Open ID for your Mobile

I very rarely just do a post highlighting other blog posts, I usually use my del.icio.us script but as I broke this by killing my unix PHP box I thought I'd post it the old fashioned way. This evening I glanced over at Ian McKellar's blog and he has been messing with OpenID for the mobile. I have just started playing with OpenID and been working on integrating into one of my projects and this looks a really good idea for mobile OpenID http://ianloic.com/2008/01/13/a-simpler-mobile-openid-workflow/ Take a look at that link and try out, comment and share the love for this project. I'll post more about OpenID and using it at a later date.

Doing that mobile thing..... revisited

A few months ago I wrote a post about how I was finding the "mobile Internet". At the time I found it to be very good and was very happy with it. On the bus today I had a chance to chance to ponder over my usage since then and if any thing had changed. Now I must say that I use my mobile Internet daily, sometimes I'm on it more than I am on my Internet at home. It really is great on the whole, Opera Mini web browser allows you to view practically any site, MSN means I'm always in touch with people and again the Google Apps, GMail and Maps are always useful when on the move however I have found one gripe. My gripe is how intermittent mobile Internet is on the move. For example when on the bus your be lucky to be able to run msn let alone browse the web. The fact is when your on the move, for 3 anyway, the 3G signal just fades out and your Internet ability suffers. This is vastly magnified when your trying to read your blog feed on Google Reader as every time you loose Internet connectivity your session resets and you have to relogin !?! This annoyed the hell out of me. I'm now thinking when will someone or even Google release an offline rss reader for Google Reader for the mobile device. Now Google already have an offline mode for Google Reader in the form of Gears so I beg the question wheres the mobile edition? I suppose this will come in the form of some Java app which I don't mind about, i just hope you can use the app online, and then download you top 100 or even 50 unread. This would then allow many mobile commuters to catch up with their blog feeds whilst on the move. Here's hoping this happends sooner rather than later.....

Doing that mobile thing

For the last two months I have been using 3's unlimited X-Series Silver Internet package. This has allowed me to use multiple mobile applications and services. However until the last week I haven't had to solely rely on it for my daily dose of Internet goodness. Last week I was away at Cefn Lea, which is near Newtown in Mid Wales. Sadly I had no broadband Internet access so in order to pick up mail and keep up to date with all my blog's. Now I was expecting that doing this on my tiny Sony Ericsson K800i would be a bit of a drag. However I was pleasantly surprised, using the gMail Java application and Google Maps was great. These applications if you haven't tried them are very easy to use and really do add to the mobile Internet experience, using your keypad for quick access to your inbox and to compose well saves Lot's of time and emails render amazingly well on such a small screen and you still get to see Google convert and render basic attachments for your mobile pleasure. Google haven't let us mobile users down with Google Calendar mobile edition and Google Reader mobile edition either. These online applications really do work. In my opinion Google Calendar mobile is still a touch in its infant stage as when you try to add an event its always entered as the current hour's event, which doesn't help, but it does have great potential. Sadly though, even Google can not save the entire day for mobile users. Google tries to convert as many sites as possible for mobile viewing if you use their search engine, but sometimes this still doesn't work. Some sites just aren't mobile friendly, sadly i must admit that trying to use Yahoo mail was one of these, it just wasn't happy and had some odd rendering. Flickr, CricInfo, BBC just to name a few however are awesome and work really well. Flickr Mobile even allows you to upload images directly from your mobile phone, tag them and do all types of awesome things. So after a week of mobile Internet instead of broadband I have to say it's getting there. Being able to access email and basic websites on the move is now becoming far more than a fad or just for "business" people. Especially with the introduction of monthly flat rate mobile access pricing. I would expect with the introduction of flat rate access that mobile web usage should go up. This should also mean mobile web applications which are accessible should become the norm. However for this to happen developers need to ensure they either make mobile editions of there sites which will encure more development or test their sites in a mobile environment. Now I'm not sure how wide spread this will become, but I would hope at least that as the Internet becomes more accessible on a mobile device that more effort will be put into the mobile development area. If Google have a say in it, I'm sure it won't be long before most of their applications will be found as mobile apps. Here's hoping for Google Doc's on your mobile ;)