Mac OS X Lion gave us the ability to take apps full-screen, moving clutter and distractions out of the way and making organizing your desktop easier. Native apps like iPhoto, Safari, Mail and iCal supported this new full-screen mode out of the box, and third-party apps followed suit, including some of my favourites like Evernote, Chrome and Reeder.

But for anyone using more than one screen, this new full-screen mode renders that second or third screen a little pointless. For example, here’s a dual-screen setup with iTunes on the primary monitor and a peek at the second monitor, which displays Apple’s now-signature cross-hatch wallpaper:

OS X Lion Full Screen Mode with Dual Monitors

That cross-hatch wallpaper area on the second monitor does not allow for a window or another full-screen app to be placed on it. It doesn’t even allow for widgets from the dashboard area. In other words, it’s useless.

I have heard the arguments from the other side on this one, stating that a solution is to simply close your laptop and use only the external monitor, or that placing two full-screen applications next to each other isn’t really in line with Apple’s intent when they rolled out this feature. The intent was to allow you to focus on one application, one task, one project at a time. Dual-monitor setups don’t fit into this philosophy because they’re made to multitask. I am of the opinion this dialogue could swiftly be snuffed out if Apple would provide an option to either allow or disallow applications to concurrently run in full-screen mode when more than one display is hooked up.

As it stands, it seems like a deliberately lazy part of an otherwise great operating system.

Since I became an iPhone owner a couple years ago, I’ve always found that jailbreaking has opened the ubiquitous device up to some really cool features not otherwise available in Apple’s walled garden. But as of late, with iOS updates flying fast and new features cropping up, I have found reason after reason to return my phone to its vanilla glory. With the release of the most recent version of iOS (5.0.1), I decided to give an un-jailbroken iPhone a try.

Here’s a quick list of some of the reasons why jailbreaking might be a thing of the past for me.

• Personal Hotspot – prior to the wireless carriers agreeing to free their data connections from the bounds of mobile devices and allow them to be tethered to laptops, desktops and anything else that will accept a bluetooth/wifi/USB internet connection, the only way to share my iPhone’s 3G connectivity was to jailbreak and run the fantastic MyWi application. But now with Personal Hotspot, there’s just no need to jailbreak in order to share a data connection. The only limitation to this is that on my 3GS, sharing over wifi isn’t supported with Personal Hotspot, but that’s only really a concern when I’m sharing a connection with my iPad, which so far has been a rare occurrence.
• iBooks - it just straight up doesn’t work on a jailbroken iOS 5 device. There are fixes/workarounds, but I’d rather not have to spend a bunch of time messing around in Terminal / iFile to make a 1st-party app work. Boourns to that.
• App Updates - this is a touchy subject, because one of the things you can do with a jailbroken iPhone/iPad is use cracked applications. Sites like apptrackr state that they are “for application trials, and nothing else”, but in the same breath they admit that the majority of their users come to the site to pirate. Full disclosure, I’ve done my fair share of “application trials”, but after a while of using the app, I either lost interest and deleted it, or found it useful enough to warrant the average $0.99 – $2.99 price tag. The main thing that pushed me toward legitimate app purchases – it simplified the updating process – with cracked apps, there are no update notifications, and the latest versions of apps might take weeks to show up in a cracked format. When I moved to iOS5, this became a major headache. Legitimately purchased apps are the way to go, hands down. I believe Apple’s system of selling Apps through the App Store defeats piracy the same way iTunes has done a lot to combat music piracy – something Steve Jobs mentioned when the iTunes store first launched.
• Performance - while jailbreaking your device doesn’t necessarily slow it down, as soon as you install any application that requires Mobile Substrate, (like my favourite jailbreak app, BiteSMS) you can be certain of a drop in performance, especially when it comes to opening or switching applications. This is especially noticeable on my aging iPhone 3GS. I’ve seen a marked speed improvement this week since upgrading to iOS 5.0.1 and staying away from jailbreaking.
• OTA Software Updates - I don’t know if this is a byproduct of jailbreaking or not, but the OTA update for 5.0.1 failed on my iPhone and iPad, both of which were jailbroken at the time. I’m hoping the next round of updates go smoothly on my vanilla iOS devices.

