Top 3 Desktop Search Suites

Over the last few years the concept of "desktop search" has become increasingly popular. Though file-searching has been around since, in recent times this feature has now grown to include not only file indexing, but indexing your email, documents, surfing habits and other activities. Looking to capitalize on this new development, OS makers, Apple and Microsoft, bundle integrated searches in their respective OS' which allow you to search for virtually anything under the sun.

While OS X and Windows Vista come with comprehensive integrated search options, users of older operating systems like Windows XP are left out in the cold. However all is not lost. There are a huge no of freely available desktop search packages, which offer excellent search functionality and other innovative add-ons. In fact there were so many free packages and such good ones, that it made shifting even through the freeware an experience.

Here is a list of the 3 best search suites.

Google Desktop Search

Publisher Google Inc.
FileSize 1781 kb
OS Windows (ALL)
Download 1
Google search for the desktop. Nothing needs to be said beyond those 5 words. An application offering from the company, which put search on the map. Much like the rest of Google’s offerings, this application suite is a polished performer that has a huge no of actually usable features. Apart from your files, it can index your office documents, outlook mails and web surfing history.

This excellent suite apart from its obvious search functionality, also offers a good “widgets” packet. Widgets are little graphical programs, which extend the functionality of your desktop by putting you a click away from commonly needed applications.

Yahoo Desktop Search

Publisher Yahoo
FileSize 7659.52 kb
OS Windows (ALL)
Download 1
Though Yahoo was a late entrant in the desktop search market, it has found quick acceptance among power users. The reason for this is that Yahoo’s search suite is powered by X1 technologies a well known application that has the capability to index over 370 file formats, Outlook mail, Microsoft Office documents and an excellent display interface.

Another great thing about Yahoo’s suite is its integration into its portal services. Unlike the rather jumbled and often confusing services that their competitors offer, Yahoo’s portal services are well defined and easy to use.

Windows Desktop Search

With two of its primary competitors having jumped on to the desktop bandwagon, how could Microsoft be left behind? Windows Desktop Search faced a lot of flak when it came out initially, having been accused of being a system hog, bad document indexing and for being too spartan. However over time it has evolved into a fine application suite that offers great functionality.

This great suite like its competitors, can not only index files and office documents, it offers real time completion of names, good integration with the OS ( but naturally) and even allows you to share search index across a network for finding files that do not reside on your PC. This is the same version that has been built into Windows Vista.

Publisher Microsoft
FileSize 4290 kb
OS Windows (ALL)
Download 1

Apple 30-Inch Cinema HD

Apple 30-Inch Cinema HD

Apple really needs no introduction when it comes to working with big resolutions. This is the current king of LCDs at 30 inches. Its huge size gives it an unequaled working resolution of 2560x1600, with a contrast ratio of 700:1 and a response time of 14ms. An interesting point to note in this monitor, for anyone to work on its native resolution, is that you will need a dual-link DVI card. Without it, the monitor cannot achieve its native resolution.

Another salient feature of this LCD is the fact that despite its size, playing games or watching movies on lower resolutions is actually possible as the monitor offers a wide variety of widescreen resolutions to work with from 1024x640 upwards. In terms of connectivity options, it offers two USB 2.0 hubs, two Firewire ports and a Kensington security port. Priced at Rs. 1,35,000 this monitor is truly for the well-heeled enthusiast.

5 Widescreen HD Monitors :Benq 241W

Benq 241W

Benq monitors are unfortunately not as popular as its counterparts. , Benq’s lack of success in penetrating the Indian market has been its highly ineffective marketing campaigns. This however does not detract them from making excellent monitors, which end up setting the standards for others to follow.

The 241W is Benq’s current flagship mode. It is a 24-inch LCD panel, with a native resolution of 1920x1200 which makes it fully HD compatible. Connectivity-wise, the 241W is like the Swiss-army knife of monitors with its support for HDMI, Component, S-Video and Composite video inputs. With a brightness level of 500:1, a contrast ratio of 800:1 and a response time of 8 ms there is virtually nothing that this monitor cannot handle.

