Apple Computer's Spotlight is an example of a desktop search tool.

Desktop search is the name for the emerging field of search tools which search the contents of a user's own computer files, rather than searching the Internet. The emphasis is on data mining all the information that is available on the user's PC, including web browser histories, e-mail archives, word-processor documents, and so on. One of the main advantages of Desktop Search programs is that search results come up in a few seconds. For home users, it means faster access to everything stored on the computer. For business users, it means added productivity and simplifying the workday. As companies continue to add systems and processes to knowledge workers' routines, end users are slowly adopting desktop search tools as a way to mitigate the firehose of data and cut down on unnecessary steps. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (862x706, 122 KB) Summary A screenshot of Find in the Macintosh Finder, demonstrating grouping and how Spotlight can be utilized by various applications. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (862x706, 122 KB) Summary A screenshot of Find in the Macintosh Finder, demonstrating grouping and how Spotlight can be utilized by various applications. ... Apple Computer, Inc. ... Spotlight is an as-you-type, system-wide desktop search feature found in Mac OS X v10. ... A file in a computer system is a stream (sequence) of bits stored as a single unit, typically in a file system on disk or magnetic tape. ... Data mining (DM), also called Knowledge-Discovery in Databases (KDD) or Knowledge-Discovery and Data Mining, is the process of automatically searching large volumes of data for patterns using association rules. ... A computer program is a collection of instructions that describe a task, or set of tasks, to be carried out by a computer. ... Knowledge worker, a term coined by Peter Drucker in 1959, is one who works primarily with information or one who develops and uses knowledge in the workplace. ...

X1 Technologies' X1 Enterprise Client is an example of a desktop search tool for Windows.

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. Moreover, many companies have unstructured information stored in older file formats that they don't have ready access to. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1336x828, 807 KB)The X1 Enterprise Client shows previews of Outlook attachments in their native format. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1336x828, 807 KB)The X1 Enterprise Client shows previews of Outlook attachments in their native format. ... X1 Technologies, Inc. ... X1 Enterprise Client interface The X1 Enterprise Client (formerly X1 Desktop Search) is a secure desktop search product. ... A computer network is a system for communication between computers. ... An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet protocols, network connectivity, and possibly the public telecommunication system to securely share part of an organizations information or operations with its employees. ... A file format is a particular way to encode information for storage in a computer file. ...

Security is another frequently cited concern. Companies are under new regulatory mandates like Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and FERPA to make sure that access to sensitive information is 100% controlled. 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 off the Internet. Some consumer-oriented desktop search tools make it possible to generate indexes outside the corporate firewall and share those indexes with unauthorized users. In some cases, end users are able to index — but not preview — items they should not even know exist. Before the signing ceremony of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, President George W. Bush meets with Senator Paul Sarbanes, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and other dignitaries in the Blue Room at the White House July 30, 2002. ... The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1996. ... The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) is Title 34 United States Code and part 99 of the United States Code of Federal Regulations. ... This article is about the computer terms. ... Firewall refers to: Firewall (construction) Firewall (networking) Firewall (film) Firewall (novel) (by Henning Mankell, featuring Kurt Wallander) Firewall (document) This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ...

Technologies

The only way to achieve reasonable performance when searching several gigabytes of data is to build and maintain an index database. When indexing the files, desktop search tools collect three types of information about files: A gigabyte (derived from the SI prefix giga-) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one billion (that is, a thousand million) bytes. ... The term database originated within the computer industry. ...

1. file and directory names
2. metadata, such as titles, authors, comments in file types such as MP3, PDF and JPEG
3. content of supported documents.

To search within documents, the tools need to be able to parse many different types of document. 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. Metadata (Greek meta after and Latin data information) are data that describe other data. ... MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a popular digital audio encoding and lossy compression format, designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent audio, yet still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio to most listeners. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... In computing, JPEG(pronounced JAY-peg; IPA: ) is a commonly used standard method of compression for photographic images and not for movie files for which MPEG compression is used. ... Microsoft Office is a suite of productivity programs created or purchased by Microsoft and developed for Microsoft Windows, and Apple Computers Mac OS and Mac OS X operating systems. ...

Long-term goals for desktop search include the ability to search the contents of image files, sound files and video by context.

The sector has attracted considerable attention from the emerging struggle between Microsoft and Google. According to market analysts, both companies are attempting to leverage their monopolies (of web browsers and search engines, respectively) to strengthen their dominance. This may bring back memories of the browser wars of the 1990's. An example of a web browser (Mozilla Firefox running under Microsoft Windows). ... Google search is the worlds most popular search engine. ... A rough estimation of the usage share of major web browsers by layout engines over time. ...

Products

Some of the products in this emerging market are:

