Technology

FYI: You’ve Been Google Searching All Wrong

How To Use Google Search Results To Your Advantage

Google is the leading industry search engine with about 52% of the entire world’s population of consumers and businesses utilizing its features and about 88.34 % of United States consumers utilizing Google over other  competing search engines. Google is most used for everyday searches like what are the best pizza restaurants in your area, to businesses conducting extensive market research. Although so many people are using Google as their main search engine, only a fraction of them make use of Google’s Search settings. Considering Google’s default settings already do such an amazing job, the people who aren’t taking advantage of these search settings are missing out on the chance of receiving search results they never could have imagined. With the help of Google’s search setting’s options, you can not only find the best pizza shop in your area, but even other countries you plan on traveling to, or one’s that you would love to learn more about. Additionally, businesses alike can tweak their search settings in a way that will help them in sourcing unique data, and even contribute to their global growth. All this can be done with a few simple clicks and starting from a point we’re all quite familiar with, the Google Search homepage.

Starting from the search engine’s homepage go ahead and make a search as usual. After you receive your search results, the first icon you should see at the top right corner of the page is a gear.

Clicking on the gear icon, a sidebar will appear titled ‘Quick Settings’. By clicking the ‘See all settings’ button directly below the title, you will now be able to access Google’s Search settings.

The first Google Search setting option is the SafeSearch filter. This filter helps hide content for Google Search and Google Images that can potentially be explicit, inappropriate, or offensive. This filter is great for schools that give laptops out to their students, parents, and guardians, office spaces with shared computers, and even public library computer rooms. The Internet can be a great resource for people but may also show people things they never wished to see. This feature eliminates that possibility tremendously and leaves room for more fitting results and recommendations. To turn this filter on, simply click the checkbox underneath the SafeSearch filters heading and description. After doing so, the filter will start fine-tuning your search results immediately.

The next feature within Google’s Search settings is their ‘Results per page’ slider option. This component allows you to refine and customize the number of search results that appear from a single Google Search. For the typical user, Google shows ten search results being the minimum amount of search results per page. With this slider, you could increase the number of results in increments of 10, all the way to 100. This allows for the prime condition for a scholarly article search and/or research data searches because it accumulates the results in one accessible page. The functionality of the slider is quite simple in that the higher (to the right) that you go, the more search results will appear on the page. Google also lists the speeds at which the search results will load depending on the number of results you have chosen. Ten search results per page have the fastest processing speed while one hundred, understandably, has the slowest. This function can change up the way you Google to match whatever project you are working on.

Google Search automatically completes an unfinished search with popular or trending recommendation searches that they think you would be interested in your area search. This can be quite useful if you need to take public opinion into consideration or are genuinely interested in knowing what other people are thinking. As useful as it can be, in some cases seeing trending searches may not always be relevant to what you are looking for and can be a little frustrating to see. Luckily, Google’s Search settings ‘Autocomplete with trending searches’ function allows you to enable or disable popular searches popping up. This can be done by simply clicking either button option below the heading and description, one to show trending search recommendations and one to not. Both options have their pros and cons and that’s what makes this feature so crucial. Whether you’re conducting professional searches for work and/or business or searching for your own personal pleasure, this preference can be changed with a click of a button.

Google Search has the search option of ‘search by voice’ which allows users to verbally search via their device’s microphone. With the upsurge of virtual assistant technology like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, Google has accommodated this steadily changing technical environment by offering the option of speaking ‘search by voice’ answers out loud. This feature makes searching more accessible in that it creates a hands-free search experience for your most urgent questions. To enable or disable it, go to the ‘Spoken Answers’ heading and select whether or not you would like your search results to be spoken aloud or just shown through text as usual. This will boost the quality of your search sessions.

Google Search Settings also recognizes that some individuals may want to review the entirety of their search results page before even clicking on one of the results. This approach is often utilized by people who are trying to find scholarly sources, suitable data, and studies for school, work, and business purposes. With these individuals in mind, Google has a feature that gives users the ability to open all the selected search results in a new browser window. This feature can be found within the ‘Where results open’ section with the corresponding checkbox for opening new browser windows for each chosen result. This would also be an especially useful option for those comparing different products. If you were trying to find the best razor and compare the price points, product features, and reviews of two prospective razors, this option would make the process less of a back-and-forth hassle, and more time efficient.

The next component of Google’s Search settings is the well-known ‘Search History’ function. As many of you already know, your search history is the list of your previous searches from most to least recent. This feature has saved all of us when our devices unexpectedly die or update, and ultimately closing all our tabs and windows. What most people don’t know about this helpful tool is that it also allows for Google to customize and tailor your automized search results for you based on your Web & App Activity. This means that your search results and recommendations page will be suited to you and your preferences, making searching with Google a more personalized experience. In terms of how businesses are affected by these features personalized elements, search history-based results, and recommendations, Google’s ad feature can more effectively target people that fit a business’ key publics. Although on the actual Google Search setting page there isn’t an option to optimize this feature, the hyperlink with the description ‘Manage’ leads you to more information on this function, as well as links to Search History settings like whether you even want them to be saved.

