Help with Finding Software or Gadgets

[Philip Coates]

I'm looking for two things - this is the very top of my 'technical acquisitions' list:

1. Software that will better enable me to search for files on my computer. I have a Mac (older OS, it's a five year-old Powerbook) and an older Windows PC (Win XP). I'd like to be able to do a boolean or 'multiple' search like this: On my computer I have ~80 files with the words psyche or psychology (or the prefix psych) in them. I want to subselect among those just the ones that refer to thinking skills or thinking approaches or the word 'logic'. So this is basically the search I want to do===>

filename = "psych" + ( filecontent = "think" or "logic" )

Neither WinDoze "Search" nor the MacFuckUp "Spotlight" or "Find" does this. (Windows 'search by index' claims to be able to do some of this but does not actually work on my examples.) I would even be satisfiedif I could put only just two keywords (psych, think) in the search.

--Does anyone here feel a need to do Boolean searches like this?

--Have you succeeded?

--Do you know of any 'third party software' for either platform that does this (which you can vouch for, as opposed to telling me 'experiment and see')?

2. I know French well enough to read Hugo or Moliere or Voltaire in French. But I'd need to constantly be hefting, hunting through a big, thick dictionary. The single really excellent light and portable French to English electronic dictionary is the **Sharp PWE560** for under a hundred dollars. [The others are crap - especially the various Franklins.]

I spent half a day researching French-English electronic dictionaries ('pocketable'- not the web.) The PWE560 has the Full Contents of the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary.

Unfortunately, it is only easily available from Staples in Canada [one of Canada's two languages, so there is the market]. I don't want to take chances on Ebay, and Staples.ca perversely requires my 'canadian postal code' for shipment. It won't even let me log on and buy anything without it.

Does anyone know an easy way I can get hold of this without renewing my passport? (Help from my Canadian colleagues would be appreciated --- and would result in a discount on the Collected Works of Phil Coates.)

Edited February 18, 2011 by Philip Coates

[sjw]

Did you try Google Desktop?

Shayne

[Philip Coates]

Shayne, thanks for responding to query number two: As I said above, I need something light and portable (pocketable, not the web -- as that would require that I have online access at all times and places and a computer/phone connection or the equivalent.) I'm very specifically trying to get hold of the Sharp PWE-560.

(I already own the PWE-550 for English only dictionary-thesaurus-grammar and it's perfect.)

Edited February 18, 2011 by Philip Coates

[sjw]

Shayne, thanks for responding to query number two: As I said above, I need something light and portable (pocketable, not the web -- as that would require that I have online access at all times and places and a computer/phone connection or the equivalent.) I'm very specifically trying to get hold of the Sharp PWE-560.

(I already own the PWE-550 for English only dictionary-thesaurus-grammar and it's perfect.)

Well, maybe I misread, but I thought I was responding to #1. Google Desktop is for searching files on your computer.

Shayne

[Jonathan]

I'm looking for two things - this is the very top of my 'technical acquisitions' list:

1. Software that will better enable me to search for files on my computer. I have a Mac (older OS, it's a five year-old Powerbook) and an older Windows PC (Win XP). I'd like to be able to do a boolean or 'multiple' search like this: On my computer I have ~80 files with the words psyche or psychology (or the prefix psych) in them. I want to subselect among those just the ones that refer to thinking skills or thinking approaches or the word 'logic'. So this is basically the search I want to do===>

filename = "psych" + ( filecontent = "think" or "logic" )

Neither WinDoze "Search" nor the MacFuckUp "Spotlight" or "Find" does this. (Windows 'search by index' claims to be able to do some of this but does not actually work on my examples.) I would even be satisfiedif I could put only just two keywords (psych, think) in the search.

--Does anyone here feel a need to do Boolean searches like this?

--Have you succeeded?

--Do you know of any 'third party software' for either platform that does this (which you can vouch for, as opposed to telling me 'experiment and see')?

I'm using Macs and have no problem at all finding anything using "find" and choosing the proper search function.

J

[caroljane]

I'm looking for two things - this is the very top of my 'technical acquisitions' list:

1. Software that will better enable me to search for files on my computer. I have a Mac (older OS, it's a five year-old Powerbook) and an older Windows PC (Win XP). I'd like to be able to do a boolean or 'multiple' search like this: On my computer I have ~80 files with the words psyche or psychology (or the prefix psych) in them. I want to subselect among those just the ones that refer to thinking skills or thinking approaches or the word 'logic'. So this is basically the search I want to do===>

filename = "psych" + ( filecontent = "think" or "logic" )

Neither WinDoze "Search" nor the MacFuckUp "Spotlight" or "Find" does this. (Windows 'search by index' claims to be able to do some of this but does not actually work on my examples.) I would even be satisfiedif I could put only just two keywords (psych, think) in the search.