• AOL — plans to release its own application based on Copernic technology.
• Ask.com
• Autonomy — IDOL Enterprise Desktop Search.
• Beagle — GPL desktop search tool primarily developed for Linux by Novell (GNOME, Mono).
• Beetext Find - Indexes and searches almost any file formats.
• Blinkx
• Copernic Desktop Search
• Daemon Tools Prepackaged into Daemon Tools
• Docco — based on Apache's indexing and search engine Lucene, and it requires a Java Runtime Environment.
• Filehawk — Indexes and searches files' content in computers, networks and removable devices
• Google Desktop — Integrates with the main Google search engine page.
• HotBot — Lycos HotBot has an adware desktop search toolbar for IE.
• imgSeek — Desktop content-based image search with search by sketch feature.
• ISYS Search Software — ISYS:desktop search software.
• KAT Desktop Search Environment — Open source framework designed to allow KDE applications to index and retrieve files.
• Likasoft Archivarius 3000 — flexible desktop and network search software with support for many languages and encodings as well as for content of compressed archives.
• Nero Scout — Prepackaged into Nero software
• Windows Desktop Search — MSN Search Toolbar includes Windows Desktop Search which incorporates much of the desktop search technology initially promised for Windows Vista, the next version of Microsoft Windows. The search integrates into the task bar and Internet Explorer windows.
• regain — is a Lucene based search engine released under GPL for Desktop Search as well as for intranet and Web server.
• Spotlight — Found in Apple Mac OS X "Tiger".
• Tropes Zoom — Semantic Search Engine.
• X1 Desktop Search. Free desktop search tool with an available free deployment tool for IT. This product enables users to not only find, but also preview and act on search results, especially useful in the areas of email and Office file types.
• X1 Desktop Search, renamed X1 Enterprise Client, as reviewed in Information Week April 2005, also offers enterprise-scale desktop search (as reviewed in Network Computing, September 2005).

AOL LLC (formerly America Online, Inc) is an American online service provider, bulletin board system, and media company operated by Time Warner. ... Ask. ... Autonomy is a British corporation selling software under the same name. ... Old UI for Beagle, code name BEST Beagle is a search tool for Linux, enabling the user to search documents, chat logs, email and contact lists in a similar way to Spotlight in Mac OS X, or Google Desktop under Microsoft Windows. ... blinkx is a San Francisco startup company that builds search software products to allow searching and classification of audio files, video clips and streams. ... Copernic Desktop Search is a desktop searching tool for Windows. ... DAEMON Tools is a disk image emulator for Microsoft Windows that mounts images of DVD and CD media on virtual drives. ... This article is in need of improvement. ... The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a non-profit corporation (classified as 501(c)3 in the United States) to support Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server. ... Lucene is a free open source, information retrieval API originally implemented in Java by Doug Cutting. ... The Java Runtime Environment, or JRE, is a software bundle from Sun Microsystems that allows a computer system to run a Java application. ... This article should belong in one or more categories. ... Google Desktops logo Google Desktop is Googles version of the desktop search that runs locally on a Windows XP or Windows 2000 SP3+ PC. The desktop search program allows full text search of all of ones e-mail, computer files, music, photos, chat, and Web pages that... Hotbot Hotbot was one of the early Internet search engines and was launched in May 1996 as a service of Wired Magazine. ... Adware or advertising-supported software is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertising material to a computer after the software is installed on it or while the application is being used. ... imgSeek is a photo collection manager and viewer with content-based search and many other features. ... Established in 1988 in Sydney, Australia, ISYS Search Software is a developer of enterprise search software. ... Kat Desktop Search Environment is an open source framework designed to allow KDE applications to index and retrieve files. ... Archivarius 3000 is a full-featured application to search documents and e-mail on the desktop computer, on local network and removable drives (CD, DVD). ... Nero AG is a German software company, best known for their CD and DVD-authoring software package, Nero Burning ROM. They are also involved in development of the Nero Digital MPEG-4 compression technology (in partnership with Ateme corporation), as well as several other software projects relating to multimedia applications. ... Windows Desktop Search is an indexing application released by Microsoft. ... // Description The MSN Search Toolbar is a toolbar for Internet Explorer. ... Windows Desktop Search is an indexing application released by Microsoft. ... Windows Vista is the name of the latest release of Microsoft Windows, a line of graphical operating systems used on personal computers, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. ... Microsoft Windows is a family of operating systems by Microsoft. ... In computing, the task bar is a term for an application desktop bar which is most often used for the Windows 95 and later operating systems. ... Windows Internet Explorer, previously Internet Explorer, abbreviated IE, or MSIE[1], is a graphical web browser developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. ... Lucene is a free open source, information retrieval API originally implemented in Java by Doug Cutting. ... The GNU logo For other uses of GPL, see GPL (disambiguation). ... An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet protocols, network connectivity, and possibly the public telecommunication system to securely share part of an organizations information or operations with its employees. ... Wikimedia servers architecture The term Web server can mean one of two things: A computer that is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients, which are known as Web browsers, and serving them HTTP responses along with optional data contents, which usually are Web pages such as HTML documents and... Spotlight is an as-you-type, system-wide desktop search feature found in Mac OS X v10. ... Apple Computer, Inc. ... Mac OS X (official IPA pronunciation: ) is a line of proprietary, graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Computer, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently shipping Macintosh computers. ... Mac OS X version 10. ... Tropes Zoom is a desktop search engine and semantic analysis software from Acetic/Semantic-Knowledge. ... X1 creates a desktop search product for Microsoft Windows users. ... X1 creates a desktop search product for Microsoft Windows users. ... X1 Enterprise Client interface The X1 Enterprise Client (formerly X1 Desktop Search) is a secure desktop search product. ...

External links

Comparisons

• Keeper Finders, by Paul Boutin, Slate, December 31, 2004 — A comparison of Google, Ask Jeeves, HotBot, MSN and Copernic desktop search tools.
• Marc Orchant at The Office Weblog Comparative reviews of desktop search tools
• GoebelGroup.com's desktop search tools comparison chart
• A detailed comparison of desktop search tools
• Enterprise Desktop Search Resource Center hosted by X1, but with a non-partisan bent

Slate is an online news and culture magazine created in 1996 by former The New Republic editor Michael Kinsley and owned by Microsoft (as part of MSN). ...

Specific products

• AltaVista Discovery was the first desktop search tool from AltaVista. Regretfully, contrary to what this external reference says, it can't be downloaded and installed from any available source.
• Review of ISYS:desktop search software