Book IV Chapter 6 Setting Up Media Center 427 Organizing the Normandy Invasion Lots of people become confused about the difference between Media Center and Windows Media Player (WMP). Don’t let the similarity in names cause any heartburn. In fact, Media Player (see Book IV, Chapter 1) is just one com- ponent of Media Center — it’s the part of Media Center that plays music, movies, and recorded TV shows. Media Center doesn’t look anything at all like Media Player (well, okay, you can show the WMP “visualizations” in Media Center), but every time you play a song or view a movie, WMP is run- ning in the background. Although you can find some Windows Media Player settings from inside Windows Media Center, using it to change WMP is a bit like trying to drive a Volkswagen with a bazooka. Organizing the Normandy Invasion So you have eight big boxes sitting on the floor of your living room (or dorm room or office), and the first debilitating pangs of buyer’s remorse have set in. That’s normal. Not to worry. The following sections offer a handful of tips that can help you through the assembly process. Go ahead and benefit from others’ experience. Gathering the tools for an easier setup The folks at the computer store sold you everything you need. But I can guarantee that they forgot a couple of items that you surely want. Before you assemble the beast, you need to run out and pick up what they forgot. In particular, you need these items:  ✦ An uninterruptible power supply (UPS): If the sales droid let you walk out of the shop without a UPS, he should be lashed. No, a surge pro- tector isn’t good enough. You need a UPS big enough to handle your The biggest limitations of Windows Media Center center around digital rights manage- ment, and they aren’t all exclusive to Media Center. If you record your favorite high-def TV show on your Media Center system, can you burn it to DVD and then watch the DVD on a neighbor’s DVD player? On another PC? On your MP4 player? The answers aren’t cut- and-dried. If they concern you, ask people who own and use Media Center (at, for example, thegreenbutton.com) before you buy. Media Center limitations 428 Organizing the Normandy Invasion computer and any other sensitive hardware that’s hanging around: TV, audio equipment, network hub, DSL or cable modem, scanner, external drives, or USB hubs — the whole nine yards. No, you don’t need to plug your printer into a UPS — and you should never plug a laser printer into a UPS. Laser printers draw a tremendous amount of power; a laser printer will probably blow out your UPS when it starts, and even if your UPS doesn’t end up as a heap of smoldering goo, if the power goes out, the UPS will die in seconds from the laser printer’s power drain.  ✦ Lots of power strips: The ones that plug into the UPS don’t need surge protection, but any that plug straight into the wall should have surge protectors. Anything with a “brick” that converts AC current to DC (which you com- monly find with laptop computers, telephones, modems, and other devices) doesn’t require a surge protector. But any brick located at the end of a power cord invariably takes up two (or even three) slots on a power strip.  ✦ A roll of masking tape and a fine-point permanent-ink marker: You should mark the end of every cable as you connect it: Wrap a piece of tape around the wire and write down where it’s going. That way, when you look at a power strip with five plugs in it, you can tell which one goes to your PC and which one goes to your TV. You can also tell your left-front speaker from the right-side and center-rear speakers without pulling the speaker cable out from under the rug. If you save a snapshot of the final array of cables — even if you only use your Webcam — you have a good record of which cable went where, in case your 3-year-old nephew decides to pull a few cables off the back of the TV.  ✦ Those little plastic gizmos that bundle cables together: They’re cheap, and they keep you from going nuts. By the time you’re done, the back of your PC will look like a wiring bundle down the fuselage of a 747.  ✦ Video cables that are long enough to go where they need to go: Before you assemble the beast, block out precisely where the PC goes, where the monitor goes, and where the TV (if you have one) goes. Then figure out how long the video cables must be. Then dig into the box and see whether the cables you have are long enough. I bet they aren’t, particu- larly if you’re connecting a TV. When you go out shopping, make sure to buy the right kind of cables. You can try to figure out whether you need an HDMI cable, an optical audio cable, a DVI cable, or a reversible 3-plug mini-DIN with imploded wombat RJ-945 squared cable, but why sweat the hard stuff? If you have any doubt about which kind of cable you need, haul out your digital camera or mobile phone and take close-up shots of the connectors on Book IV Chapter 6 Setting Up Media Center 429 Organizing the Normandy Invasion the back of your computer and on the back of your TV. Then schlep the camera to the shop and ask the salesperson to figure it out. Hey, that’s what he’s paid to do.  ✦ Remote hardware: Some Media Center PC systems don’t have key- boards or mice. I think that’s a huge mistake. WMC includes an onscreen keyboard, but it’s about as hard to use as T9 SMS on a mobile phone. At least until Microsoft brings more functions into the Media Center umbrella, occasional trips out to Windows itself are inevitable — and for those, you want a keyboard and mouse. If your Media Center PC sits in a cramped dorm room, running for the keyboard is no big deal, but if you have to get up off the couch and find a chair to put in front of the com- puter, it’s a pain in the neck.  ✦ A nice bottle of wine: Need I explain what this is for? Beer works in a pinch. Getting Windows in gear The first time you start your new Media Center computer, almost anything can happen. Why? Each manufacturer seems to have a different way of intro- ducing you to the experience. Making your video card acquiesce If your Media Center PC came with its own TV set, if you’re running videos on your computer monitor, or if you already have things set up so that video stuff shows up on your TV and computer stuff shows up on your monitor, breathe a sigh of relief and move on to the next section in this chapter to verify that your sound card is working right. But if you want to connect both a TV and a computer monitor to your PC and you haven’t yet figured out how to make movies play on the TV rather than in a window on your PC’s monitor, you have a bit of work to do. If you have a TV and a monitor plugged into your PC (or two monitors — one for Windows itself, the other for media) and you can’t get Windows to show things on both of them, follow this procedure: The folks who sold you that Media Center home theater setup probably want to sell you a new sound system, too. Don’t hesitate to use your current sound system. Media Center works very well indeed with most modern surround sound systems — even better if you can get a fiber optic TOSLINK cable to reach from your PC to the amp. Old sounds can be good sounds 430 Organizing the Normandy Invasion 1. On the screen that works, right-click any blank place on the Windows desktop and choose Screen Resolution. You see the Change the Appearance of Your Displays dialog box, shown in Figure 6-4. Figure 6-4: Get both your TV and your monitor working. 2. Click the Identify Monitors button and Windows puts a 1 on the screen it considers to be the first, and a 2 on the second. 3. In the Multiple Displays box, choose Extend These Displays. This step ensures that the Windows desktop extends across both dis- plays, which is the easiest way to run Media Center. 4. Click Apply. Windows asks whether you want to keep the new settings. 5. Click the Keep Changes button. Congratulations! Your PC can now see double. Setting sound straight Modern audio chips produce phenomenal sound. If you have a home theater (that is, audio) system to provide the oomph, Media Center can rock your house off its foundation. Kinda adds a new dimension to the old adage “If this house is a-rockin’. . . .” Book IV Chapter 6 Setting Up Media Center 431 Organizing the Normandy Invasion Setting up a sound system usually entails matching up the audio card out- puts (pink, blue, lime green, black, orange, tutti-frutti) to the audio amp’s inputs and then snaking a lot of wires over, under, around, and through the room. When you’re done, the $64,000 question arises: Did you hook up the speakers correctly? Easy to ask. Not so easy to answer. Every sound card works differently, but most of them can help you verify that the right plug on the back of the card is connected to the left, er, right speaker. For example, the SoundBlaster Audigy Audio chip, which ships on many inexpensive motherboards, can be tested in this way: 1. Right-click the speaker in the notification area, near the clock, and choose Playback Devices. Windows shows you the Sound dialog box (see Figure 6-5). Figure 6-5: Typically, this list includes external speakers and head- phones. 