--Does anyone here feel a need to do Boolean searches like this?

--Have you succeeded?

--Do you know of any 'third party software' for either platform that does this (which you can vouch for, as opposed to telling me 'experiment and see')?

2. I know French well enough to read Hugo or Moliere or Voltaire in French. But I'd need to constantly be hefting, hunting through a big, thick dictionary. The single really excellent light and portable French to English electronic dictionary is the **Sharp PWE560** for under a hundred dollars. [The others are crap - especially the various Franklins.]

I spent half a day researching French-English electronic dictionaries ('pocketable'- not the web.) The PWE560 has the Full Contents of the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary.

Unfortunately, it is only easily available from Staples in Canada [one of Canada's two languages, so there is the market]. I don't want to take chances on Ebay, and Staples.ca perversely requires my 'canadian postal code' for shipment. It won't even let me log on and buy anything without it.

Does anyone know an easy way I can get hold of this without renewing my passport? (Help from my Canadian colleagues would be appreciated --- and would result in a discount on the Collected Works of Phil Coates.)

Phil, you can order it through my address and I will send it to you. if you promise not to send me your Collected Works I will do it for cost of postage only.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

Google Desktop, as Shayne suggested, is a software you install in your computer. It periodically crawls your hard disk so you can search for your files on your hard disk like you do on Google.

I've tried it a couple of times, but it generally slows down the computer, so I always end up uninstalling it. If I ever need to do some major housecleaning on my files again, though, I will install it and use it for the task (then probably uninstall it once again).

Here's the link: Google Desktop.

I know you don't like video, but YouTube is the best place to get technical tutorials for stuff like this for free. Otherwise, Google something like following (including quotes):

"Google Desktop" tutorial

Then hunt and pick through the links according to what looks good to you.

Michael

[Philip Coates]

> I'm using Macs and have no problem at all finding anything using "find" and choosing the proper search function. [Jonathan]

I mainly need to search the Windows machine. (My Mac is backup with obsolete files. But even with 'Find' you can't do the 'or' function.)

> Google Desktop is for searching files on your computer. [shayne]

> it generally slows down the computer, so I always end up uninstalling it.[Michael]

Thanks, both of you. Michael, last thing I need with an older computer model is something that slows it down to do an extremely fundamental and simple search function - which should have been in the basic operating system...but I will go check it out. Pisses me off enormously, though.

Edited February 18, 2011 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

My second problem has been solved. I've always said Canadians are nice people. One of our Canadian members offered to get it for me and send it to me. It's a nice gadget and will be worth every peso.

No one has solved the first problem: Google Desktop, leaving aside slowness, doesn't really do a full Boolean search of the kind I spelled out.

I guess we don't have any "computer hotshots" on this board who've ever tried to a Boolean search on their own PC.

Edited February 19, 2011 by Philip Coates

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Google Desktop doesn't really do a full Boolean search of the kind I spelled out.

Phil,

It does. The code is a bit different, but it definitely does.

Look up search operators and you will be able to find the most amazing things. In fact, Boolean searches are pretty primitive by comparison.

I do admit that "Boolean logic" sounds a lot cooler and way more geeky than "search operator." Maybe Google should fix its technical jargon.

Michael

[sjw]

No one has solved the first problem: Google Desktop, leaving aside slowness, doesn't really do a full Boolean search of the kind I spelled out.

It's going to be slow at first, then after it indexes everything it should be fast (but I haven't used it in years).

Michael sure knows a lot for not being a computer geek. Or maybe he's a computer geek.

Shayne

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Shayne,

Aspiring geek.

Long ways to go.

Michael

[Jonathan]

I mainly need to search the Windows machine. (My Mac is backup with obsolete files. But even with 'Find' you can't do the 'or' function.)

The Boolean operators in Spotlight must be capitalized (AND, OR and NOT) in order to work. Then again, maybe that also depends on how old your system is. Perhaps earlier versions of Spotlight don't allow Boolean searches?

J

[Philip Coates]

Thanks guys,

I'll install it and give it a try. My impression looking over the function summary was that, like regular google, you could type in multiple keywords and prefixes like "psych think logic" and it would do an 'and' search on them retrieving anything with a combination of those in either file name or contents, but couldn't do a think /or/ logic search within psych.

