Update Fail - And a Kewl Tewl

OK, so I planned on actually posting on this thing once in a while. Turns out I'm not only a lazy bum, I'm forgetful. It's only been a year though, so what the heck.

Let's try to keep it a bit simple this time around. I'm going to discuss an application that may just make your day. It's called Agent Ransack, and it is designed to help you find files on your computer when you can't remember where you put them (or Windows stuck them somewhere without asking first and you don't have a clue where). First, this application is free. I'm not sure about you, but I find free a very good price. Second, if you're looking for a file on your computer, this really is the tool to have. Let me give you the link before talking more about it:

http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

There are a number of things I like about this application. Highest on the list is speed. It is WAY faster than the Windows search option. Next on the list is the ability to find stuff inside a file you are looking for. Now Windows will tell you it will search for text inside a file, but what it won't tell you is that it will only search for text in files that it recognizes as text files. Agent Ransack will look in everything based on the search criteria.

Now, the drawback here is if your file is compressed or encrypted it may not find what you are looking for. It will only go through the binary of the file. If you want to upgrade and purchase FileLocator Pro, that will actually open compressed files for you as well, but this is not the typical search type, so for most folks it's not an issue.

Another great feature is the ability to use regular expression for your search. For those unfamiliar with regular expression, it is simply a more powerful way of conducting searches. It offers a lot of variable options over the standard DOS wild cards. Agent Ransack even has a regular expression query wizard that will help you create the regular expression formula you need to conduct your search.

There are other features, but these are the highlights. If you are like most of us and have a very disorganized hard drive with files all over the place, this is a tool that will serve you well. Oh, and it beats the pants off the Windows search tool. I mean really, there is absolutely no comparison.