This next feature is the coolest out of the bunch in terms of the results that can appear because of it. This feature called ‘Region Settings’ on the Google Search settings page allows you to be able to see the search results of different countries. For instance, if you’re trying to plan an eventful and memorable visit to Greenland, you can simply find Greenland on Google’s alphabetized region list, click on it, and search for locations Greenland locals even find trustworthy and legitimate. Google is a great resource to utilize to perform local searches such as the previous Greenland and pizza shop examples. This feature can also help businesses that are trying to expand their reach globally or are trying to offer their products and/or services to other regions. In that instance, this feature would be great to decide whether regional expansion would be suitable for the specific business through this feature’s ability to give these businesses real insight into the consumers of those specific regions. Additionally, for businesses that have already established a global footprint, this feature can help them determine their competitors in different regions, as well as their popularity. This setting has an extensive list of countries for every type of business or person to select depending on the type of search they are performing.

All these features are especially important and useful, but some people may, understandably, prefer to keep the default settings for some of them and adjust only a few features to their liking. Thankfully, this was something that Google kept in mind when developing its Search settings and grants its users the ability to save their setting selections.

After learning about Google’s Search settings, we hope that you will look at the way to search differently than before. From the simple and annual question regarding how frequently you should be flossing to more serious queries regarding your business, or what consumers are saying about it, playing around with these settings can advance your Google Search experience and results tremendously. Now that you’re aware of these features we trust that you will start taking your Google Search game more seriously and use it to your personal or professional advantage. To learn more about how Google can help your business, email us at team@rsquaremedia.com.

Internet Streaming Snapshot

In a digitized, fast-paced universe like the one we live in today, Internet Streaming is most valuable and widely used. According to www.webopedia.com, “streaming or media streaming is a technique for transferring data so that it can be processed as a steady and continuous stream.” The latter part indicates why exactly it’s such a hit – having a steady and continuous stream has become a necessity today; consumers no longer have the time or patience to wait for a media file to be downloaded in its entirety. To add to it, streaming has extended to most technological devices, making it possible for users to stream anytime and anywhere – whether on-the-go or from the comfort of their couch – as per their convenience.

For streaming to work effectively, however, the receiver needs to have a fast enough internet connection. Slow internet disrupts streaming, leading to problems with buffering. The buffer fills up with the content needed next; therefore, any disruption in the connection would either stop the stream or compel one to compromise on the quality of the file.

Although streaming is the quickest and most convenient way to access media on the internet, it has not always been in existence. Traditional downloads were a lot more popular earlier, where one is required to download the entire media before using it. For instance, LimeWire – a free P2P sharing software through which users could download unlimited music, movies and games – was one such hot platform earlier. After it was shut down, however, people turned to BitTorrent; and a number of torrent sites sprang up because of its increasing demand.

Progressive downloads are popular today (where the file is downloaded and saved to the device), but it has a streaming equivalent in the form of a website or an app. Although YouTube has been popular for a while now, there are a number of other websites that allow for streaming of TV shows, movies and music. Netflix is the most popular example in the USA (it is yet to gain popularity in India). It started out as a DVD rental service, but 13 years after its inception, streaming began to become more than an add-on, eventually taking over and becoming the main feature of Netflix, and then moving out to other devices as well. Today, Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network with over 98 million members in 190 countries. Similarly, there are a number of websites/apps today – both free and paid – through which people access their favourite TV show/movie like WatchSeries, Hulu, CouchTuner, TVPlayer and so on. Despite the competition, Netflix continues to enjoy topmost position in the US, adding more than 1.5 million members in the last quarter of 2016 and 4.9 million members internationally.

With TV streaming on the rise, it is only natural that cable TV is no longer indispensable to the people. This is especially evident in India, where Star India’s Internet equivalent Hotstar is gaining more popularity than their actual TV channels. It started off as an app to allow users to watch cricket matches live since most cable services had discontinued the free availability of the Star channels. Because of its huge success – the app garnered 340 million views for all 49 matches during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 – it expanded, offering content from the entertainment, movie and sports channels owned by Star India. An article by Livemint cites Hotstar as the top of all other video streaming apps in India (with a user base of 63.4 million as of January 2017) like Voot TV, JioTV, Netflix, Amazon Prime (in terms of their monthly usage) indicating the Indian consumer’s preference for local content.

Gone are the days when people went out and bought CDs, or even downloaded tracks off the internet – music streaming has revolutionized the way people listen to music today. SoundCloud (175 million monthly users), Spotify (50 million paid subscribers), 8tracks are popular examples – users can not only discover and listen to music across different genres, but also create their own playlists and share them with others. Additionally, SoundCloud allows users to upload their own audio tracks. Music streaming is also popular in India, with apps like Saavn (20 million monthly users, 70% of which are from India), Gaana finding favour. What sets these apart from all other music streaming apps is that regional and Bollywood music is available too, along with the popular English songs worldwide.