Today is a banner day in Winnipeg history. The NHL announced the completion of their deal with local sports and entertainment company True North to bring the Atlanta Thrashers hockey club to Winnipeg. While the mass majority of hockey fans in Winnipeg are literally dancing in the streets and celebrating the return of major league hockey to our city, the media is still searching for answers to a lot of questions about the team. There are a lot of loose ends, but unquestionably the biggest one is in regard to the team’s name.

The frontrunners for name choices, according to the Winnipeg Free Press, are the Jets, Moose and Falcons. Given the NHL’s history in Winnipeg, however, there’s only one name for a team here: the Winnipeg Jets. Many of my Facebook friends have changed their profile pictures to what appears to be a new Jets logo, showing their support for the old brand’s return.

Redesigned Jets Logo

If that does wind up being the team’s name, I wonder if True North’s marketing department has begun to investigate domain names for the team’s website.

If you visit winnipegjets.com right now, you’ll find the homepage of the Canadian Forces Base 17 Wing in Winnipeg.

The Current Winnipegjets.com Homepage

If this were the homepage of anything else, I don’t think there’d be much of an issue of acquiring the domain. But considering it’s a military website, I wonder if there’s going to be an issue there.

Will the CFB give up their domain and move somewhere with a more SEO friendly URL? Or will this not be an issue because the hockey team will have a different name? Only time will tell. If I were the CFB, I wouldn’t have a problem giving up the domain, but I don’t know how military webmasters think. My inclination is that they’re … militant.

I’ve been reading a lot of reviews on RIM’s recently-released BlackBerry PlayBook and it’s not looking good. Most reviewers agree that the PlayBook’s UI is shiny and its ability to display pages with flash components is a plus. But that seems to be where the good things, the differentiators from the other tablets in the market, stop. Most tech pundits have come down hard on the PlayBook, saying that as a standalone device, its functionality is severely, even terminally limited by its dependence on tethering with a BlackBerry phone to access the native email, contacts and calendar apps.

RIM has stated that the problems with their software are going to be addressed in updates to be released over the summer. That leads many to believe that RIM launched the PlayBook in advance of it actually being market-ready. Now it appears the company has recalled a large number of PlayBooks due to a hardware defect.

If the gadget-loving public stays well-informed on the PlayBook’s foibles since its launch, it makes me wonder if it will suffer the same fate as many other devices that may have been successful had it not been for overwhelming negative media. Or is it just that the PlayBook really is a half-baked device released before it was consumer-ready? RIM certainly has  its hands full with the competition – namely the iPad 2, which is the #1 selling tablet in the world.

For all its sheen, power, sophistication and adaptability, the iPhone’s core applications have been a source of annoyance for me. Safari doesn’t render pages all that quickly, the SMS app doesn’t allow group messaging or show photos for contacts (something that biteSMS does quite nicely) and the calculator app lacks simple functions like a tip calculator for restaurant visits.

But none of the native iPhone apps irk me more than the Calendar. I can get by with slow page renders and finding another app for tip calculation. But I don’t understand why Apple hasn’t made any significant improvements to the Calendar app over the last couple releases of iOS, or even in an App Store Update.

So here’s my list of beefs with the Calendar app, simultaneously acting as a list of feature requests for future versions.

1. Locations should be links to the Maps app. If I enter a location into an event in Calendar, I should be able to click that location in the event details and have it pulled up in the Maps app. So many other apps do this: Yelp, Foursquare, Facebook Places – need I go on? It makes no sense that this feature doesn’t exist.

