Google Power Tools Bible

Personalize Google Desktop using the Preferences. No matter how Google Desktop is displayed on your computer, you can always find a menu option or a link that allows you to configure the Desktop Preferences. On the Google bars, launch Preferences from the Option menu button. On the Web browser’s Google bar, click the Preference link on the right side of the search box. Each of these launches the Preferences page.

Preferences are divided in four groups:

• Local Indexing

• Google Account Features

• Display

• Other

Local Indexing

Google Desktop indexes your files and information to make it easy to find answers when you perform a desktop search. Select which types of files you want Google to index on your computer. Local Indexing options allow you to select file types by clicking the option boxes next to the desired file types. Selecting a file type causes Google Desktop to index files of that type.

File types that Google Desktop will index include: Email, Chats, Web history, Media files, Text and other files, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Journal, and Zip Files.

Secure Files

There are two other file types indexed by Google Desktop: Password-protected Office documents (Word, Excel) and Secure pages (HTTPS) in Web history. Password-protected Office documents are Office documents you have previously password protected. Secure pages (HTTPS) are Web pages, for example, a bank page or e-commerce checkout page where you type your credit card number, or other pages containing sensitive information. For security reasons it’s better not to have Google Desktop index HTTPS pages.

Chat Files

Index chat conversations from many of the popular chat programs. This includes Trillian, an instant messenger that is configured to communicate with services such as MSN Messenger, AOL Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and ICQ. Google Desktop adds chats from these programs to its index. When you have Trillian installed and you want to have its files indexed, select the option to add Trillian to the index found in the Indexing Plug-ins section on the Preferences page.

Selecting folders and files to index

The Search These Locations preference allows you to select files, folders, or drives on the network that Google Desktop has not indexed. By default, Google desktop indexes the all the drives on your computer, even external drives, but does not index files, folders, or drives located on other computers shared across a network.

In the Don’t Search These Items preference, you can select which files, folders, or Web sites not to index. Type the Web site address in the box and click Add URL, or click the Add file or folder to exclude link and browse your computer for that file or folder.

Google Desktop can encrypt your index and cache using the Windows Encrypted File System. When you encrypt your index and cache the information is only viewable on your local desktop.

Searching across computers is easy. All you need is a Google Account to have this feature configured on your Google Desktop preferences page. On the Preferences page, select the Google Account Features tab. Select Search Across Computers to activate the remote searching option. You are asked to type the name of the computer where Google Desktop is installed. In future Desktop search results, this computer name is how you will identify the files that are located on this computer within searches across multiple computers. You may also configure which file types are searchable, whether on your local computer or remote computers.

Once the feature is active, perform a search as you would any other Google Search. Simply type the keyword or phrase in the search box and click Search Desktop.

The search results page is almost identical to the Desktop Search results page. The difference is that when Google finds a file located on another computer, you see the name of the computer, in parentheses, on which the file is located. This appears to the right of the link to the file. As the following figure shows, doing a search for backgammon on this network, the first three results came back from a computer called LEU. The rest of the results on the result page came from the local computer.

The first three results came from a remote computer named LEU.

When you select Disable Indexing any new word-processor documents, chats, Web history, and other files that Google Desktop indexes, new files of these types placed on your hard drive will no longer be included in the index, and therefore, will not appear in subsequent searches.

When you perform a desktop search, the results page displays an option to delete items. When your preference is set to Remove Deleted Items, and you choose to delete files displayed in the results, the files are removed from the index and will not appear in future searches of your desktop. The files are not removed from your computer, only the Google Desktop index.

Google accounts and features

Using a Google account to save your Google Desktop preferences enables you to access the Google Desktop gadgets on other computers in the same manner as they are installed on your primary computer. There are three Desktop preferences you can set in your Google Account:

• Gmail: Configure indexing of your Gmail account. Indexing your e-mail allows you to easily search for information stored in e-mail messages using Google Desktop search.

• Save my Google Gadgets Content and Settings: The settings and information for your gadgets are saved in your Google account. When you access the Google Desktop on another computer your gadgets will operate using previously set preferences. For example, you can access a note that you saved using the Scratch Pad on your computer at home from a remote computer. Also your stocks, to-do list, news, and other saved items are available remotely.

• Search Across Computers: Google can index more than one more computer and assign those computers to your account. Google securely transfers your index into Google Desktop Servers so you can search these locations from any computer using your Google account. When Search Across Computers is enabled, additional preferences become available. You can change the name that appears on your computer and on other computers. You can also configure which file types are searchable between computers.

Display Preferences

In the display group of preferences, you can set preferences for the following:

• Search Box: Select how to display Google Desktop on your computer. The options are Sidebar, Deskbar, Floating Deskbar, and None.

• Quick Search Box: Enables or disables Quick Search Box. You can also have the Quick Search Box appear all the time on the desktop behind any open windows.

• Default Search Type: Choose which type of search your Google Desktop boxes perform when you press Enter. Choose among Search the Web, Search Desktop, I’m Feeling lucky, Search Images, Search Groups, Search News, Search Froogle, Search Maps, and Change on Each Search.

• Taskbar Gadgets Button: You have the option to set how Google appears in your computer taskbar - icon and text, icon only - to have easy access to your gadgets. You can choose not to have anything displayed.

• Quick Find: Enable or disable Quick Find and set how Quick Find interacts with your search. The preferences you can set are: Search text inside documents and e-mail messages (it will look for your keyword or phrase within documents and e-mails) and Show spelling correction (Quick Find has a built-in spelling check to help you with your search). Also, select how many results Quick Find returns (from 1 to 10). There are two other options that you can select. When you press Enter after typing text in the search box, you can have Google Desktop either do a search (the default) or open a program or file that Quick Find located. For example, when you select Launch Programs/Files, by default, when you type minesweeper and press Enter, the Minesweeper game opens. If you select Search, by default, when you press Enter Google performs a search on minesweeper.

• Number of Results: Sets how many results per page you want Google to display. Choose from 10, 20, 30, 50, or 100.

• Google Integration: If you want Google to show your Desktop Search results even when doing a Web search, select this option.

Setting the Advanced Features

There is a single Advanced Features preference option. Find it located beneath the Other link. When you enable Advanced Features, you send information to Google about how you are using Google Desktop, what other programs you use, and which Web pages you visit. Google uses this information to personalize your Sidebar (for example, your News) and also to improve Google Deskbar with new features.

Google Desktop sends only non-personal data. This means that information such as your bank account number or credit card numbers are never sent to Google. You can feel safe having this feature enabled. To learn more about Google Privacy and Protection policy see http://desktop.google.com/en/privacypolicy.html.