As can be observed in any of the aforementioned sites, when streaming first started off, it was a mere add-on to the other services offered by these sites. But with the advancement in technology, it has become easier for streaming to branch out and reach wider audiences, consequently resulting in its massive growth and popularity all around the world. While it is hard to say if this would eventually lead to elimination of the traditional forms of media consumption, it is fair to say that streaming is slowly but surely taking over.

Streaming on smartphones is most popular not only because it is convenient, but more so now because social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter have introduced live streaming, allowing users to create videos and transmit them to their followers/watch similar videos in the same instant that it is taking place. Also, all of the websites mentioned above have their very own apps (in fact, some are available only as an app), further advocating streaming on smartphones.

With new technologies such as streaming and other innovative advancements, it is hard for companies to remain on the modern frontier of brand promotion. Thus, many are turning to creative marketing companies to ensure effective brand promotion in today’s age. Rsquare Media is a Creative Content and Design company which forms customized media marketing strategies, creates original content, and helps businesses stay ahead of their competition through following innovative marketing trends. On the forefront of modern advertising technology, RSquare Media is the first step in ensuring that target audiences are given the complete immersive experience. Rsquare Media is Long Island’s favorite Creative Digital MWBE Advertising Agency. Small Agency Attention. Big Company Results. RSquare Media Change Agents can meet with at your Business in Freeport, Merrick, Baldwin, Rockville Center, Hempstead, Uniondale, Garden City, Mineola on short notice. Any other location on Long Island (Nassau and Suffolk Counties)-Brentwood, Central Islip, The Hamptons, Montauk, Amityville, Patchogue, Bohemia, Bayside, Bayshore, Deer Park, Hauppauge, Babylon, Huntington, Islip, Smithtown, Riverhead, Brookhaven, East Hampton will require scheduling an appointment. RSquare Media can assist you with Facebook Fanpage Design, Facebook App design, Mobile Optimized Website Design, Android and Iphone App Design, SEO, YouTube Commercial Production, Infomercials, Video Production, Graphic Design and Printing Services, Screen Printing and Embroidery Services, Indoor and Outdoor Signage Design & Fabrication. FREE Consultation. Call (646) 249-3561 today!

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ZTE Zmax Pro Update Fix

So here’s the solution to the ZTE Zmax Pro update problem which I encountered while on Build Version B14, trying to install B20. The B20 update would always abort during the installation process. Here’s the fix, straight from ZTE Tech Support.

1. Eject the MicroSD (MSD) Card (DON’T REMOVE THE MSD CARD WITHOUT READING THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW)
   • Go to settings –> storage –> click storage and then click MSD card, then click eject SD card
   • After the MSD Card Eject process completes, use the SIM ejector tool to eject the SIM Tray to physically remove the MSD Card.
   • Remove the MSD card and push the SIM tray back into the phone
2. When you push the sim tray back into the phone, you’ll be prompted to restart the device. Go ahead and click restart device
3. Go to Settings -> About Phone –>System Update –> Click Update and download the update file –> after its downloaded, click install update.
4. Phone will restart and you’ll see the Green Android robot with its chest open and a spinning diamond shaped line drawing as well as a status bar below which tells you the % progress of the installation.
5. After this completes, the phone will restart and you’ll see the Android is updating notifcation ribbon across the center of the screen telling you its updating and optimizing your installed apps.
6. The process may take about 10-15 minutes depending on the number of apps installed on your phone

See below excerpt from my chat with ZTE Tech Support:

Andrew C: Have you tried removing that microSD card then attempting the update?
rajiv jadhav: no i haven’t
Andrew C: If that doesn’t work, I would advise you to wipe the cache partition.
Andrew C: If wiping the cache partition doesn’t resolve the issue, a factory reset maybe necessary.
Andrew C: To wipe the cache partition, just follow the instructions in the link below.

Answer Title: How do I wipe the cache partition?
Answer Link: http://zte-iqorsupport.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4685
rajiv jadhav: ok
Andrew C: If that doesn’t resolve the issue Rajiv, just contact us back so we can show you how to reset your device.
rajiv jadhav: so let me try the 1st thing
rajiv jadhav: i need to eject the sd card?
Andrew C: Correct.
Andrew C: Eject the microSD card.
rajiv jadhav: ok let me try that
Andrew C: I would probably do this after powering on the device.
Andrew C: Then attempt an update.
Andrew C: If that doesn’t work, try wiping the cache partition.
Andrew C: If that doesn’t work, a reset maybe necessary.
Andrew C: I would just contact us back if issues are still persistent.
Andrew C: Is there perhaps anything else I can do for you?
rajiv jadhav: do i need to physically remove the SD card or just do the eject process?
Andrew C: Remove it from your device.
rajiv jadhav: ok
Andrew C: Anything else I can clarify for you?
rajiv jadhav: can be standby while i do these steps?

rajiv jadhav: can you*
Andrew C: These steps may take a while. That’s why i was advising you to contact us back if issues are still persistent.
rajiv jadhav: o ok

This is the link I used to contact ZTE Technical Support: https://www.zteusa.com/zte-zmax-pro-mpcs#support