For Mac users,Spotlight is a valuable tool that can be used to perform system-wide search, but it is not perfect. HoudahSpot is a Spotlight replacement that not only performs faster but also includes a raft of additional options to make searching for files even easier. Downgraded to 4.4.2 from 5.08, slow search results and low contrast image previews. Started by bander in HoudahSpot Support: I haven't been getting good search results from HS5. The search results are very slow and the image previews are not showing up correctly.
Your search, your way
Desktop Search allows you to search your computer files & emails. It is designed to find the most relevant information on your PC, including Office files, Outlook emails & attachments, text documents and multimedia files. As a standalone application, it creates a keyword map (index) to unlock unstructured data. Instead of investing in a large & expensive enterprise search solution, a desktop search is a quick & easy installation to increase your productivity while being extremely secure. The Desktop Search is offered on a yearly subscription so that our clients always get the latest and newest features as soon as it is available.
While attending the Mac Power Users session at TechShow in March, renowed Mac-using attorney Randy Juip discussed Spotlight.1 For those of you unfamiliar with Spotlight, it is one of the great reasons to own a Mac. Released with OS X 10.4 Tiger in 2005, it is a system-wide, real-time search function built directly into every modern Mac.
At its most basic, clicking on the magnifying glass in the top right corner of your menu bar, Spotlight lets you search your files by numerous criteria.2 When you begin typing, Spotlight instantly narrows matches as you continue typing. Spotlight searches by file name, metadata, and even file contents. It searches your documents, emails, addressbook, and calendar items. Spotlight can even launch applications and perform simple math. If you’re not using Spotlight yet, it’s an excellent way to speed up your file access.
Having said that, you may quickly run up against Spotlight’s usability limits. By making this feature so approachable, Apple hid much of Spotlight’s power.3 Fortunately for Spotlight fans, a third party program has stepped into the gap. Houdah Software created HoudahSpot, which approachably exposes the full capabilities Apple built into Spotlight. HoudahSpot’s easy access to Spotlight’s complete functionality makes Spotlight a topflight stand-in for legal document management on the Mac.4
Why is that important? As I joked to an older friend at a technophobic law firm, the future of storage is not in bankers’ boxes. If you’re not making a strong, successful effort to go paperless in your law practice, you’re wasting time (searching for documents), space (storing documents), and ultimately money. Either you’re wasting billable hours handling paper or you’re paying subordinates or offsite companies to do it for you. HoudahSpot lets you take scanned documents and access last year’s client matters as quickly as yesterday’s.5
When you launch HoudahSpot, a main application window opens, as well as menubar item called “BlitzSearch”. The main application window should be familar to anyone who has created a Smart Playlist in iTunes. The lefthand side of the program divides a search into “What”, “Where”, “Exclude”, and “Limit”.
The “What” section asks for details about the file(s) you’re looking for: name, text content, tags, and last modified. These are the default options, probably familar to Spotlight users, but you can add literally dozens more; everything from actors in a movie 6 to the aperture of a photo, to the number of pages in a document. The “Where” section lets you specify folders or any drive the Finder can mount. With “Exclude”, you can eliminate any sub-folder from the folder or drive you selected in “Where”. Finally, “Limit” controls the number of results and the criteria that controls the results’ cap.7
Houdahspot 3 9 4 – Advanced File Search Tool Free
Once you have used these tools to create a search for, say, “Word documents containing ‘summary judgment’ tagged as relevant for the ’6th Circuit”, last modified within one year,” then you can save that search like you would an iTunes Smart Playlist. The next time you need to draft an MSJ or response for a 6th Circuit case, it’s easy to pull up the relevant past documents.
Houdahspot 3 9 4 – Advanced File Search Tools
In additon to this main application window, HoudahSpot includes the BlitzSearch menubar item that can be configured to launch at startup. Clicking on this icon brings up a search window. The default function of BlitzSearch is not much different than Spotlight. Where it shines is if you use the main HoudahSpot application to create a search template, which could be as simple as saving the 6th Circuit search I described above as a template. Then, by clicking on the BlitzSearch icon, and selecting the “6th Circuit” template and typing §1983 into the box, you do a deeper search for “Word documents containing ‘summary judgment’ tagged as relevant for the ’6th Circuit, that also mention §1983.” The advantage here is quicker, any-time acess that is easier than creating HoudahSpot saved searches for each specific need. It’s this sort of functionality that is impossible in Spotlight out-of-the-box.
The final, major way to access and use HoudahSpot is the HoudahSpot Tray. With either the main HoudahSpot application or the BlitzSearch menubar item running, just guide your cursor over to the lefthand side of the screen. Up pops the Tray. You can double-click to launch searches based on tenplates you have created or tags you have applied to documents.8
Overall, HoudahSpot adds tons of functionality to a core Mac OS X technology and fully fleshes out the promise of Spotlight. I highly recommend it as part of your paperless office strategy. HoudahSpot is available directly from the Houdah website for $30 for a one-seat license or $45 for five seats.9
Houdahspot 3 9 4 – Advanced File Search Tool Harbor Freight
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