This time it was Google.
AltaVista is still the home page of one of the computers from which I work, but I readily admit that it's been a long time since I turned to it before running a search via Google (and only rarely afterwards as well). It doesn't do everything, but it definitely satisfies most of my searching needs. Though I teach people the importance of organizing their bookmarks, and even practice what I preach, I find that when I want to get to a page that I know is somewhere in my bookmarks, if I can't find it right off, I'll run a Google search and find it on the web again. Who needs to be organized when finding something is so easy?
It would be wonderful to be able to find things on my hard drive in the same way,
and, for a while at least, it actually was possible. About three years ago AltaVista
released a product called something along the lines of "Personal AltaVista". Essentially,
it indexed your hard drives so that you could search for any word in any document
and have it pop up as a result of that search. I think, though I'm not sure, that
it was totally local, meaning that it built a database on your hard drive and
was independent of the AltaVista servers. I once had a copy of that program (distributed
free) and a number of frustrating experiences of late at trying to find some items
that I was (and am) sure are on my drive somewhere have convinced me that I'd
love to have one again. If anyone remembers that program and has a copy (or something
similar) please
let me know .
Go to: Paranoia strikes deep, or
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Go to: Only six clicks away.