Whilst Apple's Mac OS X comes with
Spotlight,
Beagle pretty much does it for Linux. With the next version of Spotlight supporting searching across the network for resources, e.g. document files, subdirectories, media, calendar entries, address book entries, etc., I am not sure when Beagle will catch up with those features (correct me if I am wrong but I am not sure if it supports network search and indexing). How would you like to add that feature way ahead of Apple's new Spotlight? Well, Anze Vidmar of Linux.com
featured a tool just for that.
Splunk is
"a software that indexes and enables you to search all your logs and IT data from any application, server, or network device in real time". It is a
free download and runs on FreeBSD, Linux (of course!), Mac OS X and Solaris. Whilst it does not run on Windows, it can add Windows to its search pool.
So why use your file manager to find that file or why use 'find' to scour your entire home folder - get Splunk and make things easier.