Tag Archives: searching

Testing Wolfram|Alpha

May 19th, 2009

It seems that since the launch of Wolfram|Alpha people are generally testing it rather than using it. Although, I’m willing to bet, there are people out there that are using this amazing service for doing actual research and are finding it altogether indispensable already.

Dave Winer tested it on a Friday night. He ran some pretty interesting tests ranging from a vanity search to queries about movies. His queries were interesting but I don’t think they are inline with what Wolfram|Alpha was built for. His searches were just that, searches. They weren’t comparisons, questions, or equations of any kind. While Wolfram|Alpha is perfectly capable of letting you know what 2001: A Space Odyssey is – it does a much better job at telling you how much money the movie made at the box office, or the weather the night the movie was released.

Amber Simmons decided to try to make Wolfram|Alpha fail by asking it some questions that she’s wondered about since childhood. Her results surprised her.

When I initially tested Wolfram|Alpha it was immediately after I had watched the screencast explaining what Wolfram|Alpha was built to do. I did a comparison search on Viddler and Brightcove, a search to figure out my ideal body weight, and one to figure out how many calories I’ll burn running that 5K every other day.

The jury is still out on how I will use Wolfram|Alpha but I do not underestimate its abilities nor it’s teams abilities to adapt the tool for nearly anything you need. I’m very much looking forward to the future of this product.

Tags, the way Apple should have done it

February 27th, 2009

I’m a little late to the game in mentioning this application – as it has made its rounds around the Mac-Web a while back – but I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to link to it and let you know my thoughts. Right?

Tags UI

I’m a tagging freak. I believe tags are the best way to help organize data into miscellaneous piles of information. It gives us a non-hierarchical (that isn’t a word, is it?) way that we can search for things later. Yes, I’ve read Dave Weinberger‘s book Everthing is Miscellaneous. I told you; tagging freak.

Apple has, in their own way, provided support for tagging in Mac OS X. They have a field in their metadata for files called “Spotlight comments”. Or, ‘the words you’d like to use to search for this file using Spotlight’. So if I have a document that, for whatever reason, is about my cats Pickles and Pookers but – somehow – does not mention them inside of the file by name or in the filename itself, I can add “Pickles Pookers” to the Spotlight comments area and presto! – I can search Spotlight for either of their names and find the file.

Magic.

Tags, on the other hand, adds a certain UI to this process that I think Apple should have done from the very beginning. From inside of any Applescript-enabled application (which is a lot of applications) you can invoke a UI to help you add some tags to that file. You can do this in Mail.app, Finder, inside of iPhoto, and even on bookmarks within Safari. Then, you can do specific searches in Spotlight later for those tags. The screencast on the home page for Tags does a good job of explaining what the application does and what it allows you to accomplish.

Source: Tags | Overview.

Search Google Docs and Bookmarks with Spotlight using Precipitate

August 5th, 2008

Even though I don’t like Spotlight’s window in Leopard as much as I did the one in Tiger, I still use Spotlight extensively to launch applications, find files and directories, and search through documents, email messages, instant messages, and much more.

However, more and more data is being stored “in the cloud” and so Spotlight sometimes needs to learn new tricks to keep up with the times.  Google Docs is a perfect example of cloud computing/storage.  I use it for personal documents that I need to collaborate with people on and Viddler uses it every single day.

Google’s Precipitate “… lets you search for and launch the information you have stored in the cloud from within Spotlight or Google Desktop for Mac”.  Essentially it does something I’ve always wanted to do; create a simple file and link it to the Web.  Spotlight indexes the file’s information, but the link opens a browser ((Now I just need to force Spotlight to open these links in Fluid.app and I’d be all set.)).

Give it a spin!

Source: precipitate – Google Code.

Leopard wish list – Part four: Finder

November 16th, 2006

My wish list for the Finder is not as extensive as other’s will be. Partly because I do not have as many complaints about the Finder as I’ve seen long-time Mac users have – particularly those you came from OS 7, 8, and/or 9.

Fixes

As I said, my list of fixes will be pretty short.

An unlimited number of labels would be where I’d start. If you open your preferences in Finder you have a Labels area that gives you a selection of 7 colors that you can change the names of, to fit the label. I use this feature rather sparingly so I can actually get what I need labeled within the 7-label-limit – however why is this a limitation at all? Why not have a quick + button that lets you select a color, name the label, and you are off to the races. Perhaps it has to do with people deleting labels that scares Apple from including such a feature.

Saved searches are currently the only folders that allow you to view things “like Spolight” windows show files. By kind, date, etc. If you create a smart folder you can see a new view button at the top – but yet you can not view those on other folders. I think it’d be neat to have that view across the system, not just within saved searches.

Keyword autocomplete when doing a keyword search is really annoying. If you do a search within Finder, then click + and add a Keyword filter – Finder will load your list of keywords from your entire system (including those in iPhoto). On my Macbook it took about 20 seconds to do this (good ole’ beachball meantime), and then it autocompleted anything I typed. Instead of being able to type in partial names (i.e. Paul), it forced me to search for a specific Paul. Here’s the annoying part, I have 7 people that I know with the first name of Paul, and 8 that I know with the last name of Paul. Turn the autocomplete off.

DMG mounts should not automatically be opened with the finder in “collapsed mode”. I am not sure where to throw the blame here – if it is Apple, the developer who packaged the DMG, or something that I’ve set on my system. But I have never once wanted to keep Finder in collapsed view since I will eventually have to drag the application into my applications folder to install it.

Feature requests

There is a lot of hoopla about having tabs and other various things, but I’m not sure I’m on board with that yet.

Better media browsing when you are viewing a folder filled with images, movies, or audio. Right now if I’m viewing a directory full of JPGs I can view it in thumbnail (or tile) view, and then open my preferences and bump up the size of the thumbnails. But why not an iPhoto like slider for this type of thing? Why not have a quick way to sort by date, kind, or keyword?

Apple should start taking some of the functionality back out of the applications that it creates and start putting those features into the operating system. Make it just as easy to find a photo in Finder as it is to do in iPhoto.

Final thoughts

See, that wasn’t so bad. I’m sure the improvements to Finder in Leopard will be pretty broad. Not only because of the amount of criticism that has flew – but also because there will be new features that it needs to support (such as Time Machine).

I’m not sure I want to see it change too much though – and if it becomes anything as bloated as Path Finder I may just have to revolt!

Note: Be sure to check out other parts of my Leopard wish list listed below:

  1. Part one: Safari
  2. Part two: Mail
  3. Part three: iChat
  4. Part three: Finder

[tags]finder, macintosh, apple, mac os x, osx, leopard, wish list, iphoto, keywords, searching[/tags]
[slug]leopard-wishes-pt4-finder[/slug]