I had an interesting letter through the door. The same letter everyone receives when moving into a new home: a threatening missive from the TV licensing people. What's interesting about it is the increasingly hostile tone of these letters. I remember when I moved into my last place, it was all very vague and woolly, saying that I could be subject to fines, and that I could be caught and so forth.

So I was passed a URL today. This one:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7240234.stm

Have a look, then come back. Done? OK. Are you laughing? I know I am.

So they think that accessing illegal content is worthy of a complete internet ban. Well, let's face it, the punishment must fit the crime. Knocking off an 11 quid CD is surely worth a lifetime being left out of the digital revolution, yes? I thought so.

So hyperbole aside, how many of those people who would be kicked off do they think are current or future IT professionals? I'd wager "a lot", or a figure thereabouts. So when the nation's IT workforce isn't allowed to use the internet any more, and the digital dark age upon us, surely we can reflect on that and say "verily and thus, we may be in the digital equivalent of skid row, but at least we have properly recompensed record label execs ... I mean ... artists."

And aside from the ludicrous idea behind it, let's not forget the lack of any method of enforcing such a thing. If a residence gets cut off, can they sign up for another? Does it somehow stick to the individual and follow them around? What about mobile data plans, public WiFi, pay-for WiFi, hotels and the like? Libraries? Companies?

OK, maybe it wasn't worth a whole blog post to rant about this thing because, realistically, there's no way it could ever be enforced. It did give me the best laugh I've had all day, though.

Some of you may remember that I bought an Onn SW2411A-DivX 3 months ago from Asda. At the time I was very impressed with the machine for the price, and have used it for watching both DVD and DivX content throughout Christmas. Well, it seems that these cheap gadgets come at a price; a 3 month lifespan. Last week I found that it had stopped reading disks properly. It could take 4 or 5 attempts before it would even spin a disk up, never mind read the content.

Back to Asda we go, then, and get a credit note to the tune of the 30 quid we paid for it. Using this and a little cash injection, it has now been replaced with a Phillips DVP5960 unit. This has basically the same feature set as the Onn with an extra 20 quid on top. However, for that 20 quid you're getting a named brand and a far more polished product. The strange hanging that plagues the Onn from day 1, the intermittent USB connectivity and other little glitches are absent. Indeed, the DVP5960 and its predecessors have had excellent reviews on many technology sites.

Now, I do know that many people come here looking for region hacks for the Onn machine. The funny part is that it doesn't need any. However, if that's why you're here, I would recommend you go with the Phillips machine. It costs a bit more, but I'm already impressed enough to recommend it over the Onn model. If something goes bad down the line I'll be sure to blog about it.

I was in desperate need for a new DVD player after my existing little Cyberhome decided to start throwing up completely blue screens if the action got a little too bright for it. Very irritating. I headed out to Asda because cheap is good, and picked up what I consider a bargain. For 30 notes, I acquired a DVD player, an Onn SW2411A-DivX, that can also play DivX files on disk or, get this, on a USB connected drive. Yes, you read right. There is a USB (1.1 only, sadly) port on the front and you can plug in any FAT32 formatted drive.

At this moment, I have my 60GB portable maxtor drive plugged into it. I have watched my Dr Who AVIs and am now listening to MP3s via the on-screen file browser. It even scrolls the ID3 tags across the bottom. How good is that, for the money!?

update I finally got round to trying a region 1 disk in it. I didn't know what would happen, but I failed to find any region-free hacks for the player. Turns out I should have just tried it; it's region free out of the box.

July 2007 is a major milestone month in film history. It is the month in which the new Transformers movie has been released. At last, the wait is over!

My review is very simple. It rocks. The robots were brilliant, the humans were actually good and didn't irritate me, and the storyline was simple enough that they couldn't stray too far from it thus maximising potential for robot related antics. The comedy was funny in a mindless sort of way, and the action sequences were full of, well, action. I think I've about exhausted what needs to be said. In summary, go see this movie.

I have noticed an interesting thing, though. Most reviews say this film is great, due to either the robots themselves, the intense action, the corny humour. Whatever the reviewer likes, it's all good. That's fine. There are a number of negative reviews, though, that seem to be less based on the movie and based more on the reviewer's dislike of Michael Bay.

I have read several reviews that read as a list of "things I don't like about Michael Bay films", dragging in references to Bad Boys and Armaggedon on the way. You get the feeling that the reviewers didn't actually go to watch the film, but to play Bay Bingo. Tick, there's an action sequence with fast cutting. Tick, there's a corny line about "humanity". Tick, there's a shallow bit of plot development.

To these reviewers I can only say one thing; why did you go see it? If you detest Michael Bay so much, why bother going to see yet another of his films. I will happily admit to having enjoyed Armaggedon, not as a piece of classic theatre but as an entertaining piece of media. I enjoyed Transformers because it had humour and action and sufficient cheese to carry both off. And big transforming robots. Those are key.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's OK to like a film just because you enjoyed watching it. It sounds painfully obvious, but if you go to see a film filled with preconceptions and pre-pent bile about what you expect the director to have screwed up, then why bother? Either get over it and just enjoy it, or just don't look. Either is good.