Google Desktop.....

I just took a look at the Google Desktop, (being fully aware of the security implications on public computers but this is my work workstation), and I really like it for searching my security logs.

If I wanted to find all the activity by a certain IP address in all the master log files I hold on this workstation, (several weeks), I would take forever using Windows Search. I installed it and told it only to index text files.... Man is it quick.... Saves a ton of time... I thoroughly recommend it for log searching.

I tried Google Desktop and it worked well, but I got rid of it. Using it for logs is a great idea, however GD indexes the whole computer. Is there any configuration to specify which folders get indexed, and ignore the rest?

Maybe there are other tools that do that.

Well under Preferences you can set which folders not to search:

Do not search web sites with the following URLs or files with the following paths. Put each entry on a separate line. Examples:
c:\Documents and Settings\username\Private
http://www.domain.com/

Yes, it's quite configurable. I told it to only do text files and to forget my outlook, web use etc. etc. So it only has about 6000 files indexed, (about 10 gigs), but it finds all the files with an IP address in them in less than 1 second..... very impressive.... As coptright says you can also exclude folders if you wish.

Can U send the adress/link of the google desktop

One would think visiting Google and hitting "More" might be helpful.. ;)

http://desktop.google.com/

Tiger, quick question: do you know if Google sends any of that info back to their statistics pages or makes it avaible to others (ie., have you fired up a sniffer to see if there is anything else going on?)

Well its quite good and i think the moderators removed the link posted on this page,Well anyone can search for it.Another question how much infos will be sent to google if i enable that option.Its good though bcoz it not only displays search infos outside ur PC but inside your folders so is is possible for an unauthorized person to view whats in my HDD

Sorry they didnt but somehow My browser didnot displayed it in the first case

I've been trying out the google desktop search, I have one complaint and one concern.

My complaint is that when searching your media files (I was searching for all mp3's with Christmas in the title) there doesn't appear to be any way to open the containing folders when the files are found (or add them to a playlist easily from the google results page.)

My concern is in regards to the first result when a web search is performed.....

This only seems to happen when the web search is performed from the desktop search tool...but it still makes me a little uncomfortable.

I sniffed it when it first came out and gdesktop doesn't talk to home base unless you allow it to during installation. Google toolbar, on the other hand, will send every page you visit to base if you have pagerank enabled.

Since google is now a publicly traded company with stock holders who will eventually desire some massive revenue; my confidence that google will remain anonymous at contacting home base is not as high as it was a year ago.