“Google Inc.’s free software for helping people find information stored on computer hard drives emerged from test mode Monday with an upgraded product,” The Associated Press reports. “The improvements in Google Desktop extend the software’s reach beyond material searched by the “beta,” version that’s been out since October as a free download.”
“With the expansion, the software now scours hard drives for information contained in Adobe Acrobat’s portable document format, or PDF, as well as music and video files. It also will scan content in more e-mail applications. The test version only sifted through e-mail in Microsoft Outlook,” AP reports. “The software still can’t handle the formats of hundreds of other applications that run on the Windows operating system. To address that shortcoming, Google is providing the software’s application program interface, or API, so outsiders can add more features to the package. For instance, Google expects a plug-in to search for material stored in Apple Computer Inc.’s popular iTunes music library to be available soon.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Requires Windows XP or Windows 2000 SP 3+. According to Google, “Google Desktop Search isn’t currently available for Mac OS. Right now we’re putting all of our energy into making Desktop Search the best program we can. We realize that a lot of our users would like us to offer a Mac version, and we may consider this option in the future.” Google better hurry up if they want any Mac users – we’ll have Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger’s ‘Spotlight’ soon enough.
Supported Spotlight File Formats:
• Plain text
• RTF
• PDF
• Mail
• Address Book contacts
• iCal calendars
• Keynote presentations
• Microsoft Office Word documents
• Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets
• Microsoft PowerPoint presentations
• Photoshop images
• Applications
• System Preferences
• iChat logs (if logging is enabled)
• Folders/directories
• Fonts
• Data files from any application with a Spotlight plug-in
Video and audio files:
• MP3
• AAC
• MOV
Images:
• JPEG
• GIF
• TIFF
• PNG
• EXIF and IPTC tags
Wait, I have a patent on this! I have the patent on a single user using a plugin to search his computer. I WANT 20% OF ALL THE PROFITS!
Touché!
TheloniousMac- brilliant
but–
I have a patent on the light bulb!
I discovered a light bulb plugged in at the local apple store that I hadn’t been paid for!
Looks like Newton wasn’t the only one who had Apples against him!
Hey hands off, I scribbled this idea on my napkin when I was 3 years old. I want 125% of the profits. I also claim that by throwing up all over it soon afterwards I integrated the concept of open source into the idea, Apple source at that..
Hmmm, looks like Google may be making up for some of the shortages in shorthorn. Spotlight will probably work much better than this but it will still allow the dozers to say “Oh we can do that” – even if they can’t nearly as well. I get this a lot when explaining the virtues of iLife; they will take each individual thing you tell them you can do and say “I can do that on my windows machine too” – completely missing the point that what is important is the efficiency, ease of use, and integration.
shut up you heathens,
I made the apple.
I want my cut.
Spyinthesky & GOD
you 2 are sure are funnie thanx for the good laugh
simple1
You are welcome my creature,
now remember… I see EVERYTHING you do and it’s Ok with me , but wash your hands after Ok?
not to mention of course
quicksilver which already exists for free for macosx
and has a particularly snazzy interface
not to mention extraordinary open-source expandability