Get in touch with a sales representative online!

November 12th, 2009

Copernic recently updated its web site with a new online chat tool. This tool will give you the chance to speak directly with a sales representative concerning your interrogations on our products, therefore they will be able to guide you throughout your online shopping experience and help you make the best software choice adapted to your needs.

You can find the online chat tool on our website home page and store pages. When a representative is online, the tile will appear green. You can click on it and type in your name. The tool will locate a representative that is available to answer your questions. It is designed to be fast and easy to use with a user friendly interface.

When looking trough our web site, you will be able to find answers to some of your questions. For your unanswered queries prior to your purchase, this instant messaging tool is an addition to enable you to get all the answers fast.

Please note that for technical questions or support, we ask you to send your requests to: http://www.copernic.com/en/support/form-contactsupport.html. Our support team will be glad to help you with your issues.

Copernic is always looking for ways to improve its customer service and we are confident that this chat service will profit both our clients and ourselves, by giving us the chance to be closer to our users.

- Jessica Touzin, Web Marketing Agent

Stay up-to-date with real time search engines

November 5th, 2009

Lately, I’ve been reading and testing out some of the most discussed real time search engines and for all those of you who wish to stay up-to-date with the latest hot topics, shared links or just what’s being said about your company or other subjects, I think these can be helpful.

So what are real time search engines?

Well basically, imagine a search engine such as Google or Bing that only provides results that come from social media networks. These networks are filled with content that is constantly being updated, thus providing search results that vary as new posts appear. Unlike conventional search engines that provide relevancy-based results that are pretty much always the same, you get information on what is being said about your searched keyword in real time.

Currently, in the race for the “Best real time search engine” title, most of the engines available concentrate on Twitter posts and the difference between each one lies in the organization and filtering the overwhelming data that is being shared on this network.

Here is a couple of the ones I’ve given a look at:

Topsy concentrates on displaying the most shared links about a given subject. It indicates how many tweets the link has gotten and by clicking on the number of tweets displayed, you will be able to dig deeper and view the list of related tweets.

Collecta is simple and updates automatically as new posts appear, without having to launch your search over. Click on a result to read the whole thing and quick links enable you to share the post easily. However, the constant monitoring for your searched keyword can sometimes slow your browser down a bit.

CrowdEye is more complex with a screen filled with a lot of information. After launching a search, you not only get the latest tweets about your query, but also a whole bunch of other information related to your search, such as: a breakdown on the tweet volume per hour, the most popular links and related queries. This might be the most complete – or most complex for some users- real time search engine for the twitterverse today.

Wowd provides results that update live, as topics become more popular on the entire Web rather than in Twitter posts. It does not rely on crawlers or page rankings, but rather depends on users installing a browser app on their PC. As users browse the Web with the app installed, the visited pages are added to the public pages that appear in the Wowd results. As more and more people visit the same pages, they become more popular and get a better ranking in the Wowd results.

Of course, as the buzz around real time search engines grow, there are more and more engines available. Twitter offers their version that pretty much does the trick if you don’t need any other fancy feature than just getting the tweets as they get posted. Yahoo might also be teaming up with OneRiot in order to offer their version of real time searching. One thing’s for sure, real time search engines are getting a lot of attention. Even Google and Bing have announced the implementation of Twitter search in their engines.

Will it become the new way of doing online search? Will crawler-based search engines lose popularity to this new type of hype-based searching? Is popular information better than relevancy-based information?

What’s your opinion?

- Melissa Clermont, Director Marketing Ops

5 Ways to Perform Advanced Searches With myCopernic on the Go!

October 21st, 2009

Since the release of myCopernic on the Go!, we noticed that our user could benefit from some advanced search criteria that can be used within the product. We have narrowed it down to 5 easy to use tips to help you perform advanced searches from the main search box available in myCopernic on the Go!.

  • Use the “@all” keyword or launch an empty query to retrieve everything By proceeding this way, you will be able to see the entire content of your index and all the documents contained in each category.
  • Use logical operators such as:

    • AND : retrieves documents that contain all keywords. This is the default search performed.
      Ex.: flower soil is the same as flower AND soil and retrieves only the documents that contain both flower and soil keywords.
    • OR: retrieves documents that contain either one or both keywords.
    • NOT : retrieves documents that do not contain the specified keyword.
      Ex.: flower NOT soil retrieves only the documents that contain flower but not soil.
  • Exact phrase searches: use the double quote to perform an exact phrase search.
    Ex.: “flower soil” will retrieve documents that contain exactly flower soil written in this order. This will limit the results obtained with only the relevant information you need.
  • Use field keywords: for advanced users that wish to bypass the refine fields but still want to perform refined searches. Here is a list of some of the field keywords available:

