Have you ever noticed that it has become fashionable to put an HTML-based user interface on just about everything wherever and whenever possible? An HTML-based interface makes it easier for developers to write applications that can be used either locally or via a Web browser. But what about us, the actual user? There are many good webmail services around but on my local desktop I'd like to have a full-featured Windows application, like MS Outlook, for example.
Recently, I've came across a new Google invention called Google Desktop.
What a brilliant idea! I love Google and I love the idea of searching in my local files the same way as I search the Web. I downloaded it and it works great. But I would prefer a full-featured Windows application instead of their rather simplified HTML interface.
Fortunately, I found a free Google Desktop add-on that provides an alternative interface for Google Desktop. First, make sure you download and install the Google Desktop itself (http://desktop.google.com/) and then download this free plugin called Halftone Search (http://www.trietech.com/gdstools.php).
Our Halftone Search makes Google Desktop a really helpful application.
It extends the interface features and the functionality of Google Desktop allowing you to control various advanced features. With Halftone Search, you can customize the look and feel of the search results and view the Google Desktop cache. You can also invoke your normal Windows Explorer pop-up menu on the files found. You can tune-up the Google Desktop engine by managing the "drivers" (plugins used to collect searchable data from various file formats.) With Halftone Search, you can significantly increase your "drivers" arsenal. The program ships with several additional drivers. It adds support for all popular archive formats, such as rar, zip, arj, tar, gz, bz2, etc. Halftone Search allows you to search in
archives and extract found compressed files on-the-fly.
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