I really could have used this on my vacation, as I lacked access to a proper desktop computer. The Skyfire browser, which recently became available in a Symbian version, provides a desktop-like experience on a mobile phone, or at least that’s the goal. I previously gave the Windows Mobile version of Skyfire a look.

Yes the browser supports Flash–well enough to play video from YouTube and from cbs.com, where I watched The Twilight Zone for a few minutes on the Nokia N95 over WiFi before the browser crashed unceremoniously.

The browser seems to die frequently, particularly when it loses connectivity to the proxy server, which does a fair bit of the work rendering the page for the client. The client doesn’t even try to reconnect, it “gracefully” exits. The client should be more tolerant of these breaks and offer to try another access point.

Scrolling around on large pages works, but you have to wait a bit while the page “depixelates” and becomes clear. Sometimes it’s fast, sometimes it’s slow. It did go “full screen” when I clicked on a YouTube video to zoom in, but it left off the edges of the movie.

Something else the client should do: allow the screen to be rotated. Bonus points if you use the accelerometer and automatically detect the screen being rotated.

The application certainly has promise, but it’s still very much beta quality. Once they sort out the bugs, it should be a fine addition to your Nokia S60 device. If you want to experience the browser for yourself–bugs and all–leave a comment on this post. I will send you an invite code that will get you right in.

Edit: Unfortunately, you must have a U.S.-based mobile phone number in order to take advantage of this offer.

I know a lot of people like last.fm, but I really just don’t see what value it has for me. Sure it makes the “music listening” experience more social, but so what?

However, that all changed when Ricky Cadden pointed me at Mobbler. Mobbler watches what you listen to and “scrobbles” it all to last.fm. While I don’t particularly care for that so much, what it does do is offer a Pandora-like solution for your S60 device. I can tell it an artist, tag, or user to build a playlist around and it just starts playing!

Obviously, you’d want a 3G or WiFi-enabled S60 device for this, and you most definitely want an unlimited data plan. That being said, it works reasonably well. The application is rough around the edges, but it is quite functional.

You might not think your television set is the best place to experience the Internet, but when you don’t have a functioning computer, it’s better than nothing. This is the situation our friends in Alabama are experiencing.

I took a look at their computer today that had been sitting for a while since it was moved. After hooking it up, I discovered it was inoperable. Won’t even POST properly. We discussed options for replacement, and while computers have gotten cheaper, they are still expensive for the average family, especially in today’s economy.

One of the main attractions for a computer is, of course the Internet. Their Wii has Internet access, why not use that as the browser? Turns out, you can and it has a supported browser powered by Opera. The Internet Chnannel, as it is called on the Wii, is a one-time charge of $5. Hey, just about anyone can afford that!

The credit card was broken out and we were off to try it. Gmail worked, and so did YouTube. Could not go quite fullscreen, but the browsing experience and video playback was pretty nice. With the purchase of a USB keyboard, they’ll have a reasonable data entry experience as well.

It’s not going to replace a computer, but it might be an interesting experiment. I wonder how well Google Docs works. Can you use it on the Internet Channel? Maybe it will be worth spending $10 to find out.

I wasn’t planning to post at all during my vacation, but I felt this needed to be posted, especially since I mentioned this on Twitter, et. al.

As of now, Creative Weblogging and I have parted ways. This means I am no longer blogging on The VoIP Weblog, The Gadgets Weblog, The Mobile Technology Weblog, and several others. I am not going to go into specifics as I do not believe it is prudent to do so.

When I get back from vacation, I am looking forward to focusing on other things, including more quality blogging (and less quantity). A few less blogs should help.

And now, we’ve finally caught up!

• MyGlobalTalk: Where’s The Difference? (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Is There Money in Voice APIs? (From GigaOM)
• Why Dell Partnered With SightSpeed (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Voice APIs Not Your Road To Riches (From The VoIP Weblog)
• VoIP Supply To Supply Bandwidth, Too (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Jajah Now Offering Hosted PBX (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Das Keyboard The Best on the Planet? (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Push-to-Talk; Tied to Carrier or Tied to Application? (From The VoIP Weblog and The Mobile Technology Weblog)
• Cellity Communicator Updated With External Email, Twitter Support (From The Mobile Technology Weblog)
• Bigger Things Going on with Numbr (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Hone Your Global Nomad Skills By Practicing Locally (From Web Worker Daily)
• Fring Adds J2ME, Nokia Internet Tablets (From The VoIP Weblog and The Mobile Technology Weblog)
• Radius Atomic Bass Headphones (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• The Lock Cup (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• 8×8 Gets No Respect–But Deserves It (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Don’t Lose Your Phone, Get It Back! (From The Gadgets Weblog and The Mobile Technology Weblog)
• How Do You Tax VoIP? (From voip.com/blog)
• Should You Kill Your RSS Reader? (From Web Worker Daily)
• Taking a Vacation From The VoIP Weblog (From The VoIP Weblog)

I am leaving the laptops at home and going on vacation with the family. Expect light, not necessarily topical blogging, if any, until I get back in early August.

