Image if I could show you a tool that allows you to locate any file on your computer with ease. You can even locate content inside files. So for example you know you have a pdf file that discusses next years taxes and information, but you forgot the name of the file? Windows Desktop search can help you locate anything on your computer. That’s right, in this example you could type keywords that you know are inside that pdf or word document for example “2009 taxes proposal”. In seconds Windows desktop search finds the files and anything else you would be looking for. People you need this tool on your computer. If you don’t have this, you’re probably wasting your time trying to locate files on your computer. In the past I organized my files very carefully so I could easily retrieve them. But we all know that’s a lot harder than is seems. Windows desktop search really takes the edge off of trying to locate files quickly.
You can also specify certain file types. So if your looking for that Bee Gee’s song that you know you have somewhere on your computer, this will do the trick. Windows Desktop search is also great in locating all your music files. If you ever wanted to know where all music files are just type in *.mp3 to locate everything. It’s a really cool tool that I use on a daily basis.
It’s great to use at work. I have gigabytes of email from year and years of work. When I want to find that deleted email from 2 years ago, this does the trick. Outlook’s advanced find feature totally stinks. If you have ever used it you know what I’m talking about. Granted this only works if your archiving your mail, otherwise it’s only going to find what email you have in your current folders. If you have never archived or deleted, then it will still work. But I have all my mail even the deleted archived for future retrieval if necessary.
Check out the menu options, they predefine many common searchable items on your computer. These options are great if you want to limit the search results. I.E. select music only to search for the Gee Bee’s.
Here are some screen shots to help you locate files. I don’t use these unless I am having trouble finding something. (usually because I can’t remember any keywords to properly search, A.K.A. user error)
Searching for that picture you know you took off your camera last week. Oh brother where did that go? What funky system did the camera name that picture? Try these searches. Datetaken:last week
There are a lot more great search tips in the help menu. Check them out if you need more assistance.
Here are a few tips on how I set up my Windows desktop search.
You can specify if you want exactly where and what to search. I didn’t want it searching my backup drives because they are mirrors of my current data, no need to double it’s indexing.
Next select the drive or drives you want to index and go the advanced menu.
By default it was not searching pst files? Why they set the outlook archive files not to index is beyond me. But now you know, your getting smarter. You’ll need to set the option to make sure it indexes any archive files you may have. Go ahead and see if there are any other file types you may want, most of the common and important ones are already selected.
Next make sure the following is selected. This option is crucial since it is telling the program to look inside files.
After that close the menus and allow it to start indexing. The initial index may take a few hours to build. But after that let er rip. I guarantee you’re going to be using this program on a regular basis if you’re an avid computer user.
P.S I’ve tried Google desktop search and Coppernick. I wasn’t as impressed with either of them. Google scares me a little by knowing too much about everything. Coppernick on the other hand just didn’t work as well and seemed to be bloated with unneeded extras.
Based on the this information I think windows desktop search is on my most used productivity tools of the year. Check it out!
PS If you use Outlook you need to add the .pst extension to the file types it searches for. Then it will search through your archived mail.
Have you ever wanted to capture screen shots or video of the work that you’re currently doing on your computer? Well so did I. In the past I have used camtasia back when they had a free version: like eight years ago. Now I need one for my site and training clients. Let me help you save time and cut through a lot of the junk out there.
The first program that I wanted to test out was a ah-ha you guessed it Camtasia. After a quick Google search, and finding the Camtasia website and discovering that the software cost $299. I immediatly moved on to a search for a lower costing software. Now if you have never used Camtasia is probably the easiest, highest quality software on the market for screen capture. However, I didn’t want to spend $300 for a video capture software. Particularly because I knew there were a few free alternatives out there.
The next way, I decide to just do a search was using delicious from Yahoo. On a side note, I think delicious is a great service if you have a general idea of what you’re looking for. Delicious can point you in the general direction much better than any Google search by, using the leverage of thousands of others recommendations. One of the options that I was given from delicious was VNC2swf. I don’t know if you have ever heard of this program, I had not. Let me start by saying don’t waste your time, by reading this post your can be way better off in the time wasting department. I spent probably three to four hours trying to figure out how to get this thing to work. Then once I finally did and was happy with the visual results are realized it wasn’t recording my audio. I probably spent another hour trying to get that to work. It uses Python which you have to install and then it uses VNC to record the actual screen capture. Once you have VNC installed and configured properly to ready to start recording. But then I had to go back and get MP3 support and other audio recording options installed. I could never quite figure out how to get all of them to work together. Even if you do get both audio and video recorded you have to use Python program to edit them together. I was looking for a solution that produced/output files for easy upload and distribution to this blog. VNC2swf is not that program, it’s not easy don’t waste your time.
