Desktop search is the name for the field of search tools which search the contents of a user's own computer files, rather than searching the Internet. A computer file is a block of Arbitrary Information, or resource for storing information which is available to a Computer program and is usually These tools are designed to find information on the user's PC, including web browser histories, e-mail archives, text documents, sound files, images and video.
One of the main advantages of desktop search programs is that search results come up in a few seconds; Windows search companion can be some help, but it searches through Windows files and folders only, not e-mail or contact databases, and unless you enable the Indexing Service (in Windows 2000 or XP), the Windows search tool is extremely slow. This article is about the Windows file system browser For the similarly named internet browser see Internet Explorer Windows Explorer is a [1] A variety of desktop search programs are available; see this list for examples. This is a list of Wikipedia articles about search
Desktop search is emerging as a concern for large firms for two main reasons: untapped productivity and security. A commonly cited statistic states that 80% of a company's data is locked up inside unstructured data — the information stored on an end user's PC, the files and directories they've created on a network, documents stored in repositories such as corporate intranets and a multitude of other locations. A computer network is a group of interconnected Computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet protocols and network connectivity to securely share any part of an organization's information or operational [2] Moreover, many companies have structured or unstructured information stored in older file formats to which they don't have ready access. A file format is a particular way to encode information for storage in a Computer file.
Companies doing business in the United States are frequently required under regulatory mandates like Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and FERPA to make sure that access to sensitive information is 100% controlled. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 ( also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002 and commonly called SOX or Sarbox The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA) was enacted by the U The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 ( FERPA or the Buckley Amendment) is a United States federal law codified at, with implementing regulations This creates a challenge for IT organizations, which may not have a desktop search standard, or lack strict central control over end users downloading tools from the Internet. To download is to receive data from a remote or central system such as a Webserver, FTP server, mail server or other similar systems The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks Some consumer-oriented desktop search tools make it possible to generate indexes outside the corporate firewall and share those indexes with unauthorized users. A firewall is an integrated collection of security measures designed to prevent unauthorized electronic access to a networked computer system In some cases, end users are able to index — but not preview — items they should not even know exist.
Contents |
Technologies
Desktop search engines build and maintain an index database to achieve reasonable performance when searching several gigabytes of data. Search engine indexing collects parses and stores data to facilitate fast and accurate information retrieval A gigabyte (derived from the SI prefix Giga-) is a unit of Information or Computer Debt AIDS Trade in Africa (or DATA) is a Multinational non-government organization founded in January 2002 in London by U2 's Indexing usually takes place when the computer is idle and most search applications can be set to suspend it if a portable computer is running on batteries, in order to save power. When indexing the files, desktop search tools collect three types of information about files:
- file and directory names
- metadata, such as titles, authors, comments in file types such as MP3, PDF and JPEG
- content of supported documents. Metadata ( meta data, or sometimes metainformation) is "data about data" of any sort in any media MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a Digital audio encoding format using a form of Lossy data compression
To search within documents, the tools need to be able to parse many different types of documents. This is achieved by using filters that interpret selected file formats. For example, a Microsoft Office Filter might be used to search inside Microsoft Office documents. Microsoft Office is a set of interrelated desktop applications servers and services collectively referred to as an Office suite, for the Microsoft Windows and
Long-term goals for desktop search include the ability to search the contents of image files, sound files and video by context[3] [4].
The sector attracted considerable attention from the struggle between Microsoft and Google[5]. According to market analysts, both companies are attempting to leverage their monopolies (of web browsers and search engines, respectively) to strengthen their dominance. A web browser is a software application which enables a user to display and interact with text images videos music games and other information typically located on a Due to Google's complaint that users of Windows Vista can not choose any competitor's desktop search program over the built-in one, an agreement was reached between US Justice Department and Microsoft that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will enable users to choose between the built-in and other desktop search programs, and select which one is to be the default. Google Inc is an American public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online For animal rights group see Justice Department (JD The United States Department of Justice ( DOJ) is a Cabinet department Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops [6]
See also
References
- ^ "Conquer Information Overload". PC Magazine
- ^ "Security special report: Who sees your data?", Computer Weekly
- ^ "The current state of video search", by Niall Kennedy
- ^ "The current state of audio search", by Niall Kennedy
- ^ "Search wars hit desktop computers". (Oct 2004) BBC News
- ^ "Microsoft agrees to change Vista Desktop Search Tool" (Jun 2007)
External links
- Keeper Finders, by Paul Boutin, Slate, December 31, 2004 — A comparison of Google, Ask Jeeves, HotBot, MSN and Copernic desktop search tools. This is a list of Wikipedia articles about search Slate is an English-language online current affairs and culture Magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael
- Evaluation of desktop search applications, A detailed evualation of Google Desktop, Copernic Desktop Search, Yahoo! Desktop Search, Windows Desktop Search and ISYS:Desktop; dated 2006.
- GoebelGroup.com's desktop search tools comparison chart - Date of last update: 15 January 2007.
- A detailed comparison of desktop search tools - dated 2004.
- Comparison of desktop search software - Date of last update: March 2008
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic