What better time to start digging at that pile of books you've left to dust all year long than summer vacation? You finally get the time to sit down and forget the hassle and stress of work and immerse yourself in a good novel. I personally like having a physical copy of a book with me, especially because I can skip forwards and backwards easily, and write up notes on pages.

If you're a real geek though, you might be attracted to the trendier and all digital ebooks.There are already countless sites on the web from which you can download electronic copies of novels, comics, journals and more. Here are a few applications, most of them on mobile device (the best support for ebooks) to enjoy your novels under the shade, and preferably with a cool drink:

• uBook - Reads most ebook files and displays images.
• Haali Reader - A Pocket PC ebook reader with multiple column support.
• eReader - A simple solution for Palm owners to quickly read edocuments .
• MobiPocket Reader - Access the large collection of ebooks from the MobiPocket online store on your Palm.
• eBook - Read ebooks in .prc and .pdb format on your smartphone.
• TomeRaider - Access loads of free ebooks online via your phone.
• ComiX - Enjoy more than 60 comic strips on your PC.
• iComic - Subscribe to comic strips, drag and drop or quickly flip between them on this easy to use Mac app.
• ComicBookLover - A comic book application with advanced viewing and editing.
• Best eBook - This application for Symbian offers library and book view and hotkeys.

For those who haven't yet tried it, Google Calendar is a truly fantastic piece of software. While it's perfectly possible to access your Google Calendar on the move using the mobile version of the site (just go to http://mobile.google.com/calendar using your mobile device's web browser), this doesn't integrate Google Calendar into any built-in calendar system you might have, so you need to go online every time you want to check your appointments.

This is where GooSync comes in handy. This cool web-based application allows you to set up a sync operation which downloads entries from your Google Calendar and automatically inserts them into your phone's or PDA's default calendar. It's easy to set up, and it works really well. It's also compatible with a huge number of devices, including Palm PDAs. For a completely free alternative, try GCalSync. I've had more trouble with this solution but if you can get it working, it's pretty impressive.

If you want to really make the most of this year's Fourth of July celebrations then why not deck your PC out with a set of programs that help you embrace the spirit of the day? We've compiled a complete Independence Day toolkit that pays tribute to all things American and will help you get the party started on your PC.

Voyage of Columbus 3D Screensaver - Recapture the spirit of Columbus' historic trip

BarGenie - Ensure that no one goes thirsty at your Fourth of July party

Fireworks Wallpaper - Make sure your celebrations go off with a bang

Nostalgia Baseball - Guide your own baseball team to glory

Living Cookbook - Get those hot dogs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches ready

Black History Screensaver - Play out the path to black America's freedom on your PC

Wild West Ransom - Send Pacman back to the Old West to munch ghostly varmints

Travel USA - Discover America using your cellphone

Nokia has decided to expand beyond its N-Gage mobile platform and create a game that will also be playable on PCs. Currently known as "Project White Rock", the game will be developed by Scott Foe, known for N-Gage hits like Pathway to Glory. According to PocketGamer.co.uk, this new title will use SNAP technology, which "connects games devices with PCs". Because Scott Foe is known for his work with "connected gaming" on titles like Pocket Kingdom: Own the World, we have every reason to believe that "Project White Rock" will be some sort of online multiplayer game. One thing is already certain though, "the game's resolution will remain the same on PC as on mobile".

Nokia created a blog, Future Watch, in December 2006, where they are expected to release hints of new N-Gage releases and should hopefully have more details on "Project White Rock" soon.

Mobile phone users can at last enjoy the world's most popular video file sharing website on their phones. YouTube Mobile has finally been launched as a super-streamlined version of the original site. The videos can be streamed on any phone that can view RTSP/3GP files with H263/AMR. Note that as yet, it does not work on Windows Mobile 5 or Palms.

The site itself is very sparse with a random selection of short clips running down the side of the page. You can sort them by various categories including Most Viewed, Featured and Top Rated. There is however an initial warning before entering the site warning that the service could put a severe dent in your mobile bill! It states:

YouTube Mobile is a data intensive application. We highly recommend that you upgrade to an unlimited data plan with your mobile service provider to avoid additional charges.

This is not the first time YouTube clips have been available on mobiles. Previously, the company had exclusive deals with Verizon in the USA and Vodafone in the UK but this is the first time they've stepped out alone. However, this new service is quite disappointing at the moment. The amount of clips is extremely limited and only a tiny fraction of the main site's videos are on there. Searches for your favourite clips will invariably find no results and most of the clips are no longer than 3 minutes long. Once all the content has been made available, this is surely going to be one of the most visited mobile sites out there.

Having watched the new Apple iPhone demo, it’s hard to imagine anyone not wanting to throw their old handset in the nearest lake and rush to the Apple store when it’s finally released. After being seduced by the iPhone’s touch-screen interface, its slick iPod features and the drop-dead gorgeous browsing and email apps, I can’t bring myself to look my current phone in the face anymore.

