Wizblog

X1 Delivers

In my business practice I have long looked for a software product that could perform quick keyword searches on Microsoft Word documents that were stored in folders on my hard drive, and just as importantly, give me useful ways to view and act on the search results. In my case, in the professional recruiting business, the objects of those searches are resumes. Resumes in folders on drives, as email attachments, as email bodies, from last week, from last year...

In our business and no doubt many others, emails arrive by the bucketload, and you can't always deal with them immediately... save the attached document to disk...enter the information into a database, print and file...(does anyone do that anymore?) The search function in Word is awful, and in Outlook it's only a little better, and doesn't keyword search attachments. It's not like I've lost anything in my email exactly. Let's just say I can't always put my mouse paws on what I need, exactly when I need it. And if I could quickly and effectively search by keyword the archives of email and my Word or HTML documents... Like I said, that's what I've been looking for. A product like that might help counteract my disorganization, procrastination, and creeping senility.

That is why I believe that X1 has hit on something big. I can't be alone. X1 indexes your entire system and then searches all email, attachments, files and contacts by keyword, or by file type, filename, size, path or date. It locates them on disk, and allows you to open them with one click, and either print or delete them without even opening them. It highlights your search words in the document and sorts your results in a variety of ways.

Go to www.X1.com and watch the quick demo, (which may just be the best one minute demo of a software product in history). There's a free 15 Day Trial version if you like what you see. The product is then $99 per copy, with volume discounts for 8 or more, I believe. On the down side, it searches files, emails and attachments separately, instead of simultaneously. But that's like bitching about the temperature of the water at the oasis. A Wall Street Journal review on Friday said:

"the Holy Grail may have arrived. It's called X1, and is simply a fast way of searching for stuff on your hard drive or network"

I've only played with this for a couple of hours so far, but I'm convinced it will help me every single day at work. I'm thinking about the possible applications for blogging.