But before we continue, I want to explain to you how advertisements work on the Internet and how it ties together to this post. Google AdWords is Google’s advertising system in which advertisers bid on certain keywords in order for their clickable ads to appear in Google’s search results. Since advertisers have to pay for these clicks, this is how Google makes money from search. Now, do you see why Google has made the change to show as more advertisements on search results than with their organic website results?

In the past, the paid ads would only show up on the right or the top side of the search results page with the words “Sponsored” next to it. Then the organic non-paid results would show up below the paid stuff. Now it seems like the first page is dedicated to paid advertisements. Especially if the search you entered happens to be a popular topic at the time. The picture below states my point:

As you can see, the majority of the first-page search results are ads. Now, for the most part, most of these ads pose no threat to your computer. But in recent times, the hackers and crackers has been utilizing AdWords to pay to get to the first page of Google in hopes that you would click on the first link, then direct you to their websites where they will try to trick you into enter your personal information or worse, download and install a virus on your computer without your knowledge. The best thing to do is to scroll down on the webpage until you see a link that doesn’t have the words “ad” or “sponsored” next to it as shown in the next picture:

And even then, I would exercise a bit of caution. I would then read the green link below to make sure that the website addresses and the content of the search of results both make some kind of sense. And what I mean by that is that you cannot search for baby dolls and the green website link does not correlate anything closely related to baby dolls.

Another thing that I would do is to have a computer technician perform routine maintenance on your computer every 3 to 6 months. He/She should go through all of the applications that are installed on your computer and make sure that you have proper protection and look over other software on your computer and make sure that you have the latest updates and patches. (If you want assistance with this part and live in the Rochester, NY area, contact us at questions@techconscious.info and we will get back to you) Plus, this will keep your computer running at peak performance at all times. This is not a 100{864a55aebd4892ec15ad8561e67f7c075e6c1d98063b4cfe18e850f7cdf07f32} guarantee that you may one day click on something and install a virus by mistake, but these tips will prevent that from happening about 90{864a55aebd4892ec15ad8561e67f7c075e6c1d98063b4cfe18e850f7cdf07f32} of the time.

What I am finding out is that there is a lot of confusion on how to use these devices to access television content online. They are asking this question because they are finding out that these devices don’t automatically connect to their local or cable television stations on their own, so they become disillusioned and stop using these devices altogether.

The streaming device is actually only one piece of an entire puzzle to stream television content online. The other piece is having at least an internet connection that has at least 40mb of download speed. To test your current internet download speed, click here to go to speedtest.net and click the “go” button. If your current internet speed falls below that, I would suggest calling the local internet providers in your area to see what deals they have for faster internet. The last piece of the puzzle is to put together a series of apps to use on the streaming device to be able to watch television over the internet. I aim for this blog post to be a guide on how to go through the process of putting this online streaming puzzle together.

About 6 months ago, I decided when I got my last bill from a specific satellite company of $135, up from $75, I decided to go head first into cutting the cord. I’ve experimented with using a few devices leading up to deciding to cut the cord with mixed results, but eventually, I found the correct app lineup for my entertainment needs. But before you do the same for yourself, you most definitely need to take inventory on what channels you do watch on a regular basis and the other features that you use (i.e. DVR service) because that will dictate which online streaming service will be best for your needs. And speaking about that, let’s go over a few of the popular online streaming services and their pros and cons:

DirecTV now – Cost ranges from $35 to $75 depending on desired channel package. At the time of the writing of this article (2/2018), there is no DVR Support but should come by the summer of 2018. Best mix of most popular cable channels

Sling TV – Cost ranges from $20 to $75 depending on desired channel package(s). At the time of the writing of this article (2/2018), there is available cloud DVR Support. Good mix of most popular cable channels

PlayStation Vue – Cost ranges from $40 to $75 depending on desired channel package(s). At the time of the writing of this article (2/2018), there is available cloud DVR Support. Good mix of most popular cable channels

YouTube TV – Cost is $35. At the time of the writing of this article (2/2018), there is available cloud DVR Support. Okay mix of the popular cable channels.

Spectrum Stream or Spectrum Choice-Cost ranges from $20 to $75 depending on desired channel package(s). At the time of the writing of this article (2/2018), Cloud DVR Support is not available for this service. Good mix of most popular cable channels where you have the ability to choose the channels you wish to watch.

Comcast Xfinity Streaming Service – If you live in an area that supports Comcast Service, you can opt for this service. I do not live in an area that supports Comcast, so I cannot tell you any pricing information for this streaming service. At the time of the writing of this article (2/2018), there is available cloud DVR Support. Good mix of most popular cable channels

And if you are a big sports fan like I am, you can now purchase the NFL Sunday Ticket, NBA League Pass, MLB Extra Innings and NHL now without having a cable or satellite service. You can now sign up for those packages at their websites and then download and install the apps to your streaming devices.

Those services mainly will take care of the majority of channels that would be on cable or satellite. But the main problem of all of these services is that they don’t take care of your local television channels. There are 2 ways to view your local television channels:

1. Purchase antennas for all of your television sets, but you will not have DVR capabilities.

2. Purchase and use a networked hardware device that all of your streaming devices will see and view your local television channels that come over the air. Also with the hardware device, you will have DVR capabilities.

