Download MTV's The Hills on iTunes

The Hills is back for season 4, and the girls are beginning to make some big decisions that will set the course for the rest of their lives.

While Lauren struggles to balance the tension between her roommates, Audrina and Lo, she starts dating Doug, an old flame from Laguna Beach. Meanwhile, Brody, Audrina and just about everyone else warn Lauren not to trust her new friend, Stephanie Pratt (Spencer's sister). And when Lauren makes a surprising discovery about Stephanie and Doug, she realizes that her friends might be right.

Just as Audrina thinks it's time to let her boyfriend Justin go and begins dating Colin, Justin turns up the heat in their relationship, leaving her torn. Whitney rises up the ranks at People's Revolution much faster than she expected and meets a model in New York who could possibly sweep her off her feet. And Heidi deals with the consequences of moving back in with Spencer, including putting her job at risk. As if that wasn't enough, Heidi's sister Holly comes from Colorado for an indefinite visit, putting some serious pressure on her renewed relationship with Spencer.

During season 4 of The Hills, life in Los Angeles only gets more complicated as friendships, relationships and loyalties are tested like never before.

Series 4 of The Hills started last Sunday night on MTV and to get yourself in the mood, download an exclusive free clip which goes behind the scenes at The Hills UK aftershow party and gives you an idea of what to expect from Series 4.

Designer Labels (Blogger goes beta)

I'm sure you already know that Google has lifted the wraps off of a substantial upgrade to Blogger! This was foreshadowed by the soft launch of RSS 2.0.

While the majority of users (myself included) await confirmation to migrate their existing accounts. You can get a sneak peek of what's in store for both my blogs here. Labels is a long awaited category/tag mashup that will enrich Technorati listings. Of course template trammels could render things "dunzo" as they say on Laguna Beach!

Please note that at time of writing, there's no auto-detect feature for RSS (amongst other technical foibles), at least until I've augmented the html code.

Pure Shores

Last summer I was featured in the Alumni Association magazine, The Talbot, a Media Careers special (PDF download). Eight years prior to this, as a BA (Hons) Media Production student I savored the sights, sounds and salty air of Bournemouth beach. Today, I returned for the first time since 1996 in the company of very gracious hosts who kindly treated my Dad and me to a cod and haddock banquet in West Beach. The rival of any shoreside restaurant in the USA, one wouldn't be surprised to bump into the likes of "LC" and Lo (from MTV's Laguna Beach). Topics traversed Apple Computer, Bauhaus and the cinema of Steven Spielberg. Thank you for embellishing a memorable occasion.

Being a Mac user means I can't leverage Blogger's Picasa button! No fear because in steps Yahoo! with Flickr. An exceptional photo publishing platform. Flickr Uploadr is available in Mac OS X flavor too and is the perfect citizen. A flash-based photo gallery has been integrated into the sidebar.

DivX is increasing its market and mind share. And, as with RealPlayer, I can now author DivX content. Although the company's Mac support is far from startling, their lab indicates future improvements. Currently preparing demo clips.

eBay has made purchasing a breeze with tighter PayPal integration. Handy for those memorabilia bids.

Sony UK have announced official support for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in PlayStation 3. Can console gaming get any better than this?

Laguna chic

The North American release of Sony's PSP will indeed be a blockbuster package. The PSP Value Pack contains an unprecedented added-value package of accessories and entertainment content, including 32MB Memory Stick Duo, headphones with remote control, battery pack, AC adaptor, soft case and cleaning cloth, movie/music/game video sampler UMD disc including multiple non-interactive game demos, and for the first one million PSP Value Packs shipped, a special UMD video release of the feature film Spider-Man 2 from Sony Pictures Entertainment.

In light of shipping to Japanese and North American markets sans chip capacity. The highly anticipated European PSP launch remains unclear according to Bloomberg (a world class financial news service). Although I'm eager to get my hands on a PlayStation Portable, the 'quality control' problems - from stuck buttons to dead pixels - are an area of concern for a high value product and it's preferable to see these resolved in a timely fashion.

Sony is a vertically integrated global company and can leverage a formidable hardware (electronics) and software (film, music and television) portfolio. Clearly the PlayStation is now an integral part of their business model, which has suffered a fall in profitability with the success of online and a decline in offline markets. The masstige brand is being repositioned as a digital lifestyle product - a concept pioneered by and synonymous with Apple. PSX (DESR-7000) and PSP may intimate Sony's plans for PS3. Doubtlessly there will be future interoperability between the portable and home consoles. Think of the Mac mini and iPod as a good analogy.