Tips for using Google to research tech problems

Tech Talk Internet
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  1. If the issue involves relatively new hardware or software limit the search results to the last year or so.
    Click Tools > Anytime and select an appropriate timeframe
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  2. Use the specific name of the OS or application, for example-
    Windows server 2012 r2 setup remote desktop
    Adobe Acrobat X change font size in textbox

  3. To include words that must be in the search results enclose them in quotes. In this example only search results containing the words “remote desktop” will be returned.
    Windows server 2012 r2 setup “remote desktop”

  4. To limit your search within a certain website. Use the site: operator.
    For example site:www.twit.community crimsonchin only returns the phrase crimsonchin from this website.

  5. You can exclude a word or phrase by prefacing with a minus sign. For example swing -baseball

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Two other things that don’t get mentioned enough-

  1. Reboot! Whether is your computer, phone, router, etc. restart them before anything else.
  2. Control F to find words or phrases. Works in all browsers and most applications.
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That’s a nice amount of detail. Thanks for this!

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