Luckily, there are a few apps that can bring a taste of what’s to come from the iPhone to your current device. The Java-based iPhone Theme lets you apply that sexy Apple menu screen to your phone, which you can customize to control your various tools and applications. Watching the demo of the iPhone’s Contact system got me a little hot under the collar, and it’s possible to replicate this, albeit in a rather crude way, on your Pocket PC. SSContact features the same slide-down option, one-click dialling and contact management features, to give you a little practice for when the real thing arrives.

If you have a Mac at the moment, you might want to try out iSoftPhone, a VOIP application that replicates the iPhone, or count down to the launch of the wonder-device with the iPhone Widget, which delivers all the latest news on the product to your desktop in the form of an iPhone-style display.

It’s that time of year again where party lovers everywhere flee to the countryside or the beach to party the weekend away at one of the many music festivals. If you’re planning on raving this summer then it’s important to go prepared. Besides remembering to pack your spare underwear, carrier bags, torches, (and, of course, beer) you may want to download a few programs to help make sure the party goes off in style. Although it doesn’t sound very ‘outdoorsy,’ running a few simple programs on your PC or mobile phone should actually ensure you spend less time fussing around and more time having it large. Here’s our guide to the essential raver’s toolkit:

Weather Watcher - Festivals are in the summer, which means it will be sunny, right? Um, no actually, and speaking from personal experience, there’s nothing worse than rocking up to an event in shorts and flip-flops only to be confronted with torrential downpours and the muddy carnage that ensues. Ensure that you pack appropriately for the weather with this powerful forecasting system.

Easy-To-Do - It’s all too easy to miss your favourite acts at a festival if you’re not clued up on exactly when and where they’re all playing. Make things easier for yourself by installing Easy-To-Do, which lets you set an unlimited number of events and schedule a time and date for them. If you know the running order, you can organize the rough times and stages that your must-see bands are playing then print it out and stick it in your backpack.

Professional Bartender - Of course, no festival is complete without copious amounts of alcohol (of course, we at insideTonic advise you to ‘drink responsibly’). Instead of paying a fortune for watered-down beer this year, why not serve delicious drinks from the comfort of your tent? This fun app contains over 1,000 cocktail recipe to try out, along with the ability to import even more from the developer’s website.

Guitar Guru - You can almost guarantee that after a hard night’s rocking there will be dozens of hapless hippies sat about around the tent village murdering Radiohead’s back catalogue on beaten-up guitars. Ensure that your after-party entertainment goes with a swing by using this impressive free guitar tutor to learn how to play your favourite songs properly.

ALON MP3 Dictaphone - There are plenty of mobile phone applications around that will make your festival more enjoyable, but few can be as useful as this one. Besides allowing you to record live music you, it also features a brilliant audio player for you to listen to your favourite tunes while the stages are empty. The program even lets you record phone calls!

SMartComGPS - Getting lost is almost like a ritual at a music festival, whether it’s driving road endless country roads looking for the site or losing your mates and wandering around a maze of tents all night. Thanks to the wonders of GPS technology you can ensure that you know exactly where you are at all times. SMartComGPS is designed for GPS-enabled phones and lets you plan routes and track where you are via satellite. You can even use it to ‘tag’ the location of your tent and plot a course back to it.

SplashBlog - If you really want to show off to those who couldn’t make it to the festival then SplashBlog is perfect. The Symbian application allows you to instantly publish photos from your camera phone to an online photo blog to share with others. It has the added bonus of acting as a repository for all your festival memories for when the big event is over.

There have been some pretty major developments in the world of mobile software this week. The publicity drive for Apple's iPhone continues in earnest, though many developers seem to be pretty unhappy with the closed nature of the device's operating system. While it was admittedly never likely that Steve Jobs would announce a completely open OS for the iPhone, limiting people to creating widget-style software (even if it does include access to all the phone's features) means there's a lot less that can be done. Check out this interesting debate at Robert Scoble's place which runs the whole gamut of the differences between Apple and other firms.

Meanwhile, Apple computer users who also own a Nokia phone will be pleased to hear that the latest version of Nokia Media Transfer has been released and now includes support for more phones (including my very own N70!).

Google look likely to launch an entirely new mobile platform, based on Gears, their online/offline software platform. As with other of the web giant's plans, this move into the mobile arena appears to target Microsoft primarily, though it will undoubtedly affect other of the major mobile OS owners (like Nokia and Sun). Paul at Seaton Online has a nice, in-depth analysis of just how Google is expected to drive pursue its mobile dreams.

Rumours continue to abound about Microsoft Zune software for Windows Mobile devices. It's certainly more likely that Microsoft would attempt to bring Zune technology to existing WM devices than that they would develop a new generation of the relatively unsuccessful Zune hardware. Whether they can get the software out in time for the iPhone's launch, or for free, is a lot more debatable.

