Google Talk

Google Talk is a Google instant messenger. It’s quite small (900K), very simple, and uses HTML+Javascript+CSS+XML. But I’m yet to figure out it it has any cool features. Quick review at DownloadSquad. Comments Prasenjeet 24 Aug 2005 12:53 pm: Not sure about the HTML/JS/CSS … looks like a tightly-written Win32 app to me S Anand 24 Aug 2005 2:07 pm: Oh, is it? Looked quite like a web page to me… will check out. Dhar 25 Aug 2005 12:08 pm: I tried out the voice chat. Leaving comparisons aside (as I have not used Skype), the sound quality was amazing. It was almost as if the person was in the room with me. Other than that, no cool features. :( S Anand 25 Aug 2005 1:35 pm: Probably thanks to all the fiber optic bandwidth they’re supposed to have purchased. But I wonder how. Dhar 26 Aug 2005 1:57 am: Finally got it working at home and tried exploring various features. At the end of the process, realized there are hardly _any_ features. Will take it some time to catch up with features of clients like Yahoo Messenger. jayant 27 Aug 2005 9:21 am: I guess it is better with less features. Thin client is all about that. Less download time. More functionality which avg users click more. Voice quality is great if both parties are using broadband. On dial up, it comes with bit of lag and some echo. Dhar 9 Sep 2005 3:42 pm: Anand, had some thoughts on where Google Talk may really be headed. Have put a rough outline here.

Google Desktop Search 2

I installed Google Desktop Search 2. The best part is “search as you type”. It also introduces a sidebar showing e-mail, RSS feeds, news, photos, popular searches, etc. The indexing is much faster too. (I take that back. Indexing is as slow as ever.) Comments Sumeer 24 Aug 2005 5:15 am: I am installing the same. Yet to use it khjk 24 Aug 2005 9:44 am: nice one Aditya Chaturvedi 25 Aug 2005 9:50 am: Yes Indexing is very slow. when working i had to stop Google desktop. S Anand 25 Aug 2005 10:21 am: I did the same. But fortunately, it’s finished indexing within 48 hours (with lots of breaks).

Folder Size

Folder Size lets you see the size of folders in Windows Explorer.