Module 4 - Downloading Tools Activity

I have - as suggested - most of these tools already installed on my computer, however there were three that i did not have:

4. Search Manager/Combiners
5. Bookmark Manager
6. Offline Browser/Copier

I chose 4 and 5 as i can't see myself using the offline browser much. With unlimited broadband, and a fast download speed, my husband and I never have our computers offline anymore.

4. Search Manager/Combiners

I chose to download and test out Copernic Meta for PC

I'm terrible at reading the licencing agreements, and am really slack and the majority of times just agree to them. The main statements from this agreement were that this product could only be used for free for private use, that it could only be used on one computer by the user, and that you can make and keep one backup copy for private use.

So far i have one complaint of the product that it has rearranged my taskbar - it has taken up half of it and compressed all my tabs. I usually have a number of programs going at once (my one requirement with any new computer i purchase is that it has the capability to multi-task) and these are all now very small. I will need to see if this is something that can be easily fixed...

By unlocking my taskbar, i have managed to resize the copernic quicksearch bar which has fixed this problem for me.

At the moment the program is running through an index. Indexing is essential for all searches, which i remember from my computer training days. Indexing does a once over putting things into an alphabetical order so that when you do search you don't have to search everything everytime, instead you can go directly to that letter, number etc. This makes it longer to begin with, but makes every search from then on much quicker.

On first glance this seems like a useful application. It will search not just the web, but all aspects of my computer as well helping me to locate files, images and emails.

The usability of it seems pretty simple, selecting the type of file etc that you are searching for, then choosing the specifics of your search, and going through with the search. The quick search box enables you to search for your files directly from the taskbar making it quick and simple.

The program has both in-program help, and additional inforation on their webpage. I can't test any further capabilities of the program at this point as the application is still doing its initial indexing making it hard to do any searching.