Kelowna Computer Repair Blog

I love Windows 7.  Really, because I know how to maintain my computer, I love Vista too.  I also love Windows XP.  All three have flavors that come with Windows Media Center, a nice tool for recording TV shows when you have a TV tuner card in your PC.  Windows Media Center connects online with a site that has TV listings for nearly any cable or satellite company in the world.  Well, at least the ones serving the cities I’ve lived in since I’ve started using it.

Here in Kelowna, Windows Media Center detected that I am using Shaw Cable for my TV (that’s not a plug, the others I’m sure are just as  good).  It also detected that I have Shaw Digital Cable as opposed to Shaw analog cable.  Then it retrieved (up to) two weeks of  TV listings that I could browse through, using the Microsoft Certified Media Center remote control that came with my Happauge 1800 TV Tuner card.  Find something I like and want, I hit the little red “record” button.  Find a series I want to record, just hit the button twice, and Windows Media Center remembers to record each episode.  I can set it to record it every single time, or I can tell it just record episodes I haven’t recorded.

It’s great!  There are challenges though.  For one thing, it uses a DRM system.  DRM neans “Digital Rights Management” and it’s a hard-coded security tool some higher end TV networks use to ensure that recorded TV programs don’t turn into black market DVDs.  It ruins the picture if you try to burn a protected program to a DVD or copy it to a portable device or move it to another computer… you can only copy it to your own computer.  You can take the commercials out, but you can’t take it with you.

Another challenge, to be addressed in my next post, “Give Windows Media Center .wtv Files the One-Two Punch!” is that the files are saved in XP  and Vista one format, .dvr-ms, while Windows 7 uses a different filetype, .wtv.  So any programs you may be using in Windows Vista or XP to remove commercials from your tv shows won’t work when you update to Windows 7.  There’s a fix to that and I’ll talk about that in my next post, “Give Windows 7 .wtv Files the One-Two Punch!”

I have been a user of the ICQ instant messenger for many years now.  It was one of the very first instant messengers, and I was one of it’s early users.  I never have seen the need to switch to anything else, especially since I almost never use instant messaging at all.  Now a recent experience with ICQ has left me wondering if the whole project has been taken over by Russian hackers.

I installed the latest version of ICQ to communicate with people on a particular project, then uninstalled it when the project was over.  ICQ when installed, hijacked my search provider, and “enhanced” it with it’s own “ICQ search”.  Even after uninstalling the product, it left it’s hijacked version of my browser, and no matter how many times I delete it from my search providers, ICQ Search keeps coming back again.

I reinstalled the product to see if there was anywhere I allowed it to hijack my search provider.  Turned out that there is a link during the installation to “advanced settings” where you are informed that your search provider will be hijacked unless you uncheck the appropriate box.  That option should be wide out in the open during installation, and the fact that it wasn’t leads me to believe that ICQ 7 has been taken over by scammers at best.  The fact that you can’t remove it’s product establishes for me even further ICQs malicious intent.

Because ICQ has been around for so long, its likely that the virus scanners have not yet added it to their lists of malware to be protected against.  But the latest version of ICQ, ICQ 7, is definitely malware in my book leaving behind a trojan that keeps reinstalling the hijacked search tool.

Here’s a Google search for ICQ clones.

Don’t use ICQ – you’ll never get rid of it.

Welcome to the Kelowna Computer Repair Blog.

The purpose of this blog is to provide tips and advice about using your computer and other technology.  I plan on posting information on computer hardware and software, file management, viruses and worms, using peripherals like digital cameras, scanners and printers, and more!

I hope that this blog will benefit the residents of Kelowna and perhaps the rest of the world.  Come back soon!