2. Default Alerts. Not all events are the same, I get that. I may not need to be notified an hour in advance to call someone back, or to get groceries on my way home from work. But what gets my goat is that nowhere in the Calendar app or the Settings app on the iPhone is there a place to set the default amount of time in advance to alert me that there’s an upcoming event in my calendar. This means that if I’m quickly entering a meeting in my calendar, and I forget to set an alert, I’ll never be notified in advance of it happening. How is that functional?

3. No Weekly View (and no landscape view). One of the things I like about Google Calendar (and Outlook, although trust me, there are few things I like about Outlook) is that it shows me my week at a glance – I can see the work week ahead and map my time accordingly. When I go to my phone, there’s no such option, and it would be so simple to implement – just turn your phone to landscape orientation to see the weekly view. I prefer typing in landscape as well, and the Calendar app denies me that convenience.

So, there you have it. I know it’s not a long list, but I do think there could be some serious improvements made to the Calendar app. Come on, Apple – don’t let this become one of those situations like Microsoft has with Internet Explorer – simultaneously the market leader and the least innovative browser out there.

What do you think should be added/changed? Leave me a comment below. And if you’re looking for alternatives to the iPhone Calendar app, here’s a great list.

It’s true – Facebook is turning six years old and to celebrate they are soon launching a drastic redesign of the site’s home page.

Every time Facebook comes out with a redesign of their website, cries from the huddled masses decree it to be the worst atrocity since Snooki was punched in the face.

Well, this time around I’m taking a preemptive strike. I’m calling out all of you who will undoubtedly whine and cry about the impending update to Facebook; start groups petitioning the admins to allow you to go back in time; and eventually come into the present with the rest of us kicking and screaming.  No matter what you do, it’s going to happen anyway, so I’m attempting to save you a lot of the time and effort you’ll waste railing against something you can’t change. Just suck it up.

The fact of the matter is Facebook is free for all and that means, although they’re incredibly receptive to the feedback of their users, they can pretty much do whatever they want with the site.

I believe web developers generally have the best interest of users at heart. They spend hours looking at research about how people use their sites so they can engineer better ways for you to interact. Faster ways. More efficient ways.

That’s a good thing. So cry if you like, but it’s happening.

Lately, due to what can only be described as a disgusting holiday sugar-and-carbohydrate binge, I’ve found myself having trouble fitting into pants, wearing my favourite t-shirts, and generally not looking and feeling like slimer of the Ghostbusters or maybe Meat Loaf circa Rocky Horror. Therefore I thought it high time to do something, anything to work my way back to at least some semblance of normal shape.

Considering it’s already mid-January, I deem the following statement not to be a new year’s resolution, but more of a challenge to myself and a step toward better health. For the next 365 days, I shall not consume a drop of the frothy, delicious, buzz-inducing, malty, hoppy goodness known as beer.

I can hear the gasps of horror and groans of disappointment for miles around. I can also hear the snickers of cynicism. Am I insane for attempting such a thing? Maybe. But I promise to you, dear reader, that during the next year, I will do everything in my power to ensure that not an ale, lager, stout or draught will touch these lips.

Now don’t get me wrong – that doesn’t mean I’m going altogether dry. What, do you think I’m crazy? No way. It just means that after a healthy amount of consideration, I have deemed that there are other ways to get a nice buzz on and keep my caloric intake to a minimum. That’s where I need your help – what’s the healthiest drink? Wine? Martinis? Tequila? God, I hope it’s not tequila. That would be awful.

Also don’t think that this idea doesn’t scare the absolute poop out of me. Beer is a big part of socializing for me. I like to have them at the pub during a rousing chat with friends, whilst watching a great live show and sometimes with a meal at home. This is going to be tough. But I’m convinced that I’m going to come out feeling better about myself.

Also, when my year is up, and I reward myself with a lovely pint, it is going to taste like the best beer I’ve ever tasted in my entire life. My plan after that is to keep beers in the mix, but to consume in moderation. We’ll see how it goes, folks.