2. Choose the speakers you’re using and click the Configure button. The Speaker Setup panel appears, as shown in Figure 6-6. 3. Choose the kind of speaker setup you have. The diagram changes based on your selection. For example, 5.1 Surround uses two front speakers, two back speakers, a center speaker, and a subwoofer. If you click Quadraphonic, you see four speakers. 432 Organizing the Normandy Invasion Figure 6-6: Test your speakers to make sure that they’re hooked up properly. 4. Click the Test button to test each speaker in turn, or click an individ- ual speaker to make sure that it’s properly identified. If the wrong speaker sounds off, you probably messed up one of the color-coded connections on the back of the audio card. Rearrange the cables and try, try again. 5. Click Cancel to close the Sound dialog box; then click the red X to exit the Control Panel. You’re now ready to faithfully reproduce the sound of “point-one” hand clapping, in full 5.1 (or 7.1 or, heck, 149.1) surround sound. Gathering folders for libraries Before you run the Media Center setup routine, you can make your Media, uh, Centering much easier if you take a few minutes to set up your Pictures, Music, and Videos libraries. Though it’s true that you can add folders to all three libraries from inside Windows Media Player, using the tools built into Windows Explorer simpli- fies things considerably. Follow the nostrums in Book II, Chapter 1 to add any wayward folders — including folders accessible via your HomeGroup — to the Music, Pictures, and Videos libraries. Book IV Chapter 6 Setting Up Media Center 433 Setting Up Media Center Setting Up Media Center With Windows 7 finally cowed into subservience, at last you’re ready to set up Windows Media Center. Here’s how: 1. Click the Start button on your remote (if your TV is set up) or choose Start➪All Programs➪Windows Media Center. If this is your first time in the Media Center, you see a splash screen assuring you that WMC is “The best way to experience TV on your PC.” If you already completed the setup and you want to do it all over again (perhaps to change some privacy-robbing settings), scroll to Tasks and choose Settings➪General➪Windows Media Center Setup➪Run Setup Again. Yep, that’s where they buried it. 2. Click Continue. You see the Get Started screen, shown in Figure 6-7. Figure 6-7: Don’t take the Express setup. 3. Click Custom. WMC advises that it will take you through two sections: Required Setup and Optional Setup. Click Ho-Hum Next. WMC asks whether you want to help improve Windows Media Center by joining the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) and sending logs of all your WMC activity to the giant Microsoft database in the sky. 434 Setting Up Media Center Like so many other offers from Microsoft, the Customer Experience Improvement Program claims to maintain your confidentiality, not collect personally identifiable information, and so on. As with so many other offers from Microsoft, you have to ask yourself whether you trust the company and everyone in it. If you have an always-on Internet connection, Microsoft can (and probably does) collect your Internet Protocol (IP) address, along with detailed information about the movies you watch, your music preferences and buying patterns, your favorite TV programs, and so on. I would bet that the remote even checks to see whether you pick your nose. It’s none of Microsoft’s business. Just say no. 4. Select No Thank You and click Next. WMC asks whether it’s okay to connect to the Internet to find cover art for albums, music and movie information, and TV program guide list- ings. You may disagree — given Microsoft’s track record, I wouldn’t blame you — but I figure that the additional benefits are worth giving up some of my privacy, so I choose Yes. 5. If you’re like me, choose Yes and click Next. WMP advises that you have completed everything you need for enhanced playback (whatever that might be), and asks whether you want to configure its Optional Setup. 6. In most cases, WMP makes good guesses for configuring your TV tuner, so choose I Have Finished and click Next. Media Player shows you a You Are Done! screen. 