And Word files and spreadsheets and every other type of document. It used to be a real problem for me. Before desktop search applications came along I had a very complicated system in place for filing documents away. Folders inside of folders inside of folders. For the effort that I put in to filing documents away I could still never find anything. Then came desktop search and my single folder method of filing documents.
I tried a number of them. Yahoo Desktop Search (based on X1), X1, Google Desktop Search, Ask Desktop Search and Copernic Desktop Search. For overall features, accuracy and style I chose Copernic Desktop Search.
I get a LOT of files sent to me on a daily basis. Word, Excel and PDF files make up the largest percentage but I also get a lot of documents in OpenOffice formats. We standardized on OpenOffice for all of our computer systems because for most of our employees their office suite is a minor need and OO.org only costs us the donation that we make once a year. OpenOffice file formats are usually significantly smaller than their MS Office counterparts and smaller is always better when it comes to Office files.
This is the main window of CDS where I have done a generic search for all PDF files. This is my newest computer and I don't have many files on it, but as you can see I have dropped 154 PDF files on this disk in just under 4 days.
Even with a number as small as 154 (my home server has over 4,000 PDF files alone) I would have a very difficult time finding information that I need from a stack that large.
As color management is the hot topic on my list right now I chose to search here for this term. By enclosing the words in quotations CDS will only search for documents that contain those two words together. It not only looks in the title of the document itself, but it also searches for folder names and it searches through the content of each file. When searching for a single document with more obscure absolute terms among thousands of files it is a real time saver to not have to open folders and files looking for that one item. This search popped 6 PDF files as well as 169 emails that relate to "color management". It also highlights your search terms so that you can see how relevant your search results are.
I found CDS to be more accurate, faster to index and faster to search than any of the other options. Further, it indexes more file types with content indexing than any of the others. OpenOffice files, Firefox and Thunderbird being my big ones that aren't covered by some. The program looks good, works VERY well and is very light on system resources. I now file all of my new PDF files in one folder. All of my MS Office files in one folder and all of my OO.org files in one folder. This makes it much easier to archive documents and searching is spot on.
Tags: Desktop Search, X1, Copernic Desktop Search, Yahoo! Desktop Search, Google Desktop Search, Ask Desktop Search
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Today at SPAC (School Photographers Association of California), I met with the guys from Fuji. Particularly, Darren Pepple, who has been in the forefront of desigining the accessories for the upcoming Fuji S5 SLR. Through a Nikon MC 35 GPS cable one can hook up a serial barcode scanner. With the scanner, data can be input directly into the image Exif information. This will associate a positive ID directly with the image.
Also, the camera will can be passworded, so that the settings can be locked, preventing them from being changed. This is useful for larger studios, who have photographers who want to tinker with the camera and change it to other settings that may make it not function with the studio’s workflow.
What I thought was most impressive, is that, rather then trying to use the controls to pan in on a face within a photograph on the back LCD of the camera to check to see if it is in focus and exposed correctly, it will automatically recognize faces and center them in the frame.
Coordinates can be recorded into the Exif data, that can then be used for centering images and sizing heads in outside software.
Phot__ynx can already extract exif information from jpg images and relate it in quantity to images. The Fuji S5 would be an aswesome tool for a school photographer to have in conjuction with Photo__nx software for matching student data to images and outputting products & picture packages for schools.
In addition, in speaking with Darren from Fuji, Photo__nx will be able to get the necessary information from Fuji to enable it’s software to use the facial recognition data to center and headsize the images automatically as the images load into the software.
The Fuji S5 is due out for release mid February…. Stay tuned!