Google Desktop Search

Google's Desktop Search (linked from this article's title) offers the most comprehensive search that I've ever used. If you are trying to locate an article that you know you have used or seen, don't waste your time using the silly little Windows Search. Go immediately to this tool.

In addition to searching your documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), Desktop Search will also check the Web pages you have visited and even your emails and chats, providing you with a Results list that is divided into categories. I can't tell you how many times this tool has saved me, particularly when I have the .pdf article but didn't remember to record the URL for my bibliography entry or when I have a quotation but can't remember the source.

Be warned, however, the Desktop Search is powerful because it indexes everything on your computer, and it keeps indexing constantly. Because of this--and particularly if you have an older or underpowered machine--you may notice times when your computer runs slower. That's probably when the application is recording the data from your computer. Indexing will begin immediately after installation, so you may need to take a stretch break while it does its thing the first time.

If you need stop indexing temporarily, you can use the Pause Indexing feature by right-clicking the Google Desktop icon which will appear in your System Tray (lower right side of Taskbar at the bottom of your screen). By the way, I turn off all of the Gadgets and the Sidebar from the same location by clicking NONE. I just want the Desktop Search, which can be accessed from that location, too, using the Search Desktop command.

When you use Search Desktop for the first time, you will be surprised by how easy the interface it--it looks just like a regular Google Search! The results, however, come only from your computer rather than from the web.

Incredible. I'd love to hear from you after you try this for the first time!

Working with PDFs: Adobe Reader

Many research articles have been converted to .pdf format. (For those of you who are interested, .pdf stands for Portable Document Format, designed to ensure that a document appeared the same to all users regardless of the browser or word processing program installed on a computer.)

While Adobe Acrobat is a powerful (and pricey) program, Adobe Reader is free and allows you to perform several important research tasks. But if you haven't done so lately, you should upgrade your Adobe Reader to the latest version to make sure all of the tools are there for you. You can upgrade by clicking the Help menu option and selecting Check for Updates.

Adobe Reader has several important features that may be of help to you:

• Find: The Find tool in Reader allow you to locate specific words in the document. Options include "Find Previous" and "Find Next." However, there is another powerful feature of Find that most people don't know about.
• Full Reader Search: This rarely-used tool allows you to search every .pdf that you have stored on your computer or flash drive. It can be accessed by clicking the small arrow that follows the Find: command or by using the SHIFT + CTRL + F keyboard shortcut.
• Copy: New versions of Reader allow you to pick up text and copy it to a Clipboard or to another document. To do this, mark the text (hold left mouse button to highlight text), then right-click and select Copy. You can then move the text to your document and dump it there by right-clicking to select Paste.
• Bookmarks: Good creators of .pdf documents take the time to bookmark parts of longer documents, allowing readers to jump to the sections they are seeking using hyperlinks. If the document you are using has a little bookmark icon on the left, click it to view a table of links for this .pdf.

Note: All of these tools apply to recently created .pdf documents that have had OCR (optical character recognition) enabled. The earliest .pdfs were simply scanned objects, more like pictures or images than actual documents. None of these tools are available for those documents.

Update on Google Notebook

In this blog, I have recommended Google Notebook as a great tool for those of us who work from many computers.

However, as of January 14, 2009, Google has announced that it was planning to axe Notebook. The outcry was immediate, largely from researchers and students. A week later, Google clarified that it would not remove Notebook, but it would simply stop development on this tool.

As a result, the "Note This" feature that used to appear in your search results has disappeared, and it is now more difficult to access Notebook. However, it is still there and still usable, so you do not have to give up this valuable tool.

Since there is no other tool available that is remotely like Notebook, I do hope they reconsider. Of course, this does open the door for a third-party developer . . . I wonder if anyone is listening?