Among my acquaintances who confess to owning Palm devices, I can think of a couple who don't fall into those categories. But while neither of them are electrical engineers, both of them, unlike me, are the type of people who can, say, edit the BIOS (Basic Input Output System) settings of their PCs without fear of launching missiles against Russia.

I can think of only one truly non-technical person with a Palm organizer, but it's not really fair to count my wife. She was only sold on a Palm device because she knew that she would have in-person round-the-clock technical support: me. I'd like to take this opportunity to warn spouses considering this adventure: when something goes wrong, it's your fault.

As a Palm computer user, I'm feeling a bit lonely lately. When I got my first PalmPilot, I wasn't expecting this. I dealt with those "you geek" looks from friends and coworkers by confidently telling them they would all have something like this within three years. Well, time's up. I took a highly scientific study of my coworkers by glancing around the office last Friday, and after doing some higher math, I can report that the grand total number of electronic organizers, Palm or otherwise, is zero.

But Palm, Inc. says it's sold five million of these things. You've heard the propaganda: everyone who is anyone has a Palm device! Al Gore has one. Robin Williams has one. Steven Speilberg has one. But what about those of us who, to put it gently, aren't anyone? How about us regular slobs?

I hold the heretical position that Palm organizers, despite the hype that they are the fastest selling electronic product in history, aren't catching on with us regular folks. I'm thinking here of people who can't program their VCRs, who didn't hook up their own cable modems, and who have incomes that are, shall we say, somewhat under the seven figure range.

This isn't just an intellectual exercise. It's the law of supply and demand. The more people carrying Palm organizers, the more features and applications will be created to help us integrate our lives with other Palm organizer users. The IR port, which Palm, Inc. added when it introduced the Palm III in early 1998, is an example. Now Palm device users can beam data to each other rather than scribbling in Graffiti. WeSync, a new application allowing users to keep shared data current, is another. So the more Palm devices there are, the more we all benefit.