Finally, has Palm finally struck out with its Foleo device? When we covered its release a couple of weeks ago, we found that the PDA firm had really stuck its neck out with its latest offering. Now analysts at Gartner have given the Foleo a big thumbs down. This looks like seriously bad news for Palm.

RSS readers have the particularity of being available on all platforms, giving you more than enough choice as to how you'd like your daily news feeds to be served. We came upon an impressive guide, that lists pretty much all the RSS applications out there. The list covers, hold your breath, RSS applications for Windows, Mac, Linux, Mobile, Web, Cross-Platform, RSS to email converters, RSS feed validators, RSS plugins for Firefox and Wordpress, RSS managers, RSS mixers, RSS ping tools, feed directories, and, whew!, some tips and hacks.

If you get lost in this list and don't know what RSS application is right for you, why not take a look at Elena's post. She recommends some good Windows and Web RSS readers, and a few RSS feed creators, for those of you that have some news to syndicate to the world.

Remember those cool Sony Bravia ads where millions of coloured balls bounced down San Francisco streets, or paint exploded all over a Glasgow tower block? Well this is your chance to introduce a riot of colour to your Sony Ericsson cellphone! OK, so it's not an official Sony image, but it's beautiful all the same. Brighten up your Sony Ericsson cellphone with this gorgeous theme.

As we reported a week ago, the Mozilla Foundation has announced that it's working on a mobile equivalent for Firefox, codenamed 'Joey'. Last night, Mozilla's very own LabRats posted some much more detailed information on the project which has given us a better idea of how the final product might work.

The premise is this: you can use Firefox to send text clippings, pictures, videos, RSS content, and Live Bookmarks to your phone through the Joey Server. The Joey Server transcodes and keeps all of the content up-to-date. You can then use your phone’s browser or the Joey application on your phone to view and manage what you have uploaded.

So it's not exactly a 'mobile Firefox' in the way we previously thought. But it is very interesting indeed. Best of all, the first versions of the tool are now available to try, so once we've given them a thorough testing, expect to see a full review here!

It's this year's third mobile Linux announcement, but it could be the most significant. A new version of Ubuntu Linux is to be developed for mobile phones and other portable devices. Known as the 'Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded' project, the distribution will be first released in October 2007. According to Ubuntu:

...It is clear that new types of device - small, handheld, graphical tablets which are Internet-enabled are going to change the way we communicate and collaborate. These devices place new demands on open source software and require innovative graphical interfaces, improved power management and better responsiveness.

The Ubuntu announcement follows news from Access and Palm that both are currently developing new, Linux-based mobile operating systems. These join the mobile open-source market already being supported by large firms like Nokia. Interestingly, it also follows hot on the heels of news about Dell releasing Ubuntu-powered desktop PCs and the availability of a distribution designed for installation on the Sony PlayStation 3. Despite the ongoing dominance of closed-source, Windows operating systems, fans of free software have lots to be happy about.... and even more to look forward to!

It passed under our radar at the time, but Bermin Software released version 3.0 of their excellent file and FTP manager, MobyExplorer last month. Already a firm favourite with many webmasters (you can totally edit HTML and PHP files on your phone), the program has added some long-awaited features which look likely to cement its position as the number one FTP tool for J2ME phones.

Research In Motion, the company behind the hugely popular Blackberry line of phones, has announced a new emulation program designed to bring Blackberry-style functions to Palm Treos and other Windows Mobile 6 devices. The software, out this autumn, is designed to install onto a Windows Mobile smartphone by replacing the normal icons and interface with one which makes it look exactly like a Blackberry.

The aim behind RIM's move seems to be to extend their presence across platforms they don't control. There are likely many users out there who, for whatever reason, are tied to Windows Mobile devices but would like Blackberry functions too. It also seems that RIM's larger clients have been pushing for a single, standardised email platform - without the need for relatively costly BlackBerry devices. For 'larger clients', read 'US Federal agencies', who still make up a huge chunk of RIM's business. It could well be that such large corporate clients have effectively forced Research In Motion to make this move in order to retain at least their service subscriptions, if not their handset demand.

Whatever the reasons behind RIM's move, it seems certain now that the mobile operating systems market, which two years ago seemed to be stagnating, is becoming more and more competitive (especially taking into account the arrival of new OSs and handsets this year from Palm and Apple).

Video playback and recording capability is fast becoming a top concern for mobile phone buyers. pvAuthor is designed to take video files on your computer and convert them to a size, resolution and bit-rate suitable for playback on your phone.

When running it for the first time, pvAuthor presents you with a fairly complicated configuration interface. Its four tabs (Input, Clip Info, Encoding and Output) used what we felt was pretty technical language for a first time user. After selecting the input file, the program became unresponsive for a few seconds. This also happens when switching between tabs in the configuration interface. While this only lasted about three or four seconds, it was a little unnerving and caused noticeable jumps in a separate audio player program we were running at the same time. pvAuthor is a program apparently best used on its own, so as not to cause instability in your other apps.