Computer Program For The Investigator

The search engine Google has a free feature available that can be very helpful. It's called "Desktop", and can be accessed from Google's main search page. One of the functions of this program is it index's your hard drive. Once installed, the program stores and arranges emails, files and web history on your machine. This process occurs once during a period when your computer is idle for more than 30 seconds. As you continue to receive emails, this feature automatically adds them along with any updates to your files and web browsing history. This would allow you to quickly find emails, and view previously visited websites. Google Desktop creates cached copies (snapshots) of your files and other items each time you view them, and stores these copies on your computer’s hard drive. As a result, you can often use Desktop to find items you accidently deleted, instead of having to recreate them from scratch.

Desktop is also a great tool for parents who want to monitor their child's internet use. The program runs virtually undetected except for a small icon in the system tray (the bottom right corner of your screen where programs that are running show small symbols). There are also alot of other features to this free program. To find out more about about it, go to Google's main page and right above the searchbox in the middle of the page click on "more". That will open a small side menu that says "even more". Click on that and you arrive at all sorts of "extras" within Google. Find the icon of a small multi-colored swirl and that is "Desktop". Once there, click on "Features" and you will be taken to a full explainantion of what this little program does. Happy hunting!