A library in your pocket!. Review on Mobipocket

Imagine a software that lets u maintain a whole library of ebooks on your computer as well as your PDA/smartphone, and synchronize between them. And imagine if this were available for free! That, in a nutshell, is what Mobipocket is about. If you're comfortable with reading etexts-or even if you have to read a lot of say, technical documentation as part of work, this software is for you.

The problem with managing ebooks that I've faced are-they can come in a variety of formats that may or may not be accessible(for example if I don't have MS Office

and I end up having to use a word document), and you can't set bookmarks.

Mobipocket Reader is absurdly simple to use. The software is designed as a book reader for both PC and portable device, and it supports a variety of platforms. On the desktop, there are versions for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. For devices-it supports Symbian S60(Nokia devices), Symbian UIQ(Sony Ericsson devices), Palm Pilot and PocketPC.

You can import files from plain text, RTF, Word, PDF, or HTML formats. It converts them into a proprietary format(.PRC files) and displays them as a library, where you can specify metadata such as title, author, genre and assign ratings.

The import process doesn't work that well for some PDFs with embedded images and diagrams, on occasion it's screwed up. However this isn't a major problem and 99% of the time conversion has no problems

When reading books, you can adjust the fontsize to a comfortable level, and even make it scroll the page automatically. It also supports annotations. You can add bookmarks, highlight text for notes, and look up words in an online dictionary! The dictionaries however, have to be purchased separately.

When your phone or PDA is connected, Mobipocket detects it and lets you transfer books to the device. It can also synchronize bookmarks between the two. So if you're reading a book on the PC, later you can sit in the train on the way to work and continue reading, set a bookmark and continue again when you return to the PC.

Apart from ebooks, it also supports RSS feeds. You can add subscriptions and read them like any other feed reader-and also convert your feeds to PRC books and transfer them to the phone!

The parent company makes money by selling ebooks. So from within Mobipocket you can directly connect to various commercial(and a few free) ebook sites and directly purchase and download them.

The mobile client-

I use a Nokia N73 as of this writing, and it has a large QVGA(240x320 pixel) display. The mobile Mobipocket software works in a similar fashion-displaying a list of ebooks and letting you read them. It can also change the display orientation from vertical to horizontal if that's more comfortable. In other respects it's exactly similar to the PC software, except that you cannot import from other formats.

Ebooks take up extremely little space compared to say, songs. You can easily store a dozen or more ebooks in less space than one single MP3 file. So Mobipocket is a fantastic and free software that lets you catch up on your reading wherever you are!