Google Desktop

Okay, so maybe it wasn't the wisest thing to wake up at 5:00 AM today, the day of my History and Economics exams (two subjects in which I think I need to do well/better in). But really, it was either get up and do some stuff or lay there and freeze/starve myself to death. My room is freaking cold, and my stomach was freaking empty.
Anyway, like my title suggests, this post has some higher significance. As a self-professing Google advocate, I'm here to propagate one of Google's other products: Google Desktop. What is it? Basically, it's an extra sidebar that is so full of amazingly cool features and plug-ins that you can coordinate crap loads of stuff from this one place. It's hard to describe, but to list the things I have on mine right now, I've got the generic searchbar (with the bonus that it can search up indexed files within my own computer as well!), a system monitor (that keeps me updated on my computer's performance), my Google Talk client (leave it to Google to make sure their products are fully compatible with one another), ShareIt which is like GoogleTalk's version of filesharing software (only it's not crap and unstable like MSN's), my Gmail account client (that indexes and updates my emails to show me past emails and any new ones that come in), Google Soccer (which helps me keep track of match scores and stats of teams that I've picked -- I'm rooting for Argentina and Germany by the way), and... weather. -_- Okay, so the weather plug-in isn't exactly "hip" but hey, it's useful.
Google Desktop does have a few shortcomings, however, being a beta and all. It seems to have a bit of trouble getting along with desktop wallpapers, as it displaces my background image upon start-up and needs correction each time. I'm not sure whether that's just the way it is or it is caused by my use of other programs to change my desktop settings... O.o I corrected it with some tinkering and it's fine now. Another thing about it is that the indexing of files and emails takes one hell of a long time (especially if you, like me, have a lot of stuff). I think it took Google Desktop approximately 1 hour to index all my stuff, simply because it only indexes while the computer is idle, meaning, yes, it won't slow your computer significantly while indexing, but no, it won't do anything while you're working on things. I also find the customization of the actual sidebar to be quite limited (as is Google's style). It's understandable that Google wants to keep the clean and tidy look (which is why, I'm assuming, Google Talk does not allow personalization of text), but even some of the purely ergonomic settings like placement and orientation of the sidebar are quite limited.
All in all, it's worth trying out to see if you could find a use for it. Personally, I think it's a pretty neat way to organize a multitude of stuff into one simple and relatively easy to use program. Now, I'm off to prepare for my exams (i.e. shower and get changed).

Click title for ware.

EDIT: My exams are officially over, as is my year of Grade 10. And just like this year, the exams were surprisingly easy. T'was alright, none-too-special, see you later, yeah right, sleep time-ish. I made some pretty amazing likes and one or two queer dislikes. All in all, very worthwhile but I'm glad it's over. Nothing to bug me for 2 whole flipping months. Can you say w00t?