In the past couple of weeks I have noticed a change in behavior in the ICQ program (ICQ Pro v2003b) that has made it virtually unusable, and I'm wondering if it's just me (did I screw up a configuration setting or something?) or has ICQ shot itself in the foot? [completely irrelevant aside, but that reminded me of one of the best automotive journalism sentences I have ever read. In a comparison test between the Lexus IS 350 and BMW 330i in AutoWeek magazine, the concluding sentence was "Lexus brought a knife to a gunfight and still managed to shoot itself in the foot. The 3 Series is indeed the better car." Cracked me up! Complete review here]

Anyway, the ICQ behavior I am experiencing is this. They have an advertising window displayed below the window where I type messages. This doesn't bother me, except that the advertisement changes every 45 seconds or so, and each time the advertisement changes, the "active window" (the one I am typing in) goes inactive, and I have to click on that window with the mouse in order to keep typing. And just clicking doesn't do it -- that highlights the whole window, so I have to click again at where I want to resume typing, and that doesn't do it either, that highlights the last word, so I have to click a third time to get my insert cursor back.

Do other people have this problem?

tanstaafl.