7. Click Finish. While you’re thinking about it, take a second to double-check your main privacy settings. Scroll to the Tasks menu and choose Settings➪General➪ Privacy➪Privacy Settings. From the dialog box, shown in Figure 6-8, you can turn on or off the two privacy settings. Here’s what the settings mean:  ✦ Use the Guide and Send Anonymous Information: You get to use the program guide, but Microsoft collects information about your use of it, including your IP address (which uniquely identifies your computer), customized TV listings, zip code, and television service provider. If you change a guide entry, Microsoft notes that, too, and uses the information to make the guide more accurate. The Microsoft privacy statement isn’t clear, at least to me, about whether viewing information (such as which programs you watched and when) and guide use information (such as which stations you flip to from the guide) are sent to the mother data- base. Unless Microsoft comes out at some point in the future and denies that it’s collecting this type of information, you should assume that select- ing this check box gives Microsoft permission to track what you watch. Book IV Chapter 6 Setting Up Media Center 435 Beyond the Basics Figure 6-8: Don’t send Microsoft any information that makes you feel uncomfort- able.  ✦ Turn Off the Most Viewed Filter in the Guide: Media Center keeps track of the shows you watch the most so that it can present the Most Viewed list as one of the categories in the guide, thereby narrowing the list of TV stations displayed in it. I can find no reference in the Microsoft privacy statement to the ways in which this information can be used. Unless Microsoft comes out at some point in the future and denies that it’s col- lecting this type of information, you should assume that selecting this check box gives Microsoft permission to track what you watch. (Have you heard that one before?) Beyond the Basics After you set it up, most of Media Center is, simply, self-explanatory. The parts that work right require very little digging beyond the normal scope of a couch potato with a remote — which describes me perfectly when I’m tired of working and just want to relax. Tackling the parts that don’t work right takes an advanced degree in Cable Guy Engineering, a van stuffed with specialized electronic gizmos, and three martinis, in more or less that order. Media Center can’t — and won’t — do some things. Unless laws in the United States change drastically, Microsoft will never offer a program that rips DVDs. Recording FM and AM radio seems arcane enough to the ’Softies that it’ll never happen. This chapter delves into the more advanced Media Center topics that seem to crop up over and over again. In some cases, you can “discover” the fea- tures easily in couch potato mode. But in a surprising number of cases, it really helps to know where the bodies are buried. 436 Beyond the Basics Playing recorded TV shows Playing a TV show on the Media Center PC that recorded it couldn’t be simpler. From the Media Center main menu, select the TV + Movies option (or press the TV button on the remote) and then choose Recorded TV (see Figure 6-9). Figure 6-9: Playing a TV show on the PC that recorded it is easy. The shows listed on the screen are all those you recorded. To play a recorded show, just click it. Playing a recorded TV show on a PC other than the PC that recorded it can be interesting. The key problem: digital rights management. Did you see my discussion of C.R.A.P. music in Book IV, Chapter 1? Every TV program you record with Media Center is in Microsoft’s proprietary, pro- tected format — so recorded TV is C.R.A.P., any way you slice it. When Media Center records a TV show, it brands the recorded file with whichever restrictions the broadcaster imposes. For some shows, on some stations, it’s no big deal. But for movie channels such as HBO, the restric- tions can be considerable. As of this writing, that may include a restriction that you can play back the show only on the PC on which it was recorded — and you can “stream” the show to other PCs connected directly to your net- work, as well as media extenders such as the Xbox 360. Heaven only knows what kind of restrictions may be imposed in the future — will your device allow you to play a program only on alternating Thursdays or within a day of when it’s recorded? Who knows. We ain’t talkin’ VHS videotape here. [...]