Google and desktops and index oh my!

My coworkers have all heard me rant and rave about how handy Google Desktop is. (http://desktop.google.com)

It's fast. It searches INSIDE a myridad of files. It's saved my bacon a number of times. When my wife couldn't find a grocery comparison matrix she'd laboriously constructed (by visiting 6 different stores and pricing 25-40 "staple" items...) we just did a quick search on "Winco" "flour" and "price" and POOF! it was just there. I was a hero. (thank you google desktop team!)

(see, it really did "save my bacon"! Get it? Bacon..groceries...)

(Nevermind.)

It does, however, have one small shortcoming. A small, glaring, obnoxiously hubristic shortcoming.

In short, it doesn’t reindex. That’s right – as you ADD new stuff (emails, bookmarks, web surfing, files) to your system, it’ll index those yessiree.

But if you move or rename a file, you’re out of luck. It won’t find it. This is especially annoying on the occasions I use it to find email. My email rarely stays put as I move messages around according to some GTD principles.

Google Desktop seems to take the jedi philosophy towards reindexing.
"You don't need to see an option to reindex...these aren't the files you're looking for...just go about your business..."

In short ~ rename or move ANYthing and your search results are suddenly useless.

Lookout for Outlook overcame this problem by providing an option to reindex on a configurable schedule. Unfortunately, my Lookout toolbar has disappeared and refuses to come back. Very sad.

(back to GDS)

All is not lost!

Thanks to the wonder of TweakGDS, you can manually update, index, or reindex everything. Set it to run via the windows scheduler, and you can even have your index fresh, hot, and steamingly new every morning. (or however often you choose to run it.)

TweakGDS – just index it.

http://www.podsync.com/tweakgds.htm


Disclaimer:
Aaron is in no way attached to, profiting from, or otherwise gaining positive compensation from TweakGDS in any way, shape, or form. Except for, ya know, positive karma thrown off from spreading warm and squishy goodness to the masses. And a correspondingly lower therapist bill. But that’s all.

I coulda had a v8...!

Ever have an epiphany on steriods? A genuine V8 forehead slapper. What David Allen refered to as "BFO* Moments".

(*Blinding Flash of the Obvious)

The meteor struck earlier today.

It was an otherwise unremarkable day. I'm typing along, working through a bunch of c# tutorials. They're pretty basic (which the author stated), but I figured that it wouldn't hurt me to review the basics, and I'd still learn a bit along the way. (if nothing else, the "duh!" IDE tricks were worth it) So here I am, listening half way to this guy's OO overview, and I decide to change tracks.

I begin thumbing through Head First Design Patterns, and start to review their first example. (the Duck one) And I start to get excited. "hey!", I think to myself, "I think I actually sorta understand this!"

Pause the dude in the video.

Whip up a new project.

Start typing. Now, the examples in the book are java, but they're close enough to C# that I get the idea.

(work with me, I'm slow getting to the point. But I'll get there. I promise.)

Type. Recompile. Wtf? Interface? Hmm... Google "c# interface". Ah. Crud. Still no dice.

In the end it didn't work. "Crap!" says I.

And then the BFO hits.

About a year ago, I started taking a martial art.

(we're almost to that point I was talking about...not long now...)

It has been something I've wanted to do since I was young enough to still be awed with really bad martial arts shows.

Now, I'm 32 year and just (ever-so-slightly, mind you) starting to creak. I had no illusions about pulling off the reverse-flying-dragon-pull-a-rabbit-out-of-your-butt-
and-beat-the-guy-to-death kick.

At least not right off.

I walked into the dojo expecting to look silly. Fall down a lot. To be a complete goof.*** I gave myself permission to enjoy the process. Rather then walking out of the dojo every time wondering "when am I gonna get that black belt?!" Which, of course, would do absolutly nothing for my yin, yang, or happy ki.

See what I'm getting at? I knew in one area of my life that expertise would take time. To expect that a few weeks/months of training will equal expertise would be ludicrous in karate. To expect a "tech professional" to learn the ins and outs of a programming language and be super-proficient in a few months is equally ridiculous.

