80-20 Retriever

A

Anonymous

Guest
I recently downloaded a trial version of 80-20 Retriever (ver. 3.0). and am quite impressed with it's indexing and search capabilities. Alas, I just learned that the company that developed the software orphaned it last June and now focuses exclusively on the "enterprise" market. The "personal" version of 80-20 Retriever that I downloaded is no longer available. So, what are others using to index and search your hard drive and email contents?

Scott
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Enfish Find

Try Enfish Find www.enfish.com I've been using their software for about a year now and after trying others this is simply the best.

They do have a trial version and the registered version is only $45

Cheers!
Francisco
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Hmmm, I checked out the Enfish website and it looks like they are going the same route as 80-20. They make reference to a standard version, but there is no standard version on the web site, only a professional version for $199. There is a product called Enfish Find (listed at $49), but the site says that Enfish Find is included with Enfish Standard (which I couldn't find on the site) and Professional -- but it's not available to be sold singly (only in amounts of 50 or more), even though they list a price of $49.

Wierd. Nevertheless, I downloaded a trial of Enfish Find and will give it a try (even though it looks like I won't be able to buy a copy if I like it).

I'm also checking out X1 -- which seems plenty fast, so far.
 
W

whkratz

Registered
Guest said:
There is a product called Enfish Find (listed at $49), but the site says that Enfish Find is included with Enfish Standard (which I couldn't find on the site) and Professional -- but it's not available to be sold singly (only in amounts of 50 or more), even though they list a price of $49.
Click to expand...

You can purchase a single copy of Enfish Find at http://www.enfish.com/Products_buy.asp
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
"You can purchase a single copy of Enfish Find at http://www.enfish.com/Products_buy.asp"

Yeah, the Enfish web site has some conflicting text. In one place it says it's only available by itself in lots of 50 or more, and yet you CAN buy just one copy.

I've actually been using X1. It's heritage is, supposedly, Lotus Magellan (it's from Bill Gross' Idealab). It's very small (the download was just over 1 MB, as compared to Enfish Find at more than 8 MB) and quite fast (on my old 466 Mhz laptop, it indexed all, and I mean ALL, of my Outlook and OE email -- to include attachments -- contacts, and files in less than half an hour -- and I have a TON of documents, several GB worth). It's search is fast (I still like Infoselect for it's fast search). The major downside is the price: $99. And, so far, it doesn't search Infoselect files -- which is where I have archived lots of text data over the years.

I'll give Enfish Find a try, too. If it does what X1 does for half the price, well...

I've seen some reviews from "former" Enfish users who rave about X1, though. Interestingly, until recently, X1 was called Find, too.

Improvedoutlook.com...still coming soon?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
There is a new version of 80-20 Retriever Enterprise available on http://www.80-20.com.

The interface has changed for the better and it offers far greater search capabilities, e.g. grouping, etc. but it does come at a price. I have been using it for a while and am very happy with it.

There is also Lookout from http://www.lookoutsoft.com. I haven't really used it but others like it. X1 has some nice feature ala Magellan from the good old days.
 
M

mochant

Guest
Lookout is a great tool

I've been touting Lookout for a couple of months on my blog and believe it is the best Outlook solution available. I have used Enfish (poor support for IMAP and no upgrades or news from the company led me to abandon it) and tried out both x1 and Scopeware Vision. While both of these programs offer system-wide search and retreival and are very fast at finding stuff, they are very resource and disk intensive.

I really wanted to use Vision. It offers an always available query bar (that takes up much less space that the swollen x1 tool bar) and can display found items in a visual, time-based stream using an index card-like display. I could not accept the toll it took on my laptop's performance though. To be fair, I run a lot of software and on a more pristine system, it's quite likely a winner.

What I like most about Lookout is that it is Outlook focused, uses fewer resources and less memory than any of these other tools, and finds anything in less than a second. It has an advanced search where you can configure Boolean operations (and, or, if) and the support from the developer has been terrific. Lookout can also be configured to search elsewhere on your system but does not have the same ability to index file contents that Enfish, x1, and Vision do.

Also, it's currently free (while in beta development). That doesn't hurt :wink:

It uninstalls cleanly too so there's little pain in giving it a try.

Links:

Lookout: http://www.lookoutsoft.com
Vision: http://www.scopeware.com
x1: http://www.x1.com
 
J

JWW61

Guest
1st Turbo Run

I have found that 1st Turbo Run (www.greenparrots.com) is a great tool to find anything on your hard drive. You can try the demo for 15 days and after that it is only $24.95.
I also use their Action Outline for storing information, which has a great find tool built in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top