... 5 67 Exploring the Alternatives 568 Making Windows Live Messenger Work 570 Working with Contacts 579 Tweaking Settings in Windows Live Messenger 583 Chapter 1: Getting the Most from the Internet In This Chapter ✓ Getting a quick overview of the Internet ✓ Dialing with dollars ✓ Connecting with Broadband ✓ Setting up an Internet connection ✓ Finding important Internet... What a Search Engine Can Do for You 528 Finding What You’re Looking For 534 Posting on Newsgroups 540 Chapter 6: Sending Windows Mail Live 543 Counting the Microsoft E-Mail Programs 544 Choosing an E-Mail Program 5 46 Getting Started with Windows Live Mail 549 Conversing with E-Mail 553 Chapter 7: Chatting with Windows Live Messenger... 448 Who Pays for All This Stuff? 450 Connecting with Broadband 451 Setting Up an Internet Connection 455 Finding Internet Reference Tools 4 56 Chapter 2: Finding Your Way Around Browsers 461 Exploring Internet Explorer Alternatives: Firefox and Chrome 461 Ready, Set, Browse! 464 Thwarting Phishers 479 Saving and Printing Web Pages... sorts of amazing advice — some of which is distinctly, refreshingly, not Microsoft Party Line In July 2008, Microsoft bought an online forum and WMC enthusiast site named The Green Button (thegreenbutton.com) It’s still the preeminent source of Windows Media Center information on the Internet Since the dawn of Media Center time, The Green In late 2009, Michael Healy started the Hacking Windows 7 Media Center... isn’t responding The computer on the other end checks to see whether the site you requested is still alive Cool  460 Book V: Windows 7 and the Internet Chapter 2: Finding Your Way Around Browsers In This Chapter ✓ Recognizing that Internet Explorer ain’t the only game in town ✓ Tabbing through the Internet Explorer window ✓ Protecting yourself from phishers ✓ Playing hide-and-seek with Internet Explorer,... Explorer in 1995, as an add-on to Windows In 19 96, Microsoft built Internet Explorer version 3 into Windows itself, violating antitrust laws and using monopolistic tactics to overwhelm Netscape Navigator Having illegally pummeled its competitor in the marketplace, Microsoft made almost no improvements to Internet Explorer between August 2001 and August 20 06 — an eternity in Internet time IE became the single... Internet (including all of you who run digital subscriber line [DSL] or cable modems) that the Internet’s addressing system is running out of numbers, just as your local phone company is running out of telephone numbers The current numbering system — named IPv4 — can handle about 4 billion addresses The next version, named IPv6 — and bundled in Windows 7 — can handle this number of addresses: Getting... 483 Playing Favorites 4 86 Chapter 3: Making Internet Explorer Your Own 491 Getting the Most from Internet Explorer 492 Making Internet Explorer Run Faster 494 Putting the Pedal to the Metal: Working with Accelerators 4 97 Hardening Internet Explorer 8 498 Dealing with Cookies 502 Working with RSS Feeds 5 07 Chapter 4: Using Firefox:... writing, DomainTools (www domaintools.com) reports that about 110 million domain names end in com, net, org, info, biz, or us That’s just for the United States Other countries have different naming conventions: co.uk, for example, is the UK equivalent of com 450 Who Pays for All This Stuff? Who Pays for All This Stuff? That’s the $64 billion question, isn’t it? The Internet is one of the true bargains... 511 Installing Firefox 512 Recapping Firefox Tips 514 Speeding Up Firefox 515 Bookmarking with the Fox 5 17 Creating Smart Folders 519 Working with RSS Feeds — the Real Way 520 Adding Firefox’s Best Add-Ons 523 Using Smart Keywords in Firefox 525 Chapter 5: Searching on the Internet 5 27 Understanding . 553 Chapter 7: Chatting with Windows Live Messenger 5 67 Exploring the Alternatives 568 Making Windows Live Messenger Work 570 Working with Contacts 579 Tweaking Settings in Windows Live Messenger . Add-Ons 523 Using Smart Keywords in Firefox 525 Chapter 5: Searching on the Internet 5 27 Understanding What a Search Engine Can Do for You 528 Finding What You’re Looking For 534 Posting on Newsgroups . couch and find a chair to put in front of the com- puter, it’s a pain in the neck.  ✦ A nice bottle of wine: Need I explain what this is for? Beer works in a pinch. Getting Windows in gear The