After a while I gave in and am now using Google Desktop 2, rather than Microsoft Desktop Searchbox Toolbar, to quickly find stuff. I don't, however, use the sidebar, mainly because it was raping the crapputer's CPU, and because its search box makes all of the toolbars (or desktop flaps
) I used to have obsolete. And it's more zen.
This is why I don't use MSN Desktop Google (hang on...) - with GD2 I just type something and press Enter; if I want to Google my computer with MSN (you know it makes sense) I have to type something, press down, then Enter. Otherwise a results window is launched, showing the least relevant results first (or so it seems).
So Microsoft Google (take that, trademark!) is out of the question. Most of my pet peeves about GD2 are resolved by not using the sidebar, but not all. It turns out GD2 does have a hotkey - Windows+G or Ctrl+Alt+G; neither of these can be changed to my preferred F9, but I can easily AutoHotkey that problem away.
But there are still little, niggly annoyances: I can't have the search box on the left of the taskbar because it's re-added to the taskbar every time I log on - on the right. There's no need for a Maximise
button next to the search field - the drop-down menu includes the option to display the sidebar.
It's fortunate GD2 doesn't display times very often, because Google insist on using twelve-hour clock-style notation, that hasn't been used by anyone real since the twentieth century (yeah, that's a long time ago); and there's no option to change the format. If you're going to pick one time format for everyone, rather than letting them pick (and this is actually a good idea because it avoids unneccesarily cluttering the user interface), and you refuse to use the format the operating system tells you to use, at least pick a non-stupid format and not the one your country (alone) uses.
GD2 doesn't seem to want to find the music I have stored in Shared Documents. I've specifically told it to index the folder, but it responds with What? What are you on about? That doesn't exist. Seriously. Nowt there. Now go away.
. However it does return music files on my Desktop; or rather they were on my desktop for a few minutes and haven't been there for the past month. Guess where they have been... There's nothing there. Really. La-la-la-not-listening-la-la-la-la!
And it's really, obnoxiously American - besides imitating a twelve-hour clock. A normal I'm Feeling Jammy search for news
, from google.co.uk returns BBC News; an equivalent search from the search box returns CNN. This despite downloading GD2 from desktop.google.co.uk - I obviously want searches done via google.co.uk, and not google.com. And there's no option to change this.
It's really annoying when 90% of something is damned good and the other 10% is imbecilic.