out the times using Microsoft Time Zone

Tejas Patel — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 21:31:00 GMT

There is a cool tool from Microsoft called 'Microsoft Time Zone'. It let you see the different time in different parts of the world. One also has the facility to add upto five locations for quick reference and search for the time for different countries. It can be downloaded from here. Be aware before downloading you will have to validate your operating system just to check whether it is genuine. I have installed it and it's working fine on my systems.

I like this small utility and can come very handy. I chat with people around the world and mostly I have to ask them what's the time in their city. Now using this utility, I don't have to ask them anymore nor do I have to go to different websites to check the time in different cities.

Tejas Patel

one more secure remote connection tool

Tejas Patel — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 21:03:00 GMT

I found remote connection tool while I was surfing the net today. It is called LogMeIn. It is very much similar to GoToMyPC which is now owned by Citrix. The good thing with LogMeIn is connections are made securely using 128-256 bit connections and they work on normal ports meaning you don't have to configure your firewall or router to open extra ports. One more good thing is LogMeIn offers free service in which you can monitor the remote desktop while their premium services offers file sharing and file transferring facilities. I have tried their free version and is quite better and offers more options than we get with GoToMyPC.

I am not sure whether these guys do any kind of marketing, as I have never heard their name before. Whereas GoToMyPC guys are everywhere and on most of the popular portals. If I would have known before abotu LogMeIn, I would have signed up with them instead of signing up with GoToMyPC.

This tool is worth trying.

Tejas Patel