[HLUG] Aduna Autofocus Meta Search software

[Julian Robbins]

Hi

A Real Linux posting now!!

I have been intending on putting together a web based meta search 
facility of all our company information, files, database and emails, to 
make a huge searchable repository of information, a bit like Google but 
just inside the company I work for.

Although Beagle, Tracker, Strigi and Recoll,

http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/desktop_search_beagle_part_1

have many plaudits as desktop search tools that are actually useful 
every day - they lack a means to allow this to be easily rolled out in a 
company. Instead I wanted a single server that could serve searches via 
a std web browser.

After lots of looking I came across a PHP script for Beagle, called 
'Peagle'. This was ok, but wasn't being actively developed, and would 
have needed work to get it right.

After quite a bit of searching I accidentally stumbled upon something 
called Aduna Autofocus. They are a Dutch company offering exactly what I 
was looking for . www.aduna-software.com

The software is all based on Open Source technologies (Spectacle, 
Sesame), and runs on Java and Apache Tomcat. After a few irritations, I 
got Tomcat installed, and the .war file slotted into the Tomcat 
webserver fine.

The Autofocus server is setup via a GUI, with decent manuals to help 
you. The web search interface is clean, and really well thought out - as 
it has a couple of clever techniques to help you drill down through the 
data that is returned, via a list of suggestions, and filters based, on 
file type, Author, date, size, type of source etc.

I wont bore you with the details, but so far, I am extremely impressed 
with the software. Aduna too have their ideals very much in FOSS, and 
make money from support and developing custom solutions rather than 
offering a premiun product at a high cost that is not under a Open 
Source Licence.

So, if you want to get a Google search appliance for your company but 
cant afford it, you may want to try this instead. Its not perfect but is 
mature, works well coupled with other Open Source technologies should 
you want to develop it further.

All I need is more RAM to test it with !!!

Cheers

Julian