How to

Frustration, anger, head-banging against your own computer/laptop, long hours spent in trying to search for the simplest of things are common symptoms amongst people who are either new users or are amongst those who only think- they know how to Google but actually do not know . Well if you are someone who has experienced any of the above in your daily Google walks; then this is just what (not what the doctor ordered ) but what Prof. Google would recommend and if you dont, then also this is a must read article because you might just end up picking up a few notorious tricks that well help you in reducing your Google time considerably. There was someone in our life who taught us how to walk, how to talk, but did someone teach us how to Google? I guess a majority of us just picked it up without any formal introduction to this great search engine. We started using it and most of us wouldnt even recall when? But dont worry too much about figuring out the answer. In fact the question itself explains why we experience some or all of the symptoms stated above and also paves the way to the answer and would definitely help us in learning how to Google. So lets get started. As they say First things First, well let us first try and understand what exactly is Google, the answer as per Wikipedia: Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, FWB: GGQ1) is a multinational public cloud computing, Internet search, and advertising technologies corporation. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program. The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, often dubbed the "Google Guys", while the two were attending Stanford University as Ph.D. candidates. It was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998, with its initial public offering to follow on August 19, 2004. The company's stated mission from the outset was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", and the company's unofficial slogan coined by Google engineer Paul Buchheit is Don't be evil Now the above looked like one sci-fi definition, numerous of such have already bored us during our school and college days . As a matter of fact this is not the Google a lot of us imagine it to be. So whats the definition (according to any boys imagination? ), well its his most reliable tool which he can use to know anything/everything about the woman he met last night at a party . (Sorry boys for making your feelings a bit public and we know exactly what women are feeling at this given point in time, but control your emotions MANGO PEOPLE ) Akash Gautam Training Solutions - Motivating | Training | Career Mentoring

So finally, in short, the Google we are referring to and what most you understand/imagine it to be is a search engine. So the formal definition (and the last one that we will include in this write-up ) as per Wikipedia is: Google Search or Google Web Search is a web search engine owned by Google Inc. and is the most-used search engine on the Web. Google receives several hundred million queries each day through its various services. The main purpose of Google Search is to hunt for text in web pages, as opposed to other data, such as with Google Image Search. Okay!!! so we now understand what exactly is Google Search and now we will shall now explain the smart/notorious tricks on how to Google: Google. 1. To begin with most desktops/laptops around the country will have Google as their home page, something like:

Nothing wrong in having Google as your home page but you can act wise here by using a toolbar. Don't bother typing in Googles homepage www.google.com or setting it to your homepage. Just download the Google toolbar [inbuilt in Firefox and Opera].And for Internet Explorer [IE] just log on to toolbar.google.com What to do with your home page is something we will advice on towards the end of this article and should really help all of you.

2. You can even filter your search results and save yourself from some very embarrassing images which just always pop-up at the wrong time. Google and Yahoo! don't have parental control, but you can control what you are exposed to! If you don't want obscene images turning up an Image search, for example set your Google preferences to "use Strict filtering." The Google preferences link is to the right of the search bar on www.google.com Akash Gautam Training Solutions - Motivating | Training | Career Mentoring