The next program that I used to was ZD recorder. This program looks a little more promising as it was a single file download which was a EXE file. While that was a huge improvement over the last debacle with VNC2swf. However this program only exported to AVI files and a few other non-user-friendly video output files. It also cost around $40 which was too much for the little solution it offered. I do not recommend the ZD recorder.
The next one I tried was the ever popular Camstudio. It works well and captures sound easily. Over all a great free program! easy to install and alot of fuctionality. Sounds to good to be true, does it matey? The files size for a few seconds was horrible. Like 20 megs and in avi format. This may be good enough for a training, but not for posting to a blog. This hunt was getting to be too much. I just wanted something that works.
I am testing BSR right now, take a look below. It’s $40 and it works pretty easily. I had it up and running in about 5 minutes.
I have always wanted to have a good speech to text program for writing school projects. Blog posts, anything that basically required me to type. I think the first time that I used a speech to text program it with some freebie that I got from the Internet. It reminded me of driving a model T Ford on Route 80 across the United States. It just wasn’t built for long trips. Then I came across a program, probably around 1999. It was called Dragon Naturally Speaking. I saw it first at a computer show, do they still do those? Someone was demonstrating it and it I was impressed. It seemed to work pretty good. A few months later, I got Dragon Naturally Speaking and gave it a shot.
Much to my disappointment it was slow and inaccurate and pretty much a waste of my time. That was almost 10 years ago now. I decided to give it another shot, I still really like the idea of being able to talk to my computer and making things happen. For some reason I thought Dragon Naturally Speaking cost was $500 or something like that. So I pretty much ignored it over the last few years. But recently, I figured with the leaps and bounds of all the technology over the past few years that this product probably improved greatly. But then I had heard that Windows Vista had a speech to text program built into it. And I thought, well, I’ll just buy Vista and try that out. Well, from everything I’m hearing you don’t want to upgrade a Windows XP machine to Vista, because there’s a lot of problems still. I’m not ready to buy a new computer yet so I still wanted that speech to text thing.
So I decided to give Dragon NaturallySpeaking another shot. I first went on to Google and did a quick price search. I found that I could buy it directly from the Dragon NaturallySpeaking website for $100. But being the bargain shopper that I am, I started searching around and ended up buying it from Amazon for $50 new. Within three days the product was on my desk waiting to be opened.
I’ve been using the speech to text program for about two weeks now. And it worked pretty good. I’m impressed that they have greatly improved the product over the past few years. And it’s pretty much about 85% accurate. I would say, one out of 10 sentences I need to edit. And some of this is caused by my learning curve. I highly recommend using the tutorials and giving the product a quick training on your voice.
The first time I used a product I was very disappointed, because of the slow response time and inaccuracy. However, the program greatly improved after my second time I used it. There was a night and day change in the way the program worked. It recognize my voice after I did a few training sessions and quickly adjusted to my speech. I am still learning some of the program commands, and I think after I continue to use this program I am going to be pretty happy with it. I actually used it to write this entry.
If you click on the file below you will see Dragon Naturally Speaking in action. This is actual footage of me using Dragon Naturally Speaking. This is about the 12th time that I’ve used the software, and as you can it works pretty good, is adapted to my voice. In this exercise, you will see how it actually works and how I have to edit it every so often. You can use the software to edit your text by a giving it a few commands, which I have not learned very well yet. I find it quicker and more accurate to just basically just edit like this. And you really have to think about what you’re going to say because it will create, whatever you say. So I find that when I use the software. I have to make a quick outline on paper, so I can quickly think about what I’m going to talk about.
Currently right now I am using Microsoft Word to speak into. I’m not using the webpage WordPress to edit this in. The reason I’m not using WordPress to create my blog is because I found that if I make a mistake while speaking into WordPress I could accidentally delete my blog post. There are a few commands that you can say to move around and navigate in websites. By chance if you’re speaking one of those commands, while in a browser window, it will activate that command. For example, you can navigate away from the browser window you’re working in .
