Spotlight on Spotlight

Spotlight in a Nutshell — Spotlight’s approach is simple: everything is indexed quickly and efficiently in an ongoing manner. Install Tiger and reboot, and the first thing the operating system does is index your hard disk. In multiple test installations, I didn’t even notice the indexing taking place, although some users report 50 percent of their processing power devoted to the task. You can’t use Spotlight until this initial index is done, but clicking the blue Spotlight icon in the upper right of the system menu bar will reveal how long Tiger thinks it will take to be finished. A pulsating dot in the center of the magnifying glass icon lets you know indexing is taking place.