Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Google (Almost) Really Pissed Me Off

My computer restarted yesterday. If I had been running Windows 3.1 or--heaven forbid--ME, a restart would have been no surprise. But I'm using a stripped down version of XP that I keep very clean. Restarts are uncommon. After a long bootup I learned why: freakin' Google Desktop.

The refreshed Google Desktop looks great but one thing really irritated me. The Scratchpad (on which I do a lot of writing and note taking) had been wiped. And I hate losing notes. I was thinking of how to complain and rant and skewer Google as a machine for world domination when I found a mysterious little file called "scratchpad-20070814-220233.txt". Sure enough, it was the cache of my old scratch pad. The irony, of course, is that Google Desktop couldn't actually find it because it doesn't index hidden system files. Instead, I had to rely on good ole' Windows search. It's slow but it did what needed to be done!