Even the almighty Joel Spolsky points out that his expertise is hard won and the product of years of experience.

This may not be news to you. If so, I bow (in proper style) to you. You have self awareness and wisdom that this grasshopper is but beginning to catch a glipse.

(Maybe that's why it was a bfO...)

***I succeeded wildly. For weeks.

Things to be vaguely anxious about

Now now, don't go thinking that I'm going to turn this blog into my own, personal tupperware 'o neurosis. (It's not like you have enough of your own neurosis. I'm sure you want to share mine.)

In the name of "doing it right", there are a few things I want covered as I begin tutoring myself in development. It's almost like I know a bunch of the "best practices", but I've just never implimented them. Well, all of them. At once. For a single project.

Lessee...

• Source Control - How do I get this nifty Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition IDE to integrate nicely with subversion? (or am I stuck with doing the _svn thing with TortoiseSVN..?) Is there a "better" choice then svn? (keep in mind we want to do auto building and unit tests) The "new" visual source safe? (now now, keep the tomatos to yourself, I'm just asking..!!)


• Unit Testing - I've rolled my own unit testing in some perl development (yes, I know there are cpan modules to make it easier), but...what tool is the "best" for doing unit testing in C#? (equiv. of JUnit for java...) Pitfalls?


• Automated Build & reporting - Need to integrate those unit tests into an automated build framework. Build,test,report. (what is it..ant for java? .net equiv?)


• DB integration with the above. How to version the database and include it's versioning, rebuilding, and loading with data as part of the unit test process. I came across a wonderful doc a while back but I neglected to bookmark it. Bad me, bad, bad me!

That's all I can think of for now. Ok, now that the checklist is created I can get on to real work...(see, I told you I was being neurotic. =^)   )

Quickie

No, I'm not dead, but feb wasn't kind. (barfing flu going around, you know...)

Lesseee...still thinking about "Why the Zire 72 is the best possible, most excellent, and ultimate pinnacle of GTD-PDA'ness. With a few possible nitpicks."

Idly musing on why I'm still pondering teaching myself C# instead of doing it. Fear of failure, fear of not having inspiration, fear of not "finishing what I begin",fear of "doing it wrong", fear of looking back at my previous efforts and chuckling over the childishness of them. Hmm. Fear fear fear...

That's pretty damn dysfunctional. I mean, do I _really_ expect myself to become an expert overnight? (yes) Never make any mistakes? (well, just a few) Immediately obtain the insight and grasp complex concepts as the ineffable Don Box? (uhh..sure)

Once again I'm brought face to face with my own misguided and unspoken assumptions that fly so wildly in the face of reality, you'd think I was living in my own little world. Come to think of it, I probably AM living in my own little world. (bit cramped. But it's little, after all..)

Anyway. I'm recognizing that I need to put some serious effort into one or the other dev environments in order to internalize some stuff. Use it daily for a month or two (or three or 12). Elsewise I'm relearning basics every time I turn around. C...C++...perl...I've done more then "hello world" with all, but still haven't gotten enough miles on the odometer. Still reaching for the users manual. Where was that gearshift again?

I love perl, but it's...well...not very marketable if you want to change your vogue to development. C and C++ are both much more mainstream, but I just...can't...bring myself to manually twiddle with strings. And pointers. So I guess I'm not A+ "real developer" material. Not "hard core" enough.

Geez. How does one reconcile that with "but I love to build things!" ?!!

"Oh yeah. I wanna be a MEDIOCRE programmer! I wanna be a pantiewaiste thistledown can't-cut-the-mustard typea guy!"

Maybe I need to recognize that:
1.) these are their opinions
2.) my value as a person isn't tied to what I do. (oooh!! squishy psychological interlude!)
3.) this is my life, my path, and if I'm happy building with legos vs. industrial CNC machines, then so be it!
4.) there are folks out there who have done truly amazing things with prebuild frameworks and "easy" languages.

What it boils down to is that I need to get off MY butt and do what I find interesting. If it "changes the world" does not really matter. Does it satisfy me? Is my curiosity piqued enough that I love doing it?

And who knows, I might - just might - bump up against the edges and decide I need to learn a "real" language...