A few years ago I came across this blog post about a great new service called Stumble Upon. If you haven’t already heard of it keep reading because you’re about to learn of one of the greatest things the Internet has to offer. If you have heard of it, you’ll probably be able to relate.
So what is Stumble Upon? It’s one of the best Internet programs that I have ever found. Stumble Upon is a community-based website recommendation service. As I write this Stumble Upon has over 2 million members and growing. Members recommend websites, videos and software to other members. You start by signing up and creating an account at Stumble Upon, from there you select your interests. With dozens of interest categories to choose from you will certainly find a multiple topics to choose from. You can also create a profile to let other Stumble Upon users know who you are. At first I wasn’t so interested in this part of the website, but I have a few of my own details listed for others to see.
Okay, what’s so great about Stumble Upon? Have you ever sat down in front of your computer and not known what to do? Have you ever been bored and were just looking for something to do? We’ll sit back and hold onto your mouse, because Stumble Upon is about to take you on a wild ride.
After you’re done installing the extension onto Firefox or Explorer, you will see a new toolbar at the top. Click the little green button with the “S” in it and a random website that has been custom tailored to your interests will appear. Now what is so cool about Stumble Upon is that it has the best recommendation algorithms that I have seen to date. Other members have submitted websites that they like and tagged them. Over time other members either give the website a thumbs-up or thumbs down review. So when you click the Stumble Upon button, many times you are getting an excellent and relative website that you like. For example, some of my interests are computers, futurism and computer networking. I have discovered some of the web’s best websites on areas of my interest via Stumble Upon.
You already know how to find good websites. Finding a good website of your interest is usually done by a friend telling you to say hey check out XYZ.com. You and your friend are both into XYZ and this new website is an excellent resource. With Stumble Upon does for you, is take that concept and use the leverage of millions of friends. The power of leveraging millions of like-minded people and categories of interest is powerful.
Some of the other features at Stumble Upon has, is tagging capabilities to help you identify websites. It also has a unique TV like video service. With channels to choose from some of the best videos on the Internet, chosen by the members. Why just randomly go to YouTube and search for videos, when you could have been mediocre videos skimmed off the top. Only the best videos are presented to you based on what other people think or have rated that video. Sure, there are other recommendation services out there and YouTube has its own rating system. But Stumble Upon, makes it so easy to use and find new and exciting areas of interest. All you have to do is click the Stumble Upon button, that’s it! You don’t have to think about anything, just sit back, click the button and have the best delivered to you.
I have used the service to find some of the best software on the Internet. I have discovered some of my favorite podcasts, music and learning resources from Stumble Upon. You are leveraging the recommendations of the millions of friends to find the Internet’s cream of the crop. I can’t say how much I like the service, it’s that good. So why did I have to uninstall Stumble Upon? There are a few warnings that you should know about Stumble Upon. I think the picture below gives a little insight into what I’m about to tell.
When I was first introduced to Stumble Upon and read about it on someone’s blog. The author stated it was one of the biggest time wasters you ever ran into. I remember thinking to myself. “Well, I’ll just give it a shot”. I was hooked immediately; it was so easy to use and presented so many all some new websites and ideas that I quickly found myself spending large amounts of time with Stumble. I knew what the author about blog meant when he called it a “time waster”.
I have a desktop PC in one room in a laptop in my living room. I desktop is usually where I go to get work done in the laptop is primarily for entertainment. I had to uninstall the Stumble Upon program from my desktop, because I found myself clicking on the button and not getting things done. It’s so easy to get sucked into a new website that you haven’t seen before. After several months of my productivity going down,. I uninstalled the program. However, I did keep it on my Laptop. It’s still one of the primary sources of the entertainment and education, I mind you.
You will also enjoy the search feature where you can search all for new websites or whatever by keyword. Or you can choose a category like online games. I highly recommend Stumble Upon as a resource and entertainment directory service.
As Stumble Upon grows, so does the interest in spamming members to make a profit. Spamming members are building networks with other spammers to” thumb up” a website to get invisibility. His other techniques not mentioned in this article, but I hope that Stumble Upon fights. These attempts to hijack their system.
As I mentioned in the above paragraphs. One of the other downsides to Stumble Upon is the amount of time I spent looking at categories of interest. This is at Stumble Upon problem, but more my own inabilities to manage my time. Tell me your thoughts and your experiences on Stumble Upon. I would love to hear them. I think you’ll enjoy the service as much as I do.
Click here to start using stumble upon, start using this all some service now!
