Google extends search tentacles

Log On has been enjoying the delights of Google's Desktop Search (GDS) for several weeks and can happily report it improves immensely on the dog-slow piss-poor effort built into Windows.

Though it can take hours to build its database initially, once up to date, GDS can find files not only by name but also by peeking into their contents (or least that of Word documents, web pages and e-mails anyway). You'll never lose a file again. Probably.

The slight (make that big) flaw is that it can't do partial file name searches. So if you can't remember the exact name of a document, you're screwed. Nor for some reason will it find folders. How odd.

Now GDS is coming to the Mac in the near future and though the Mac's search tool already does a much better job than the dopey bloodhound in Windows, Google's algorithms will probably be smarter in the long run.

The upcoming version of the Mac OS - due for release early next year - is slated to build in a super-duper turbo-charged search function while Windows' long-overdue overhaul of its search technology still seems at least two years down the line.