So, what do you fellows think about those "handy" tools that Microsoft, Apple and Google have been struggling to take the lead on this "revolutionary" technology where we can easily search files on our local harddisks and on the web?

Personally, I found them interesting, but useless at best. I mean, I am very organized (or try to be) with my files. I won't mix .doc with .mp3 in the same folder. Ever. If I need to open a PDF file, I know where I put it.

So I wonder exactly what are the advantages of using those tools. For me, they just use system resources.

Or am I all wrong here and peoples are actually lazy and disorganized that they need something like this to find their files?.

I keep my files organized, but the search things come in handy, for example, when you set a background in ff then can't find it later.

I use Apple Spotlight from time to time, and also Beagle on Linux.

They are useful, and a good concept, but I rarely use them because I keep my files organised.

One useful thing is the ability to search the contents of the files, not just by name.

--Ian

Useless.

What I'd really love to see, and I'm hoping someone here with more talent than me (Read: Most of you ;P) will try and do it, and that's add metadata to everything.

Like a set of OD presentation, some images, and like a movie or something describing your trip to the beach with your girlfriend, and they're organised so each one is in a directory with other files of its kind. (IE, ~/mpeg, ~/jpeg, ~/png, ~/odp, etc.) Each one would have a set of maybe up to a dozen keywords describing it, like "beach, girlfriend, photo/slideshow/movie/etc., june" and maybe the date put in as well.

And then have maybe a Perl/Python/bash script go and organise your files into maybe a file with links and stuff? So then you have like "~/found/june-girlfriend-beach" which when you open it would open all of the files that were grouped together.

But I'd never trust anything searching my desktop unless I wrote it myself, or compiled it myself. You don't want to give someone else the chance to spy on you, ever.

Handy, but I never use it.

I'm a very organised(I'm a Virgo) person, and I've never lost my way into my PC.

slocate(1) is plenty good enough for me. I tend to keep my files organised too so I hardly ever use even that.

Hey, I am a Virgo too. Didn't know we were organized, but it does make sense. My grandma is also Virgo and very organized too

I use no one of this programs. Beagle was the most memory/cpu hog I've ever seen on Linux. Leave it for 10hours and come back on your pc, you'll see.. Google desktop had the same effect on XP.


slocate is good but afaik, it doesn't search IN files.
These above tools are supposed to know how to extract content out of binary files like .doc or .pdf and then search in them. A simple grep is not enough.


I think Posix ACL (or extensions of Posix ACL) can be used for setting metadata for each files.
I'm not using it but maybe somebody can confirm/infirm..
Posix ACL are implemented in most of FS supported by linux.

What do you need any of that crap for?

I keep my stuff organized in folders and know exactly where it is.

Search tools are merely an excuse for the inability of having things in order.

I'm going to stake out the other side of the coin, namely from the standpoint of the organizationally impaired. I use recoll, and I wouldn't give it up for the world. Unlike Beagle, it only indexes when it is told to index (I run it as a nightly cron job). I use it mainly to pull stuff out of Thunderbird, which for me has degenerated into a frightening mess.

Mandriva 2007.1 installs Beagle automatically, but I couldn't get my head round what it's for! If I am looking for a file I just use the find command in a konsole box. Maybe I'm missing the point of what these tools are.

So does (s)locate. Only it doesn't search metadata, but personally I think the whole thing is just a curseword

Nobody has several odt or xls or whatever files and want to search into them without opening each of them?
Strange...
I think that's the point of this tools. Organized or not.

I'll give a try to recoll, at least for text files. Thanks

I have Beagle at home. I never use it, except for one thing.
Beagle comes with a Firefox extension that "remembers" the pages you've read, and if you think: "I know I've seen a page about this subject, but I don't remember the URL nor the site's domain", then just beagle-search this subject, and you find the URL again

Yves.