    Fields Type Values Examples
    @emailto
    @emailcc
    @emailfrom
    Text   @emailto=George
    @emailcc=“George Smith”
    For exact word search, use the double quotes
    @emailfrom=copernic
    @subject Text   @subject=meeting
    @subject=“meeting with law firm”
    This field can only be used if the Desktop Search tool used on the queried PC is Copernic Desktop Search.
    @importance Choice
    (Drop down list)
    0 = low
    1 = normal
    2 = high
    @importance=2
    @importance>1
    @importance<=2
    @mediaartist Text   @mediaartist=U2
    @mediaalbum Text   @mediaalbum=“no line on the horizon”
    @filename Text   @filename=document1212
    @filename=“Game rules”
    @extension Text   @extension=xls
    @extension=xls AND copernic
    @uri Text   @uri=MyDocuments
    @uri=“C:\MyDocuments\music”
    @taskstatus Choice
    (Drop down list)
    0 = Not started
    1 = In progress
    2 = Completed
    3 = Waiting
    4 = Deferred
    @taskstatus=0
    @taskstatus<2
    @taskstatus>=1
    Note that there are other field keywords available but this list highlights the most commonly used.
  • You can also use operators on field keywords
    Possible operators are =, <, >, <=, >=, <>.
    With these operators you will be able to narrow down the results in a flash to get closer to what you are searching for.

We hope that these tips help you pinpoint your searches with myCopernic on the Go! and help you save time by getting exactly what you want with a single query.

Are there other field keywords that you would like to see added to this list? Is this information useful to you? Let us know what you think!

- Melissa Clermont, Director marketing ops

10 Time Saving Tips with Copernic Desktop Search

October 16th, 2009

To help our users, we came up with a list of different tips that could allow them to use Copernic Desktop Search efficiently, with ease and could also save our users some time.

10 Time Saving Tips with Copernic Desktop Search

  1. Enable “search as you type”
    The search as you type option, when enabled, lets CDS launch searches and retrieve results as you type your search query. You can enable it by selecting Tools/Options/Advanced and check the “search as you type” option. In the Professional and Corporate version, this option is set by default.
  2. Save your frequent searches to retrieve them in a click
    This fonction is located on the left hand side of the interface or in the option bar under “My Searches”. This tool is useful when you search often for the same subject. You can retrieve the results in just one click. It is fast and useful for your ongoing subjects.
  3. Act on results from the preview pane
    This will allow you to open, for example an email, without having to open the native software applications beforehand. You will be able to reply to this email directly from the preview pane just by clicking the reply button.
  4. Enable the Deskbar
    Use the Deskbar so you don’t have to open CDS’ main window. Type in your keyword, press enter and the CDS Deskbar will display the results. If your “search as you type” option is enabled you will have an even more efficient deskbar.
  5. Enable “on the fly indexing”
    This option is found when you select Tools/Options/Indexing & performance. It lets your index always stay up to date with any new or modified file. With this option enabled, you will be able to search the files you just added without having to force an index update.
  6. Set your own indexing preferences
    Still in the Indexing & performance tab, you can set the index in order for it to be updated daily at a time of day where you don’t use the computer so it does not slow you down. This is also called “Scheduled indexing” and is set to be launched daily by default.
  7. Set your indexing performance options
    There is also an option in the Indexing & Performance tab that sets your indexing performance so CDS does not use your resources while you are working with your computer. You can change the time delay of this option to your convenience.
  8. Enable “did you mean”
    By enabling this option, CDS will make some suggestions that show you the words in your index that is closest to what you have typed and that would provide you with more results. This option might be useful when you are not sure about the spelling of a word.
  9. Enable the “remember search terms” option
    This option can remember your 10 last searches and retrieve the results in one click. You can use this option in the refine section of the category you wish to search, just use the drop down list and select the keyword needed. Simple and practical, you will find what you need in a flash.
  10. Deploy through all your network at once with GPOs
    With Copernic Desktop Search Corporate, it is easy to deploy it to a wide range of users at once. This can be performed with the GPO settings that let you customize the tool for everyone and push it to each PC on your network in one single setup.

CDS can be entirely configured to your liking, from the UI layout to the indexing performances. You can also add file types to the list of default types that are indexed. It is a complete desktop search tool with multiple different features that help you save time on a day to day basis and setting it up following your preferences may really help you save even more time!

Play with it, set it up, and like many other software, the more you use it, the more you discover it and appreciate it!!

- Melissa Clermont, Director Marketing Ops

Copernic on Radio Haute Résolution

October 9th, 2009

On Tuesday this week, October 6th, Copernic was invited to appear on a radio show, called Radio Haute Résolution on XM Radio. This gave us the opportunity to do a little recap on the company history and discuss our latest product: myCopernic on the Go!. We were happy to learn that one of the hosts already uses myCopernic on the Go! and even gave his quick review during the interview.

The show took place here in Quebec City, Canada, and was recorded in French. You can listen to the podcast available on the show’s website: radiohauteresolution.com. Our interview begins at about 22:55 in the recording.

Let us know what you think, leave a comment!

- Melissa Clermont, Director Marketing Ops