While big closets are great for storing lots of stuff, they also can make it a pain to find that one particular thing you're actually looking for. So it is with the huge hard drives in today's PCs, where prized E-mails and photos get buried under tons of digital junk.
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In the past, scouring a PC's files has usually meant committing hundreds of dollars and a lot of time to complicated software. Now the new X1 Search ($100 at www.x1.com) offers a less expensive and easier program that does the job quickly, though with limits.
Think Google for your personal data: X1 builds an index of just about every word on your hard drive. Finding something is as simple as calling up X1 and typing a few keywords. It works remarkably fast, nearly instantaneously, because it isn't searching the files themselves but the X1 index of your files instead. Some of the program's authors helped write Lotus Magellan, a similar program that dates to the pre-Windows era. Now at X1 Technologies in California, they wanted another fast program, naming it after the first piloted craft to break the sound barrier. And, uh, they add, their X1 breaks the "found barrier." (So witty, these tech guys are.)
Anyway, now it's possible to quickly find that elusive E-mail with Grandpa's chokecherry jelly recipe or the database with 1992's profit figure. X1 can search 255 different file types–including spreadsheets, graphics files, and of course E-mail. But there are thousands of file formats out there, so X1 is going to miss some things. For example, I use a program called Act to keep phone numbers and addresses, and X1 so far searches only Microsoft Outlook contact books. X1 also only indexes text that's inside, or associated with, graphics files. No program is yet smart enough to find a photo of Aunt Theresa unless you've assigned it an "Aunt Theresa" title or keyword.
And the program looks through E-mails, files, attachments, or contacts separately, so a search might take four tries if you can't remember how something's stored. Another flaw: There's no searching for a phrase, only individual keywords, which makes it harder to narrow your hunt. X1's makers say they'll fix some of these shortcomings in future releases, including one expected in a matter of months.
They don't apologize, however, for the price, which I think is still a bit steep for many consumers. You can download a 15-day trial version. And it's still cheaper and easier to use than alternatives, including dtSearch and Enfish, which both sell for $200. But if X1 works for you, be ready to add the cost of more hard drives; you will have lost a key incentive to clean out the old ones.
