New Google Desktop Search 2 With Widgets Sidebar

[dannysullivan]

Google's released a new version of its desktop search tool, but what I think is most important is the new "Sidebar" feature that lets you see photos, web feeds, make notes and other stuff. Not all of it is desktop search related. Gary reviewed it today on the blog -- Google Desktop Search 2 Offers New Sidebar Widgets, Outlook Integration & More -- and felt like it's going to fuel Google OS rumors. What do you think? Like it? Like more of Google on the desktop. I'm personally loving the new photo display feature. I know there are similar tools I could get that do the same, plus show web clips, but it's sort of that Google radar screen effect for me. When they put it out, it finally registers a blip. Can't get it to take the Threadwatch feed, though.

[AussieWebmaster]

This is my plaything for the week.... put it through its paces and do a blog review on Friday... it is looking good though....

[Rob]

So has anyone read the "Please Read this Carefully" Section?

Please read this carefully. It's not the usual yada yada.

When you use Advanced Features, you may be sending non-personal usage information and information about websites you visit to Google.

For example, Google Desktop sends Google information about the news pages you visit in order to personalize the news you see in Sidebar. We use other non-personal usage data, including crash reports, to help improve Desktop's performance. Please note that none of this data actually tells us who you are; we use it merely to improve Desktop's ability to give you the information that's most relevant to you.

I found the bit about sending news pages you visit information back to Google to personalize news.

[Jenstar]

It has a very nice AdSense Status plugin so you can have your AdSense stats constantly updated to your desktop, without having to constantly login.

[hiero]

I had deskbar version 1.0 installed and was okay with that until I saw Jenstar's post on the Adsense add-on so I had to download it. When I try to check my Adsense account after configuring my username and password I get a connection error. Is anyone else having the same problem?

[phpmaven]

I'm not having the same problem, but with Desktop Search installed, it jacks up my local Apache Server that I use for testing my sites during development. It just times out if I try to access any local pages in IE or FireFox.

It's a dang shame because I think it's really slick. I've tried about everything I can think of to get it to coexist with Apache, but no go.

Mark

[Nacho]

I quickly found out that Google's objective is all about owning monitor real estate space... oh, yea! the desktop tools have great usefulness too

This might be a stupid question, but where can I download Desktop search 2?

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by arjenmol

This might be a stupid question, but where can I download Desktop search 2?

http://desktop.google.com/

[hiero]

It looks like the Adsense plug-in may only work on:Windows 2000, Service Pack 3 I left a message on the Google Group for this plug-in. No matter what setting I use it says "connection error".

[Rob]

I run XP and the adsense plugin works for me

interesting that my firefox adsense extension quit at the same time the search V2 came out

[hiero]

Weird, maybe a Firewall issue, dunno. I'll figure it out eventually

I think that Google desktop heavily relies on Microsoft marketing, so they offer "everything that you will have in Vista now". Other than that, I don't see any reasons for joining desktop search and sidebar, as they really have nothing in common.

To say clearly, joining desktop search and sidebar in one program would be stupid if there was no competition like Microsoft, but as there is, it might prove to be interesting, though only time will tell that and I am still more likely to claim that such things should be separate products.