This True-HD capable monitor is available for Rs 49,000. For a more detailed read about this quality product, head on over here.

Viewsonic VG2230WM

Viewsonic VG2230WM

No monitor lineup can ever really be complete, without a Viewsonic being included in it. The VG2230WM is one of their recent releases and as our comprehensive review had shown, is a great VFM product. It has a native resolution of 1680x1050, a great refresh rate of 5ms and a very good contrast ratio of 700:1. What sets it apart from the competition however, is the very adjustable base that houses the monitor. Not only does it allow you to turn the monitor nearly 360 degrees, it sports a height adjustable backbone that allows you adjust the monitor for the perfect viewing angle.

The VG2230WM is now available at Rs. 25,500. For a more detailed read on this great monitor, please check out this link.

5 Widescreen HD Monitors :ACER

5 Widescreen HD Monitors

By: Jayesh Mansukhani | May 12,2007

The last time we had done this roundup, our focus had been purely on the advantages wide-screen monitors offer us. We had also restricted the no of monitors we had featured, due to the immaturity of the market at that point in time to just 3. However a fair bit of time has passed since then. The popularity of widescreen monitors since then has expanded exponentially. This has happened simply due to prices dropping everyday and with the advent of Windows Vista which is optimized for use with widescreen monitors. Keeping all these factors in mind this time round we have decided to expand our list to 5 monitors, to reflect the increased choice and easier availability of these products.

Here is our pick of the 5 best widescreen monitors that are HD compliant and available right now.

Asus MW221

Though Asus is well known for its motherboard and graphic cards, its monitor range has not achieved the same level of brand awareness, due to the cost of their products in India. We had reviewed one of their previous flagship models the Asus PW201 and had found it to be a segment topper, with its great features and amazing picture quality. It however was priced at an exorbitant Rs. 38,000 which put it out of reach of 99 percent of consumers. That price-point also had put it directly in competition, with much larger monitors and totally negated any advantages it might have enjoyed over the competition.

However Asus looks to be changing this state of affairs, with the launch of their latest lineup of widescreen monitors. One such monitor is the MW221, a 22 inch wide-screen monitor with a native resolution of 1680x1050 (16:10 Aspect ratio and 720p compliant) and a fantastic 2ms response time, which will completely eliminate any issues with ghosting of images. Another advantage that the MW221 will enjoy over its competition is its above-average contrast ratio of 700:1 and a brightness level of 300 cd/m2. When you add these features together, you get a monitor that is capable of some very vivid color output with excellent sharpness and clarity and virtually no lag in video.

Priced at Rs. 24,000 the MW221 is one of our top picks for a widescreen monitor today.

Corsair Voyager 16GB

Corsair Voyager 16GB

By: Gaurav Seth | May 03,2007

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Fast Extremely Rugged Highest Capacity Pen Drive There are cheaper and higher capacity options if you want just portable storage, like laptop hard drives.

From USB sticks to MP3 players to memory cards there’s flash memory everywhere. I still remember about 5 years ago, Buffalo had launched its 1GB pen drive in Japan for an Indian equivalent of Rs. 11,000. Now you get the same for 400 rupees! Such is the level of adoption and demand which has risen exponentially over past few years.

We have with us Corsair’s 16 GB pen drive. Corsair falls in to the top tier of memory manufacturers along with being one of the few manufacturers that offer enthusiast level system memory for desktops. 16GB of space on the Corsair drive is the highest available capacity for pen drives. The drive is not only high on storage but is also rugged and splash resistant. Let’s have a closer look.

3 Laptops On An Unlimited Budget

3 Laptops On An Unlimited Budget

Ever since I have joined Tech2 as a technical reviewer, I have had the rare pleasure of reviewing all kinds of laptops ranging from your standard 14.1 inch workhorses to exotic HD-Ready multimedia powerhouses. In many ways it has been like a dream come true, keeping in mind that I have been a tech-head all my life and a laptop fan ever since I laid my eyes on them a few short years ago.

