HACKING TIPS,………,

{ August 24, 2008 @ 1:05 pm } · { hacking tips }

(Note: For the tips in this section, you’ll need Google Desktop, Google‘s free desktop search application. Get it at http://desktop.google.com/)

Change the Location of Your Google Desktop Index

Depending on how many files you have on your PC, the search index Google Desktop creates can get pretty substantial—easily 1GB or more. If you don’t want the index clogging up your main drive, you can easily move it to a different drive. To move it, follow these steps:

1. Exit Google Desktop.
2. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Google Desktop Search, where USERNAME is your user name.
   (Note: Local Settings is a hidden folder, and you might not be able to see it. If you can’t, you can unhide it. To unhide it, In Windows Explorer, choose “Folder options” from the Tools menu. Click the View tab, and under “Hidden files and folders,” click “Show hidden files and folders.” Then click OK.)
3. Move the entire Google Desktop Search Folder to a different drive. You don’t have to replicate the entire original folder path—you could, for example, move it to D:\ Google Desktop Search.
4. Open the Registry Editor by choosing Start->Run, typing regedit, and clicking OK.
5. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Desktop.
6. In the right-hand pane, double-click “data_dir” and change its value to the new location of the Google Desktop index, for example, D:\ Google Desktop Search.
7. Exit the Registry editor.
8. Restart Google Desktop search.

Google Desktop search will function as it normally does, except that the index wil

Google Desktop

Revisit the Past with Google Desktop

Have you ever wished you had a diary of your computing workday—a detailed rundown on every file you opened and saved and when you did it, every Web site you visited and when you visited it, every e-mail you received? Perhaps you need that information because you’re a consultant or get paid by the hour. Or maybe you want to retrieve a file or e-mail, but only remember what day you worked on it or opened it, but not much else about it.

In those cases, you can revisit the past using the Google Desktop’s Browse Timeline feature. This nifty tool will show you, for any day, all the files you opened and saved, the sites you visited, and the e-mail you received, in a minute-by-minute breakdown, as shown in the nearby figure.

To browse your timeline, double-click the Google Desktop icon, and from the screen that appears, click “Browse Timeline.” You’ll be brought to today’s timeline, with your most recent events at the top. (For the Google Desktop, everything is an event—a file, an e-mail, a Web site, and a chat.) To open a file or e-mail, or to visit a Web site, click on it, and it’ll open in your application, browser, or e-mail software. Navigate to earlier parts of the day by clicking “Older” or “Newer.” Jump to different days using the calendar and drop-down list on the right side of the screen.

You can also filter the events, so that you could, for example, only view documents, or e-mails, or Web sites. To do so click “emails,” “files,” “web history,” or “chats” at the top of the window.

The timeline has one drawback: For those who use their PCs frequently (which means most of us), it gets very cluttered, with hundreds of events and files every day. There’s a way to cut through the clutter, though. You can remove any event from the timeline. When you remove an event, you don’t delete the underlying file, e-mail, or whatever. You only remove it from the timeline. To remove events, click “Remove events” on the right side of the screen. All the events shown on your screen will be displayed, with boxes next to them. Check any you want removed, and click “Remove.”

l be in its new location.

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