So here we go. 2010 – a year without beer. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The conversation is changing. I hear that a lot these days. And I think it’s time for me to change what this site is. So far, it’s been a mash-up of personal thoughts on the state of advertising and pop culture but I think I owe it to myself to make things a little more personal. So from now on, watch for things to change around here. I’m going to start sharing more. Creating more. Just … being here more. Get ready!

The methods are myriad – Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, MySpace, and countless mobile applications like BrightKite et cetera. All these places create a torrent of useful information about someone, and it’s getting easier and easier to aggregate it, to build a complete picture of someone’s personality, buying habits, and so on.

The point is to take something that would normally only give you static information and make it dynamic. It’s been a truth of advertising since day one that increased relevance equals increased results. But now that people are freely offering demographic, psychographic and geographic information about themselves on such a granular level by participating in the social web, the possibilities for targeting become boundless.

For example, there’s a simple restaurant finder app for iPhone out there that reads GPS information from your phone to figure out the closest restaurants to your current location. It then allows you to search through them by category, by critics’ ratings and by users’ ratings. It will show you where your friends ate, what they said about that particular restaurant and their scores based on food quality, quality of service and ambiance. Who do you trust more? A recognized food critic or your roommate from college? Now it doesn’t matter. You can get both of them side-by-side.

And there are literally thousands upon thousands of other apps just as useful out there or being developed that play upon that same sense of community.

Some argue that the collection and aggregation of all these little bits of data about someone does not necessarily make a whole picture of them, or that ethically it’s not right to build profiles based on this information. Others say that if they’re freely offering it, knowing the terms of service of all the sites they are using, that their right to the privacy of that information is given up.

There’s a lot to talk about there. Think about the millions of people who signed on to CNN’s website during the Michael Jackson memorial on Tuesday to watch the event live while updating their Facebook status, thanks to some incredibly smart integration on part of CNN. Facebook statuses were updated in record numbers while the memorial was being broadcast, which is good news for any advertisers on Facebook and great news for CNN, as they’re now able to include people on the conversation – giving a glimpse of the collective consciousness of a nation while something major is happening. The zeitgeist is getting easier and easier to see, thanks to tools like that.

Today, Google announced its new web-based (of course) platform for communicating and collaborating in real time, Wave. Upon first glance, this might be just the Outlook-killer that Google has been preparing to launch since they launched Gmail and Calendar, and more recently juiced both apps up with Tasks.

Now that communication happens in so many different places, so many of which are electronic, like Wave, it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of the value of a simple phone call, or better yet, a face-to-face meeting. As smart as I’m sure this platform will be at collaborating, organizing information and communications, it still lacks the human touch.

There’s something about the chemistry of human relations that simply doesn’t translate via text, regardless of the medium. Sure, there’s VoIP and video conferencing but those have yet to really become pervasive to many businesses.

Ad agencies and communications companies are all over new tech for conversing, but why would a locksmith need video conferencing?

Lately I’ve been struggling with the amount of paper that comes across my desk. Since I started my new job I have been fighting to keep things electronic – that way my information is searchable, I can organize it in as many different ways as I like, and I don’t have to think about where something is – I just bring up my search box, type a few characters and up it comes. I can’t tell you how much time Google Desktop and Xobni have saved me at work.

The idea of having all your emails and documents instantly searchable doesn’t appear to have any shortcomings to me, aside from its lack of portability (all my searchable items are stored only on my computer at my desk at work).

But what really has taken a while to sink in, and who knows why, is that a simple phone call is often all you need to get things done. It’s a serious reliever of stress to just be able to chat with someone on the other end, sort things out and have a laugh while you’re at it.

Personalities shine through, you can get a handle on what others are concerned about and get in a quick chat about random nonsense while you’re at it. It’s so easy.

So from now on, as much as I love to shoot quick emails, I’m going to make more phone calls. And I think I’m going to make more friends while I’m at it.