This week instead of picking out 3 laptops from any particular category, I have decided to go in a different direction. The list below represents my wish list of laptops I would love to own. These laptops I think represent the biggest best and fastest machines that are available today. These do not conform particularly to any one category nor are they your standard machines that are available over the counter. These are specialized products and I have chosen them with no budget in mind.

Dell XPS M2010
There are very few words that come to mind to describe this laptop. In fact looking at its LCD size, weight and height I wonder why it is even categorized as a laptop. Designed to be a multi-media power house, the 2010 features a rather large 20-inch LCD panel with a native resolution of 1680x1050. For its core components Dell has equipped this machine with Intel’s most powerful C2D processor the T7600 (2.33 GHz), 2 GB system memory, a mind-boggling 240GB of storage, a Teac based DVD writer with support for all known current generation CD-R formats, 4 USB Slots, a 5-in-1 card slot, DVI and S-Video outputs.

In other innovations, Dell has equipped this powerful laptop with a series of 8 small speakers which are enclosed around the LCD panel and a 2 inch sub-woofer. When you combine this entire setup you get some fantastic and powerful audio playback capabilities. Graphics-wise the laptop does suffer, as it utilizes an ATI based Radon X1800 series GPU, which while not as powerful as Nvidia’s offerings can still run games at highly playable levels. Finally another notable innovation is the inclusion of a Bluetooth wireless keyboard, which allows a user to work in wireless comfort.

There are very few laptops that scale gaming, multimedia and workhorse power as effortlessly as the XPS M2010. Prices for this crazy machine start at US$ 4,500, for a standard base level affair.

Alienware Aurora mALX
If the XPS M2010 is an extreme machine, the Alienware Aurora mALX is over-kill. In fact the specifications power and cost-factor of this laptop reminds me of the saying that became famous with the online comic "Schlock mercenary". The saying goes "There is no overkill. There is only open fire and I need to reload." This saying could not be truer. For starters the Aurora mALX packs in a 2.66GHz AMD Turion 64 ML-44 processor which is not the fastest that is available today, but has plenty of power to run virtually anything that is thrown at it. In terms of system memory, the mALX has 2GB of 400MHz memory which allows just about every game to run without issues. It is in graphics where this laptop begins to resemble overkill. For starters, the mALX packs in a pair of Nvidia GeForce Go 7900 GS GPUs with 512MB of memory on each. The graphical cards are run in SLI mode which brings extreme high-definition gaming to the mobile space. This makes games like F.E.A.R which bring other laptops to their knees run at the laptop’s native resolution very comfortably.

In terms of storage capacity the laptop continues to 'alienate 'the competition'. The mALX contains two 200GB hard drives for a staggering amount of 400 GB that is available to be run in raid zero formation for unbelievably fast performance. The LCD panel on this laptop is a 19” Wide Screen WSXGA with a native resolution of 1680 x 1050. The mALX also packs in a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 sound system which delivers rich sound out of the 4.1 speaker system with the integrated subwoofer. Connectivity the Aurora mALX has everything you can imagine. With 3 USB 2.0 ports, integrated headphone and microphone jacks, a firewire slot and a 4 in 1 memory card reader the laptop is fully ready for expansion via peripherals. Networking is ably handled by the Gigabit, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi modules that are present.

Overall keeping in mind its blistering performance, unbelievable graphics card subsystem and huge LCD panel, the starting price of mALX at US$ 4,600 does not seem out of place.

Toshiba Qosmio G30
Considering the crazy powerhouses I have listed above, the G30 feels almost like a poor country bumpkin in front of an urban crowd. However it is far from that. The G30 is an impressive performer in its own right and this was adequately reflected in the comprehensive review we did on it a few weeks ago.

The G30 comes fully equipped with a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor (T7200), a true HD-Ready 17 inch display panel (1920×1200 res), 320 GB of HDD space (2x160 GB HDDs) and 2 GB of system RAM. Graphics is handled by a NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 GPU with 256MB of memory. Above its powerful specifications this laptop features an HD DVD-ROM drive which is one of the two next-generation true HD media formats.

This laptop is actually available in India with HCL Infosystems for around Rs. 2,00,000.