t’s face it, there’s only so much nagging a person can take: Don’t miss that meeting! Bring an umbrella today! Take out the trash! ke we need to be reminded to take out the trash?

Useful? Maybe, but Now doesn’t have to be just a slew of tiresome reminders. th these five simple tips, you can make ’s smart cards do more.

Try the “sten to TV” voice comm

If you like to use a tablet or phone as a second screen to supplement big-screen TV viewing, Now’s sten to TV comm provides knee-top, ancillary background show information automatically.

How-To: unch the Now interface on your mobile device, speak the comm: “sten to TV.” Then allow Now to monitor the television audio.

Second-screen information, like cast backgrounds will be displayed on your device.

Tip: If TV audio is from a news show, background on top stories is shown.

Use relationships instead of names

Too many Daves in your contacts? Now can hle calls texts placed using relationship designations, like “cousin,” rather than individual names.

How-To: Speak the comm “Send a text to my cousin.” Now will then prompt you to label an existing contact as your cousin. Future “Send a text to my cousin” comms open a text dialog with the selected contact.

Tip: Amusingly, doesn’t restrict the relationship’s syntax, so you can comm that the text be sent to your expletive-enhanced family member too. “Text my g&@@&m sister” is a totally valid comm. rk.

Change “OK Now” to something more interesting

Some Motorola-built phones allow you to train Now’s voice recognition engine.

Instead of training the engine to respond to the default “OK Now,” change it to something more inspired, like “Yo Now” or “OK Giggle Now.”

How-To: ok for the Touchless Control menu item within the phone’s Settings. Choose Train unch rase, follow the prompts.

No Motorola phone? Third-party app Open Mic+ for Now replicates this trick on non-Motorola devices.

Tip: The new phrase’s inflection must be similar to the default phrase.

Use Now on your

Chrome OS-users have Now right out of the box. That functionality isn’t built into the ndows or OS X Chrome web browser.  But it’s coming, you can experiment with it by downloading Canary—a developer early-adopter edition of the Chrome browser.

How-To: Browse to the Canary browser webpage click on the Download Chrome Canary button.

Follow the prompts to install setup the browser. Then enter the location: chrome://flags/#enable-google-now in Canary’s address bar. Choose Enabled from the resulting drop-down, re-start Canary.

Tip: Now notifications cards appear in the ndows taskbar, or OS X menu bar.

Check out the “make me a swich” Easter egg

Now is full of Easter eggs: secret answers to hidden comms. The best one is the sexist figure of speech: Make me a Swich.

How-To: unch Now speak the comm: “Make me a swich.” Now will respond with the appropriate: “Make it yourself!”

Don’t have Now on your phone?

Now is available on Android 4.1 lly Bean above devices. If your device doesn’t already have basic Now installed, install the Search app from the ay Store. Open the app, follow the prompts to “Get Now.”

A faster, one-swipe Now uncher is available for all Nexus ay ition devices running KitKat.

Improving Now results

The more data that Now can obtain from you your device over time, the better it will background-perform. Here’s how to improve results.

Turn on b History: Open the Settings area within Now, choose Accounts & ivacy, verify cation Services b History are turned on.

Allow Now to search your device: ok for the one Search or Tablet Search menu items within the Now settings. Verify that the checkboxes adjacent to all of the items listed are checked. For example: Contacts, Email, Apps.