Google Desktop Search 2 (beta 2) and Sidebar

Thursday, August 25, 2005

I haven’t seen or noticed anything new about the file indexer, although there are a lot of new filters and plug-ins available. I did notice that it was apparently necessary to re-index my entire drives all over again. I would have thought it could re-use the old metadata or at least update it to a new format, instead of bringing my system to a crawl for a couple of hours.

The SDK looks a little light in my opinion. I'm hoping they'll add some functions that will provide more interactivity between the panels.

The sidebar is pretty nice looking. It does have several nifty panels like all of the rest of these types of applications; stocks, instant-overload news feeds, and of course... the weather. I think most of these are useless, just like any other sidebar-type of application. Do I really need to use of screen real estate for the weather or thumbnails of my images or the first three words of email messages?

I think they could have come up with a better name for RSS feeds, though. I mean, if Google wanted to rename RSS feeds as theirs, like so many other companies have attempted recently, they could have at least picked something other than Web Clips. It doesn't seem to fit the definition, to me.

I really like how the Sidebar displays the Web Clips, though. Only showing the title and where it was from is a nice change from the normal aggregator, viewer. When you double click it you get to read their Blog on their site. A problem I have with other aggregators is that it all feels like I’m reading a summary from some unknown Internet narrator. When I visit the sites themselves to read their Blog it feels like they’re speaking directly to me with all of their colors, types, and personal flair.

Overall it is certainly the best I’ve seen, but I probably won’t use it for more than the time it takes me to check it out. After that it’ll be back to the system tray icon for GDS.