I prefer to use a networked hardware device because one device purchase will cover all of your televisions in your home instead of purchasing an antenna for each television individually! The best one to use is a device called Tablo.

What you would do with Tablo is that you will connect one antenna to the Tablo, and then connect an ethernet cord from the Tablo to your internet router. At that point, all your streaming devices will see the Tablo after you download and install the Tablo app to the streaming device, and then you will be watching TV on the streaming device through the Tablo.

There is a nominal $5 a month fee for the guide or you could pay $150 for a lifetime subscription to the guide. Another option that is available for streaming your local channels that directly integrates into the Sling TV application is a device called AirTV. You would purchase the device from this website for $120.00, set it up similar to the Tablo, then open up the Sling TV Application and then connect it to the AirTV under the settings option as per the instructions here. Then your local television channels will show up in the guide under Sling. The only drawback to the AirTV at the time of this update (5/2018) is that you cannot use Slings cloud DVR service to record the local channels. I saw under the AirTV website that this will be updated to do so by the end of 2018.

So you may be wondering which combination do I have? I decided to have the Tablo device to take care of my local television channel needs with a Sling TV subscription which I pay a total of $55 per month for local and cable channels. I also purchased an AirTV unit to experiment with also. This setup is better than the $135 I would have been paying. Plus I also have Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Video (included for free for Amazon Prime membership) subscriptions for other exclusive content. I hope that this blog post has cleared up the puzzle that is streaming television content online. Thanks for reading and hope to hear from you soon!

This post is inspired by several of my clients that have iPhones that are getting this prompt about ICloud running out of storage when automatically attempting to back up their photos. They constantly ask me what can they do to get rid of this prompt and still have the ability to backup all of their photos without paying a boatload of cash to Apple.

I usually tell them that either they would have to pay Apple what they want to expand your ICloud storage to continue backing up, or you would have to start backing up pictures to another cloud service. This article will show you how to do the later. You could use the Google Photos app to back up photos to their cloud service and not have to worry about storage limitations.

Now to get started with making this happen is to first make sure that your iPhone is on the home screen by pressing the home button on the device. Then you would find and open the settings app by single tapping on it. Then swipe up until you see the “Photos” option,  then single tap on that. In this menu, you have to make sure that both “ICloud Photo Library” and “ICloud Photo Sharing” and “My Photo Stream” are all turned off.

Then return to the home screen by again pressing the home button on your device. Then single tap the App Store icon and then single tap the search button on the bottom right side of the screen if you are on an iPhone, if you are on an iPad, it would be on the upper right side of the screen. Type “Google Photos” into the search box, then single tap the blue search button to continue.

Locate and single tap the “Get” button next to the Google Photos app in the search results to start downloading and installing the app to your device. Then single tap the install button. You may or may have to enter your Apple account email and address into your device to continue.

After the program has installed on your device, single tap the open button to launch the program. The program will then open and display a series of prompts asking to set permissions for the program. The first permission prompt will be for allowing google photos to access your videos and photos. single tap the “Ok” button to continue. Then another prompt will come up asking to send notifications to you. I would suggest tapping “Don’t Allow” at this prompt. Then single tap the “Leave Off” option at the next prompt where they ask you to “Leave Notifications Off”.

Next, you will be taken to the backup and sync screen. I suggest that you leave the current settings as they are and single tap the blue “Sign In To Back Up” button. Then a prompt will come up telling you that Google Photos wants to use Google.com to sign in. You have to single tap the “Continue” button to proceed.

• As a side note – you will need a Gmail or Google account already setup to proceed. if you already have a Gmail or Google account setup, you can skip this section of this article by then entering that accounts email and password to proceed. If you don’t have a Gmail or Google account, you will have to single tap the “More Options” link at the bottom left side of the screen, then single tap the “Create Account” button to proceed.

After signing into your Google account, photos that are on your device will automatically start backing up on their own. And that is how you do it. I hope that this article has been helpful to you and if you want to keep up with any future tips or articles that we release, feel free to join our email newsletter so that you will not miss a thing.

But what I have found in recent months is that these folks have a new tactic that is even more dangerous and effective to try to accomplish their goals. In most cases, they are abandoning previous strategies of sending you fake emails and creating fake pop-up ads but they are now leveraging social media ads and posts with very compelling “News Stories” to get you to click on them and cause havoc. What they are doing is creating a sticky title that will appeal to a targeted demographic and because you can purchase ads on most social media websites for very cheap and not only that, laser-focus the ads to show to that demographic, then they can cause more harm faster and cheaper than they did in the past. With more and more people getting onto Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or any other social media account in the past few years, I see the problem getting only worse unless people educate themselves about this, which is why I am writing this article.

You will see these ads popping up all over different websites, including legitimate news sites. I have posted below an example of such type of ads that will show up. They will contain extremely catchy titles, but the best way to not possibly download a virus is to exercise a bit of caution in not clicking on these links. The best way to verify that the story is true is to go to google and actually search for the article. Also, if you click on anything and a screen immediately comes up asking you to install something on your computer, it is best to pause for a moment and not to do it. As more and more people start coming online, I see this issue only getting larger. It is better to be safe than sorry.