DESKTOP AND INTRANET-BASED SEARCHING, DOWNLOADING AND MONITORING TOOL

Abstract

Whether it be the World Wide Web or the intranet, to facilitate timely access to specific, accurate and relevant information, search engines are important. Search engines enable users to conduct searches based on their information needs where it matches search terms with existing web page content and present relevant web page links to the user. Search engines only assists users to search, meanwhile, to download, download managers are required. This research work combines the functionalities of searching, downloading and monitoring in a single prototype which can be used in both desktop and intranet environment. User can specify a link, and all related links within this link are automatically downloaded from the server to the local machine. This ensures all related information is captured, without needing the user to click and download each link individually. These downloaded pages are then indexed and when user makes a personal (desktop) search, the search term is compared to the index entries and relevant file locations are presented to the user. The tool also facilitates search and download from peer computers in an intranet environment. This allows flexibility for user to retrieve their resources not only from the server but also peer computers. It is not enough to have a tool in an organization, it is more important to know how the tool is utilized and steer it to its highest potential, this is achieved through monitoring. SearchLoad collects data on user access, content request. and application errors. These functionalities help administrators manage information resources better. The research methodology is divided into literature review and prototype development. In the literature review, search algorithms and existing tools are studied. The result of the study is then used in the prototype development which is made of requirements definition, analysis, design, implementation and testing phases. The tool is implemented using the breadth first search algorithm and coded in the Java programming language. The specialty of this research work is to adopt the already available search engine technology, and incorporate with capabilities like automatic downloading and monitoring to perform as a desktop and intranet based searching, downloading and monitoring tool.