3. Now if you notice; you will also find a Im Feeling Lucky button just next to Google Search button (For reference you can view the above image which depicts Google as a home page). Now what is this all about? Well the Im Feeling Lucky button will take you directly to the first result of your query instead of showing you all the list of pages. So if you dont want to see a list of pages after you have entered your query then this would not be a bad choice. However we recommend that till the time you are absolutely confident that the query you have entered is exactly what you want you should try this option else it could be disappointing to see a search result which does not satisfy your expectations. Here again the fault does not lie with Google but perhaps at the user end who would have entered a query not in the best possible way for Google to give you the results you were looking out for. But with a little bit of more experience in using Google the smart way you will be able to get a hang of it. 4. You can even avoid undesirable search results by using the minus sign -. For example you want to search about , lets say, only i-phone 3g and you dont want any search result to tell you about earlier models like the 2g, then you may simply key in i-phone 3g 2g - . Thus all the search results which you dont wish to see should be written after the minus sign and there can be one or more things which you may wish to exclude, so simply keep inserting the minus sign to make your search results more specific to your demands. 5. Use quotes as often as possible for most relevant results, and for your desired results to appear as high up in the list as possible. For example if you want to know who was the Best Actress at IIFA 2010 was, it's better to type in "Best Actress at IIFA" in the quotes followed by "2010" (with or without quotes), rather than just "best actress at IIFA awards 2010" without any quotes! 6. If you want your search results to be more and more relevant over time and if you don't mind Google knowing a lot about you, sign in before your search. The sign-in link is at the top right hand corner of the Google homepage, and you'll need to use your Gmail username and password. From then on until you sign out, Google remembers what you searched for and what you clicked, making it possible to give you more accurate results every time you search. Some people may be paranoid about Google knowing too much about you, but in some peoples' Opinion, "Who the hell cares what a server in California or someone somewhere knows about me?" Well the decision is yours YoUnGiStaAn !!!! 7. SMART TIPS FOR SMART SEARCH If you want to know what is the time in London right now, simply type in "London time"...Similarly if you want to know the difference between the words "Use" and "Usage", you needn't go visit an e-dictionary; Simply type in "use usage" into Google & you'll get results directly from dictionaries and thesauruses! A very useful command in Google is the DEFINE" command...If you want to know quickly what is the meaning of concomitance is simply type in "define: concomitance". Akash Gautam Training Solutions - Motivating | Training | Career Mentoring

8. If you want results of certain file types, such as PDF, you can use "filetype:pdf" before you search query. This will of course return you only PDFs.example "filetype:pdf time management" will fetch you all PDFs related with time management. You can use this for any file types including MP3, XLS or anything you want. Another smart tip, if you ever find yourself in the scarcity of time and you have to make a presentation within hours then try the same technique by adding .ppt as an extension, it may save a lot of your time and of course being accused of Plagiarism is a very small price to pay if you can have all your presentations ready or may we say edit and ready in quick time . 9. Some common words, called stop words (such as the, on, where, how, de, la, as well as certain single digits and single letters) generally don't add meaning to a search. Google is not case sensitive; it shows both upper and lower case results. Another factor that one must take note of is that Google will limit your queries to 32 words, so try and be short and specific. 10. And finally as promised a SMARTER way to create a SMART home page. Well we all have our own likes and dislikes and there are certain things we would always like to be informed about and there are some which we may wish to skip. Well Google has recently started with a new feature which gives you load of options to choose from and create a SMART home page . So just key in www.google.com/ig and see it for yourself Thats exactly how it looks:

Akash Gautam Training Solutions - Motivating | Training | Career Mentoring

Voila! So you have a customized home page that will give you just WHAT YOU WANT . You can now even change the background image and have a Google that you would want to see.

Some really cool things which you can try out, just go to Google, type the following in the search bar and click on Im Feeling Lucky and see the results, a few that you can try out are: 1. Type Google loco and click on Im Feeling Lucky 2. Type Google goth and click on Im Feeling Lucky 3. Type Google easter egg and click on Im Feeling Lucky

4. Type Google Ninja and click on Im Feeling Lucky You can hit the back button on the upper left corner to go back the original settings.

These were some of the SMART tips which we thought everyone should know and practice and we will keep posting in similar SMART and EDU-TAINING articles in future as well. We also have a lot of respect of our SMART readers, so if you discover some SMART ways to Google which you wish to share with the world then do write to us with your very own SMART tips which could help all new and experienced Googlers. If your write-up is selected by our jury members you could have your very own write-up being featured at www.akashgautam.com. So what are you waiting for guys, Google: Google the smart way and let the learning begin.

Keep Rocking YoUnGiStAaN

Akash Gautam Training Solutions - Motivating | Training | Career Mentoring