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Google Desktop: Conspiracy Against Organized People

I have installed Google Desktop for four days now. The initial excitement has died down a little. The reality has started to set in: The thing is not going to work for me!

Why? Because I am organized. I have a meticulously crafted directory hierarchy based on the same principles that big research libraries use to organize their books. I have a habit of maintaining my files: putting them where they belong, deleting no longer needed files, archiving old files away, etc.

As a result, when I search for a word, say 'generics', most of the results are in my src/java/generics, src/c#/generics, doc/java/generics, and doc/c#/generics folders, all under my home directory. Of course, there are a few odd ball matches in other folders, e.g., temp/junk, but generally those are not what I want.

To really benefit from Google Desktop big time, you have to be really really disorganized: saving all your files in My Documents or the bin directory of the editor, saving all your email in Inbox, etc.

I've known a few people like that. They usually need help installing things themselves.

Google Desktop will be perfect for them, just as soon as I help them delete some old files, uninstall some old programs (including all of JDK 1.1.6, 1.2.1_05, 1.2.2, 1.3, 1.4.2_04, etc.) to make room for the Google Desktop index.

And I won't! :)

Responses[6] RSS feed for responses to this blog entry
Posted by Weiqi Gao on October 20, 2004 7:18:53 AM CDT #


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Re: Google Desktop: Conspiracy Against Organized People

Comment from Mike Shoemaker on October 20, 2004 1:35:50 PM CDT #
Weiqi, I agree with your conclusion that if you are organized it's less useful. I do think the google desktop is useful though. Even if I just use it as a way to search Outlook, it works for me. In a blog entry of mine, I explained that it makes the most sense for windows since window's splatters your files all over the place. On my Mac, all files that I typically search are in my home dir so its not as useful.
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Re: Google Desktop: Conspiracy Against Organized People

Comment from Eric Burke on October 20, 2004 2:51:58 PM CDT #
I disagree with the assertion that you have to be "really really disorganized" to really benefit big time.

For instance, I used the tool to find a code example from Chapter 7 of a book manuscript a few days ago. My files are very well organized, and I know that the example is in one of the chapters, but I couldn't remember *exactly* where it was. Before Google, I'd have to navigate to my well-organized folder, then open up each chapter one-by-one, making my best guess. The search engine saved me time.

I'm really looking forward to PDF indexing. I have a lot of PDF files - mostly technical specs and user manuals. It will be really nice to easily search through that content.

I don't care about the index size. It's insignificant compared to the amount of empty space on my $99 hard drive.

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Re: Google Desktop: Conspiracy Against Organized People

Comment from Weiqi Gao on October 20, 2004 4:18:42 PM CDT #

I was exaggerating a bit. I'm sure in due time I will lean to love Google Desktop.

I'm looking forward to Thunderbird mail indexing, and possibly a Linux version.

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Re: Google Desktop: Conspiracy Against Organized People

Comment from Anonymous on October 21, 2004 4:53:19 AM CDT #
A hierarchical way is not the natural way a brain thinks and solves a problem . That's the reason google is so good and also why Yahoo's carefully created hierarchy is painful to use. After about 3 levels deep and 10 nodes my Brain simply gives up. What should my hierarchy be ? Reports ----> Project Name---->Report Type or Project Name ---->Status Reports.... I agree Google is going to destroy your meticulously crafted dir structures, but hey we don't use punch cards and rolodexes do we ? Cheers Ravi
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Re: Google Desktop: Conspiracy Against Organized People

Comment from Weiqi Gao on October 21, 2004 7:48:52 AM CDT #

This thing may be revolutionary. And an organized way of life will be gone with the wind!

Better get on that disorganizational train, and surrender to Google. :)

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Re: Google Desktop: Conspiracy Against Organized People

Comment from Tom on November 11, 2004 1:34:43 PM CST #
The problem with hierarchies is they only allow you to index in one dimension (does "java imaging" go under "java" or "imaging"). Since most of the things that I do are complex, I freuently need to file them/find them using multiple key words/indexes.

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