Noggle: search the content of all your files

I previously wrote about how two Desktop Search programs, Lookeen and X1 Search) miserably failed me and recommended a little free program called “Everything” to quickly find any file on your computer. I use it everyday and rarely use the Windows Explorer anymore to locate a file.

But there is one limitation with Everything: Setting it up so that it also searches the contents of your files is not easy and when you have it set up and it finds a file based on a search term it contains, it still won’t tell you where in the file you can find the term. You will have to open the file and do another search within the file.

Not a big deal, you may say, but a couple of weeks ago, I discovered Noggle and I’d like to encourage you to try it out (and report back here, if you like). I have not yet used it enough to give a final verdict, but I looks like it pretty much beats any other desktop search program I’ve tried. And: it’s free for non-commercial use.

Unfortunately, the UI diverges a lot from the standard Windows experience so that you’ll have to experiment amd try stuff out a bit. I suppose you get used to it after a while.

UPDATE 13 january 2019: On my computer, Noggle hast started to use loads of CPU power while indexing seems to have gotten stuck.

UPDATE: 19 february 2019: I mentioned earlier that Noggle may have become abandonware because I had difficulties getting a response from their support. While support later did get back to me and we managed to get rid of the high CPU issue, but I’m still unsure about whether Noggle is still being actively developed. I anyone knows more, please comment below.

Which cloud? Dropbox vs. SugarSync

I think I should add dropbox to my list of good applications. Obviously, the qualities of dropbox are not a secret, but I have been using it now for a couple of months and I have no reason to complain about it (and I like to complain!). If you’d like to try dropbox for free and get an extra 250 MB on top of the 2GB free storage space, use this link (it will also give me 250 MB extra).

But now to the main point of this post: I just spent some time reading about other cloud storage services, and found that SugarSync is actually a serious alternative to dropbox. Check out this really excellent review by Jack Busch (see also the recent comparison by Matt Smollinger)! And note that the SugarSync bonus program has been extended until the end of March 2011 31 May 2011, so if you use this link to try it out, we’ll both get 500 MB extra free.

Personally, I have yet to try out SugarSync in practice, but it looks like I will be using both: Dropbox to sync my daily work and frequently used files (because of dropbox’s speed and 30 days undo history) and SugarSync for my large pdf library (because of the larger free space and cheaper upgrade option) and other files that are rarely changed but that I still want to be accessible anywhere (Sugarsync’s fee plan only gives you access to the last two versions of a file).

P.S. If you are  also annoyed by dropbox only syncing what’s in the dropbox folder, check out the option to sync any folder – as it were – by using symlinks. One big advantage of Sugarsync is that you can choose any folder to be synced (no need to put them into the dropbox folder).

http://db.tt/0vZ8NN5