November 22, 2004
By Olivier Duffez, November 22, 2004 at 01:26 PM in: Tools and softwares
gdSuite is a Desktop Search client. This means that you can use gdSuite to search for files, e-mails, web pages you've viewed, AIM conversations you've had, and, in the near future, Trillian chats and Gmail. gdSuite is a Client because it does not actually conduct the searches. It uses to find the files, and then displays the results for you in an easy to read fashion. Plus, gdSuite displays search results virtually instantly* and has a user interface that is easy to use and, on Windows XP especially, very pretty. To use gdSuite, you must have Google Desktop installed on your computer.
Google Desktop is a new tool from Google that lets you search your own computer. It can find emails (from Outlook and Outlook Express), chats (in AOL and AOL Instant Message), and web pages you've viewed in Internet Explorer. Plus, it can find any file by filename and can search inside Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files. Sounds great, huh? It is... with two exceptions. For one, Google "forgot" to include a program that lets you use its powerful search tool. The only way to search is to fire up your web browser and go to some hard to remember URL and search from there. Also, Google Desktop is conspicuously missing advanced filters. Sure, you can limit your search to only, say, chats or only files. But what if, for example, you want to find only a Microsoft Excel file named "finances" that was opened within the past month and is located somewhere in the in folder "My Documents," or you want to find only e-mails from a client with "web" in the subject line that were received in August 2004? With regular Google Desktop, you are out of luck. This is where gdSuite comes in.
gdSuite takes searching your own computer to a whole new level. You can engage advanced filters based on the following:
- date (within the last year, month, or week; or between two specific dates)
- medium/item type (file, AIM, e-mail, or web page)
- file extension
- file name
- folder name (with subfolders on/off)
- what the web site address contains
- what a web site is titled
- who an e-mail is from
- the subject of an e-mail
- who an AIM conversation was with
- text in an item
gdSuite also integrates into Windows Explorer to make searching as fast and easy as possible. Just right click any folder or drive and click Search with gdSuite... to start a new gdSuite search of that folder.
Via ResearchBuzz
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