Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

I'll hold my hand up and admit it. I thought the BBC iPlayer was going to be a good idea. I wasn't too fussed about the DRM - the regulatory environment the BBC has to work with wouldn't have let it do anything else. All I wanted was a way to watch my favourite shows on a laptop halfway over the Atlantic.

I got on the the beta last week, along with pretty much everyone who'd signed up. I should have given up as soon as I got the convoluted installation instructions in my email. Go to this site, enter this password, download this application, go back to download a program, install an ActiveX control, start again, and then wait for the slowest P2P download ever to deliver a copy of Top Gear to my hard disk. Oh, and then not to get the right licenses so I couldn't actually watch the programme I'd downloaded. No Jeremy and No Star in Moderately Priced Car for me...