My good friend Ken Camp broke down why he thinks Unified Communications is already here, i.e the concept of a single inbox for everything. He goes so far as to suggest that the current Web 2.0 craze and Unified Communications are linked–one could not happen without the other. He even did a podcast on the subject.

My initial thoughts on this were that the two shared elements, but were not necessarily linked together in the way Ken thinks they are. However, I am starting to think about it in a different way.

To me, what Unified Communications and Web 2.0 are is simple: whatever you want them to be. They are terms that, in my mind, are fuzzy concepts at best. I try to come up with a definition for either term and I get a different answer each time. However, let’s worth with a definition I’ve ranted about: all communications coming through a single point of entry–email, voice, presence, fax, IM, whatever.

Companies try and sell products that “solve” this problem in some unique way, but involve redirecting everyone through some intermediary. Bah. The more I think about it, the more I realize that we already have a solution to this problem: the mobile phone.

For me, the mobile phone deals with many of these forms of communication and more. I can read both corporate and personal email on my phones. I can make phone calls. I can use IM–something I rarely use. I can update my presence on all of my social networks. I can check on said social networks.

The only thing I can’t do? Fax. But that’s something I only use in specific circumstances. It’s an enough of an exception that I don’t consider it a showstopper from the Unified Communications point of view.

Granted, there is an entire ecosystem that makes Unified Communications possible–many of them provided by so-called Web 2.0 companies. It’s not a product you can buy, it’s out there, waiting to be tied into by any old application that speaks the right APIs.

While the experience could be better–more unified as it were–I think we’ve got Unified Communcations today–if you have the right tools.

Pat Phelan followed a story about video blogger Sarah Austin, who was getting paid by Flixwagon and there was no disclosure about this fact anywhere. There was nothing in the contracts that forbid disclosure, but she did not want to disclose this fact because “I just think it is better for business not to disclose that I stream with them for peanuts!”

There are many facets to this issue, including in some cases, contractual and legal ones. I am going to try and stick to the ethical issues and avoid any potential legal issues. I am not a lawyer.

Why disclose in the first place? The main reason: to make people aware of any potential conflicts of interest. But when is disclosure just plain silly or redundant?

I write posts on various Creative Weblogging blogs. They pay me to write posts of a certain length on 22 different tech blogs. I have also written posts for GigaOM and Web Worker Daily–they pay me, too. I’ve also written on voip.com’s corporate blog–they also pay me as well. I think that constantly disclosing I’m paid for these posts is silly because it should be inherently obvious someone is paying me for those posts.

Of course, in all of the above cases, I have varying degrees of control over what gets posted. They are paying for the content, not for me to write something specific beyond being within specific topic areas. It’s a bit like a newspaper paying a reporter for articles. Same idea, different technology.

There’s also the whole concept of Sponsored Posts that Creative Weblogging does. These are blog posts paid for by a sponsor to link to a specific site. I’m not a huge fan of writing these posts–and won’t do them on phoneboy.com. At least Creative Weblogging properly discloses these posts.

I also blog/write a fair bit about Nokia. On this topic, I disclose–almost to a ridiculous degre–that I work for them, especially when I blog on my own blog. Even though, in most cases, my work with Nokia has nothing to do with what I am writing about.

Some other commenters on the post go so far as to say that disclosing relevant friendships is important, as it can taint your point of view. One other one took it to an extreme: “Do we need to disclosure who we like/dislike/sleep with/secretly admire because it will affect our transparency? Sheesh.”

It’s hard to know where to draw the line here. I don’t want to be so laden with disclosures that my posts have no substance left. I try to disclose only the pertinent relationships that might affect my editorial coverage, except when I feel the relationship is obvious (e.g. on a commercial blog).

In the Sarah Austin case, if she was badmouthing the other services and she’s getting paid by Flixwagon, then yes, that’s a clear conflict of interest and it should be disclosed immediately. Based on what I’ve read, though, it’s not clear to me Sarah Austin is violating any ethical standards here. It’s definitely a grey area, though I’d have to say if it were me, I would disclose it.

What about you? How much disclosure is too much?

When I went to California earlier this month, I didn’t have a lot of time to do my ritual of reading RSS feeds with Google Reader. It happens when I travel, particularly when I’ve only got a couple of days to get a bunch of stuff done.

Then I came back. You know what? I haven’t opened Google Reader since. That stack of stuff that’s sitting there to read will still be there. I will eventually “Mark All Read” the stuff in there, but not anytime soon.

That isn’t to say I haven’t been reading things on the Internet. The few things I’ve read have come across one of the various social networks I am on, or have come from people responding to my blog posts. In a few cases, I’ve actually just went and visited the site. What a novel concept!

In terms of getting my blogging done, I get enough things thrown at me in email and through the social networking sites that I have no shortage of things to potentially talk about. In fact, it’s given me the cycles to get my inbox close to zero.

If I go back to Google Reader–and I’m still debating whether or not I will or not–I will start over and unsubscribe all the RSS feeds. At first, I will just subscribe to the blogs I write for. I will only add blogs back to the RSS reader if I run across a good story from my social networking sites. Going for quality over quantity.