But I'll try it out and see....

(Sure would help a lot since I do a lot of writing and file clipping and I've got hundreds of thousands of pages of document files to search through when I write or teach or keep my journals. This would also help anyone else who is in frequent "paper chase" mode.)

[Philip Coates]

Actually regular google (web google) does allow 'or' searches, including compound ones like what I was looking for.

[pippi]

http://www.filehand.com/

[Philip Coates]

Thanks Pippi, I'll take a look at filehand, I suppose...did you actually try it? I hope it is not another waste of half a freakin' day -- I've just spent a lot of hours messing with Google Desktop:

It is designed in a foolishly cluttered way...the results are messy and they are not all on one page, plus you don't everything on one page, unlike the windows search which you can also sort on its columns like date modified.

(I really get sick of being a guinea pig for ill-thought out software. Why can't somebody just do something that just works, simply and straightforwardly.)

[caroljane]

Thanks Pippi, I'll take a look at filehand, I suppose...did you actually try it? I hope it is not another waste of half a freakin' day -- I've just spent a lot of hours messing with Google Desktop:

It is designed in a foolishly cluttered way...the results are messy and they are not all on one page, plus you don't everything on one page, unlike the windows search which you can also sort on its columns like date modified.

(I really get sick of being a guinea pig for ill-thought out software. Why can't somebody just do something that just works, simply and straightforwardly.)

But somebody did! Objectivism works simply and straightforwardly! Look at you!

[Philip Coates]

Oh, Jesus H. Christ!

I just looked at how filehand displays its results:

It makes the google desktop mistake --why am I not surprised-- of showing many lines of 'clutter' for each result and stringing the results across many pages. By contrast when you do a computer operating system search (windows or mac) and display results in view-->details mode you can (1) see them all on one scrollable page and (ii) sort them on name, file type, size, date modified, etc.

This has been true of operating system sort for decades. Didn't the f*** morons at Google Desktop or filehand even LOOK at how that software does a search?

[Philip Coates]

> But somebody did! Objectivism works simply and straightforwardly! Look at you!

Don't try to make me laugh now, Daunce, I'm too busy cranking up my crankiness about mindlessly designed software.... :-)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

You, apparently, are more of a teacher than a learner.

Google desktop works just fine. You have to learn it correctly.

I'm kind of tickled that you want it to be Windows and think that it's the program's fault for not working like Windows. You seem like a person trying to pilot an airplane and cussing it because it does not work like an automobile.

Admittedly, Google's instructions are not at all newbie-friendly (they never are), but the program is great.

Stop trying to teach the program how it should be and start trying to learn it as it exists and you will fare a lot better.

You are not alone, though. This is attitude problem No. 1 with people in learning new programs--including me. I think the most irritating thing to overcome is the self-image part, where you have to go back to learning basics.

I know I struggle with this, especially since I have developed a high degree of competence in other areas. My "lizard brain" doesn't want me to be anything less than an expert and it flares up at me in irritation when I can't do something simple. Since "it" is a fundamental part of me, "it" usually ruins my day at these times. I'm getting better at calming "it" down, though, so I can get some work done.

"It" also makes me bored when I try to learn elementary stuff. That's a tough one for me, but I grit my teeth and plow on ahead. I'm starting to develop some tricks to make learning this stuff more interesting from the viewpoint of a person like me--i.e., one with highly developed skills in other areas. I will later make some kind of course out of them, something along the lines of "How to Learn Stupid Stuff When You are Smart" or something like that.

Michael

[pippi]

Well, Google desktop and filehand are both free so I guess you get what you pay for. ;)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Pippi,

I forgot to mention it. Thanks for finding Filehand. It looks like a great little program.

Michael

[pippi]

Pippi,

I forgot to mention it. Thanks for finding Filehand. It looks like a great little program.

Michael

You are welcome. I have never used it, just did a Google for my BFF Phil and it looked good.

[Philip Coates]

> you want it to be Windows and think that it's the program's fault for not working like Windows.

Michael, it [or Filehand] needs to do all three things I mentioned to be a time-saver for me:

1. ONE LINE: Condense each search result into one line showing filename, type, size, date.

2. SORT: Be able to 'sort' on each of those four columns and then redisplay the above results.

3. NOT HAVE TO PAGE ENDLESSLY: All the search results on one scrollable page.

> Google desktop works just fine. You have to learn it correctly.

Since you didn't say anything about how to do what I listed, I assume you've never actually implemented those features and are just guessing?

Edited February 20, 2011 by Philip Coates