As a professional sad bastard, I like to read my (personal) email wherever and whenever I want.

Recently Google revealed Gmail for Mobile and it’s a very slick service. They seem to have put a lot of work into into it. I say this because it seems to “just work” without too much thought on the behalf of the user and I know from experience that this is not an easy thing to accomplish. Especially not in the tricky mobile world where the profusion of devices, all with different capabilities, form factors, and browsers makes the content provider’s job especially difficult.

And it keeps surprising me: yesterday I discovered that if I follow any link in an email viewed via Mobile Gmail the resulting web page gets routed through a Google proxy that formats it into a more mobile friendly format. If only I could use this all the time when trying to get to a web page on my phone.

So, between Mobile Gmail and the Opera browser on my phone I can get my email, surf the web, and blog from my phone (Sony Ericsson P900 together with a little Pocketop IR Keyboard), while I’m on holiday without needing my iBook and net connection.

I did warn you that I’m a sad bastard, didn’t I?