This is the handout for the Johnson County Community College (JCCC) TechTalk session offered on April 27, 2017 at JCCC. The session covered ways to talk and text with your smart phone to find the information you need. It offered over two dozen questions you can ask the iPhone’s Siri (an intelligent assistant that responds to natural language voice commands). The session also covered tips to better “Google” your way to the answers you need using the most popular search engine on mobile devices and the web. The presenter was Jonathan Bacon, JCCCRA TechTalk coordinator.

1. TECHTALK: TALKING TO YOUR PHONEAND GOOGLING FOR ANSWERS
CompiledbyJonathanBaconforthe April 27, 2017 JohnsonCountyCommunityCollege Retirees
AssociationTechTalk.
Commands to try on Sirii
:
To get Siri’s attention: “Hey Siri”(pressHome buttonor use “HeySiri”before eachof the following.)
NUMBERS
 Ask for solutionsto mathematical equations:“What’s the square root of 10,058?”
 To have Siri flipa coinor roll the dice:“Flipa coin” or “roll the dice.”
 To figure the amount of a tip: “How muchshouldItip on a $32 bill?”
 To get the calorie count of a fooditem: “How manycaloriesina hot chocolate?”
 To convert anything: “How manycups ina gallon?”or“How manylitersina gallon?”
PHOTOS, PHONES AND MORE
 To call someone on speakerphone: “Call mywife onspeaker.”
 To locate photos on your iPhone or the web basedon time,place, album or persons:
“Findphotosof StephenHawking” or“Findall dogphotos.”
 To create and or add to a list: “Addbacon to shoppinglist.”
 To find the spellingofwords or the definition: “How doyou spell onomatopoeia?”
or “What isthe meaningof onomatopoeia?”
 To set reminderswith a link back to content:“Remindme of this.”
 To just chat: “Tell me a joke”or “read me a Haiku” or “Can yourap?”
or “What’syour favorite book?”
TRAVEL
 To find out what planes are flyingoverhead:“What planesare flyingoverhead.”
 To get directions: “DirectionstoKauffmanCenter.”
 To determine the lengthof time to a location: “How longto drive to Fayetteville,Arkansas?”
DATES
 To find some’sanniversary or birthdate: “WhenisDonaldTrump’sbirthday.”
 To rememberHolidays: “WhenisMother’sDay in 2017?”
 To determine specificdayof weekof an event:“On whatday doesChristmasfall in2018?”
TRIVIA
 To get movie plot, cast and other basic information:“Tell me aboutLa La Land.”
 To find trivia answers: “What movieshasChrisPrattstarredin?”
 To fact check: “Who wonthe last SuperBowl?”
or “Who wasthe 23rd
Presidentof the UnitedStates?”

2. SETTINGS
 To switch to the selfie camera: “Take a selfie.”
 To set an alarm: “Set andalarm for 4:30 PM today.”
 To delete all alarms: “Delete all alarms.”
 To change how Siri addressesyou: “Call me Kingof the Road.”
 To stop/start notifications,alertsand calls from making any noise,vibrationor lightingup the
phone screenwhen the screen islocked: “Do NotDisturb”or “Turn off Do NotDisturb.”
 To turn on Airplane mode which turns off cellularand Wi-Fi:“Turnon Airplane mode.”
Google SearchTips and Tricks:
Searchbox usesupto 32 words,not case sensitive,Booleanoperatorsare case sensitive (AND,OR),
wordorder matters,punctuationignored(except$and underscore ordash) and usesautomaticword
stemming.
 To find the meaning ofa term, precede itwith define: Example:define:coterie
 To find an exact text or phrase surround the words with quotes.Example:
“JohnsonCountyCommunityCollege”
 To eliminate certainwords in the search results,use the minus signimmediatelyfollowedby
the text.Example: Garfield–comicsorgarfield-comics-davis-"the musical"-school
 To replace certain words and findphrases that match. Example: "a * in time saves*”
or “If youcan't say * don't"
 To search for the text onlyon a specificwebsite.Example: “bacon site:jccc.edu”
 To search for and compare two items use vs. Example:baconvs.ham
Sources:
 http://bgr.com/2015/07/20/siri-tricks-tips-commands/ (Siri Tricks&Tips)
 http://www.imore.com/secret-siri-commands-ten-ways-amp-your-digital-assistant(SecretSiri
Commands)
 http://www.cheatsheet.com/gear-style/apples-siri-12-tricks-you-didnt-know-she-could-do.html
(12 Siri Tricks)
 http://libguides.mit.edu/google (Google search tips)
i
You can change Siri’svoice usingthese steps:
1. SelectSettings.
2. Scroll downand selectSiri
3. Scroll downand selectSiri Voice
4. SelectAccent(American,Australianor British) andGender(Male orFemale)
Note: before you can useSiri’s new voice you may need to waituntil ithas been downloaded (if it’s the firsttime
you’ve used the specified accentand gender).