bruceb news

Previously:
Windows 7 Search
More About Windows 7 Search
Windows 7 Searches – Small Business
Windows 7 Searches – Libraries
Windows 7 Searches – Search Techniques

SUMMARY: Once you have some experience with Windows 7 searches, Mark Minasi has some tips for power users here.

Old Windows XP computers are falling over left and right, meaning every day people are being exposed to Windows 7 for the first time. One of its most important features for small businesses and law firms is the pervasive inclusion of indexed searches throughout the system. You can search for everything – the programs are indexed, your files are indexed (file names and all the words inside every file), your email is indexed, the metadata in music files about artist and album is indexed, the tags in your photos with the names of your children are indexed – every word is living in an index that’s created and maintained in a quiet, efficient way. […] continued

Previously:
The Problem Of Saving Email

Inspired by Small City Law Firm Tech
Saving Email – It’s Just the Right Thing To Do (Outlook – All Versions)
Simply the Best, Better than All the Rest – Saving Email in an Acrobat Pro Package

Email can be gathered on an ongoing basis into a single PDF file for each case. If a law firm or business puts together a system to save email regularly and convinces everyone to use it, the result is an up to date collection of all the communications relating to a case or project, gathered into a single file that is searchable and sortable, stored with the other related documents and scans for that case. […] continued

Inspired by Small City Law Firm Tech
Saving Email – It’s Just the Right Thing To Do (Outlook – All Versions)
Simply the Best, Better than All the Rest – Saving Email in an Acrobat Pro Package

There is no easy way to gather all of the emails related to a case from all the mailboxes in a small law firm. I have studied this problem endlessly and there is no magic answer. I’m going to suggest one very appealing possibility, though, courtesy of the lovely Vivian Manning, who gave me an “Ah hah!” moment last week.

It is the holy grail for law offices, or small businesses of any kind: gathering all the information about a case or project in a single folder on the server, all the documents and scanned mail and email messages, so anyone can come up to speed on all documents and communication in a single place. […] continued

Eli Pariser gave a fascinating talk at TED this year with some new information about online searches. It’s well worth nine minutes of your time. Here’s the link to the video if it doesn’t appear above.

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook – all of them are working very hard to show you things that are precisely designed for you. What you don’t know is just how far that’s progressed. It’s already gotten to the point that a page of Google search results for you might be completely different than the results for someone else who searches for exactly the same thing at the same time. […] continued

Previously:
Enable Outlook 2010 Search And Indexing On Windows 7

I love my new Samsung Series 9 laptop even more now that I have finally put to rest the arcane issue that I described here.  I’ll put down some geeky details for people who might stumble on this in a Google search. The rest of you can go back to work – this isn’t for you.

When the Samsung Series 9 is shut down and restarts, the Windows Search service startup is set to “Disabled.” Although it also shows “Started,” in fact it is not functioning.

If the service is stopped, set to “Automatic (Delayed),” and restarted, it behaves normally until the system is shut down again. […] continued

I fixed a problem today with Outlook 2010 that has never come up before and won’t have any relevance to any of you. This description may help someone who finds it in a Google search – and it will serve as yet another illustration of how our lives are getting more complicated, not less, as time goes on.

SUMMARY: If searches do not work in Outlook 2010 on Windows 7, make sure the Windows Search and Indexing Service features are turned on. The COM addin mssphtb.dll (“Windows Search Email Indexer”) is not required by Outlook 2010 and is intentionally disabled.

[…] continued

Previously:
Google Spam
Google Spam – Google Responds

If you are interested in Search Engine Optimization and the business of running web sites, the New York Times has published a must-read article, “The Dirty Little Secrets Of Search.” The paper launched an investigation to discover why JC Penney was ranking number one in Google search results for dozens of words or phrases – “dresses,” “bedding,” “area rugs,” and many more. For months – running through the holiday shopping season – a search for “Samsonite carry on luggage” would show Penney first on the list, ahead of Samsonite.com.

The Times unfolds the story like a thriller, right down to an expensive dinner with the owner of a black-hat SEO company who won’t disclose his real name and speaks “in an animated hush, like a man worried about eavesdroppers.”

Here’s the way the NYT describes the dark side of SEO:

.

[…] continued

Previously:
Searching All Mail In Outlook
Search Tools In Outlook 2010

It’s my pleasure to introduce you to Vivian Manning, IT Manager at Ontario law firm Burgar Rowe. In her blog, Small City Law Firm Tech, she’s writing articles stuffed with practical information about the programs you use every day – for anyone using a computer to get a job done, not just for lawyers. You should have it in your RSS reader or Favorites list!

Vivian is currently writing a series of articles about how to manage Outlook more effectively – an overview yesterday, and a lavishly illustrated article today about how to use Outlook Search Folders. […] continued

Previously: Google Spam

Although there had been many articles about the declining quality of Google search results in the last few weeks, Google finally issued its first official response within eight hours after my post last night. Coincidence? Well, I report, you decide, let’s leave it at that.

Google’s response comes from Matt Cutts, Principal Google Engineer, on Google’s official blog. it’s interesting reading. Boiled down to its essence, he says:

• This isn’t a big problem. Google search results are the best they’ve ever been. It’s all a big misperception.
• We’re fixing it anyway.

He describes, in typically vague Google fashion, a few different areas that Google is trying to get under control: “spam on individual web pages, e.g., repeated spammy words—the sort of phrases you tend to see in junky, automated, self-promoting blog comments”; and actions to demote content farms delivering low-level or non-original content. […] continued

Google search results are becoming less useful. Have you noticed?

I started thinking about this last fall, when I noticed that most of the Google alerts coming into my mailbox led to spam sites – sites with no real content other than random snippets vacuumed up from around the web and surrounded by advertising.

Then I started to notice search results that included a lot of fluff – sites listed high in the search results with lots of advertising but no real content. At first it was just a small irritation, but I started to recognize the seeds of a real problem. […] continued