Cf. the original topic, I never used any desktop search software, but have been considering it for a long time. Now I dl'd and installed both Locate32 and Copernic and while I can't say anything bad (yet) about either program's speed (or resource usage), I discovered a major problem:

Locate32 works nicely and finds results instantly (updating seems to take a long time, though, even without major changes in files in the meantime), but I can hardly see it as a "desktop search", because it doesn't index file contents (unless I'm mistaken, but I don't think so). I'd rather say that it's Windows' classic "Find" on steroids. It's nice and I'll keep it, but it's out of the "desktop search" race for me.

The problem I have is with Copernic (don't really like the interface, and inadvertedly launching a web search drives me nuts, but the core functions seem to work well); it's that it does not look for folder names. I often have the files for a topic in a folder where only the folder's name contains the keyword. The files usually have more specialized names, and the keyword is missing there. I can't (and don't want to) rename all my files to match the search engine's specifications, so I'm SOL.

From what I've read about other programs, I can't find any information about searching for folders.
Does anyone know if one of the other contenders works with folder names?

Edit - Oh, I forgot: IF I'm going to stay with Copernic for file contents (and Locate32 for file/folder names, and Lookout for complete indexing of Outlook contents, sigh), I'll probably have to pay for a license, because CDS is only "free for personal home use". Does anyone know how much they charge for a single machine, single user business license?

mouser, I keep being amazed by your short response times.
Almost looks like you have no life.  :)

Some time ago we decided to do an experiment an give donors 100% control of their donation credits, and not automatically apply any of it to the site.

-mouser (October 11, 2007, 06:40 PM)

Hm, I couldn't find any mention of this when I did a search.

When you activate your credits the site recommends you consider giving 50% of your donation to the site account, but it's no longer mandatory.

-mouser (October 11, 2007, 06:40 PM)

I must have missed that when I activated. But it's true, I didn't read that stuff.
To set it straight ;), I donated a part of it to the site account now. This site is such an wonderful place on the web.

(note that the reason you go $26.61 in credits instead of $28 is because paypal takes their cut off the top).

-mouser (October 11, 2007, 06:40 PM)

Yes, I already guessed that the rest was eaten by Paypal.

I think I'm in as well.

Last year, I discovered the experiment a little bit too late, although I was on a similar journey myself by that time, mainly focussing on GTD (which was the biggest hype at the time and probably still is), which never worked well for me, due to (1) the initial implementation being a bit too much to handle - there's not a lot of guidance in that system how to handle a huge initial overload - and (2) the concept of "contexts" never worked for me, as there still were way too many tasks in a handful of contexts, and having a-hundred-and-something to-dos in your "work" context is only insignificantly better than having several hundred to-dos in a general to-do list, and (3) the lack in daily guidance what exactly to do.

I recently bought a lot of time and self-management books, all of them of US and British origin, although I'm from Germany, but local authors generally keep repeating ideas from American literature. Among those are classics like the books from Charles Hobbs (a book and concept blatantly copied by Hyrum Smith and the Franklin Planner folks), Alan Lakein, Alec Mackenzie and Neil Fiore. Really interesting reading, but I'm not even halfway through yet.

Mark Forster (yes, I have his books no. 1 and 3, too) has a very good point when he says that changing your "system" every month is counter-productive. However, I don't believe in "systems" anymore. The only "system" that could possibly work for you is something that you custom-made for yourself, nothing pre-made for a general audience. You certainly have to adapt those concept for your real life situation and pick ideas from here and there. Edit: Sorry, noticed a little bit too late that iphigenie said essentially the same thing. So all I can do is agree. But I also think that some of the concepts visited last year deserve another - and closer - look.

I'm looking forward to how this will work out.

BTW: Minidiscs? Cool.

--
Alex