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Old 03-18-2007, 10:03 AM
michaelkenward michaelkenward is online now
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Join Date: 03-14-2007
Location: Sussex
Posts: 3
The idea of desktop search (DTS) is that you do not need to organise in the mind numbingly structured way that something like Surfsaver, for example, requires.

Saved searches are fine, X1 has them, but the thought of devising complex templates in the AskSam model fills me with gloom. What works today, could be out of date tomorrow.

My research material consists essentially of email, PDF files, documents (mostly Word) and web grabs.

There is no structure that will hold this information in ways that will retrieve it consistently. That's because a structure that works for one task will not work for another.

I am a writer who covers many different topics. I can file something about venture capital under "finance" but when I want to know what "venture capital" has done for the "fuel cell" business I need to be able to search accordingly. I cannot anticipate the strange combinations that are likely to come up in the future.

Good fast DTS meets this need. (I currently get Onfolio to "publish" to html format that X1 can index.) It is there to handle unstructured data.

I started off in this data management game pre Windows, with dBase and Lotus Agenda. I have used Zoot. They did just fine until DTS came along.

Google works on the assumption that the web is an unstructured mess. Sure, tagging helps, and is something that a good DTS should support. Google is bringing the same approach to the desktop.

I have nothing against web grabbing software that allows experts to use it as they see fit, and to spend their lives improving their databases. But I am more interested in gathering information for use in ways that I have not yet thought about.

The software house that comes up with the first toy that also integrates with other DTS will make a killing. It does not have to take anything away from life's librarians.

Unless, that is Google gets there first. It has added a growing array of formats that it can index.
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