Personal Digital Assistant

If you wander through an airport these days, you'll see many business travelers deep in thought as they stare into tiny devices. They're using Personal Digital Assistants or PDAs. These small computers that fit in the palm of your hand are becoming more and more popular everyday.

The computer world never ceases to amaze me. Think about it, when the technology era started, giant computers composed of vacuum tubes sprawled across enormous, air-conditioned rooms. Then came the desktop PC that allowed us to take the power from multiple rooms and condense it into a unit that sat on our desk. But, of course, that wasn't enough. We shrunk it again and fit it into a laptop. Here we gained portability, but still weighing close to 10 lbs we weren't happy with it portability, we wanted more. So now we have the PDA.

Typically they have limited, non-rotating storage - a fancy term for - no hard drive. Usually the applications are pre-installed and your data is stored in memory. You can't upgrade or change them. But, they are small; most are designed to easily fit into a pocket or briefcase.

The original Palm Pilot was introduced in 1996 and it became an instant hit. It ran on batteries, and was easy to use, and it was hot. Originally they were designed as organizers to store addresses, phone numbers, and appointments. Today, they act as address books, allow e-mail access, play music, videos, you name it - they'll do it.

PDAs fall into two major categories: hand-held computers and palm-sized computers. The major differences between the two are size and display. Hand-held computers typically use a miniature keyboard in combination with a touch screen. Many of these have grown to resemble mini-notebook PCs and are not convenient for use while held in one hand. They were still too big.

So enter the Palm-sized computers. They are much smaller and have no keyboard. They use a stylus and touch screen in combination with a handwriting recognition program and easily fit into your pocket. The palm-sized also introduced many advanced features that could be shared with your desktop at the office. These, however, quickly became available on the Hand-held models.

The most popular feature of PDAs continues to be the Address Book and Calendar. Storing contact data on an electronic device has tremendous advantages. It's easy to update and change information; you can transfer information to your desktop, merge addresses with other programs. But, does take some time to input - you have to be prepared to spend some time here. The next most popular feature is Internet access for e-mail or stock quotes.

So do you need one? One of the most important questions to ask yourself is: Are you frequently "on the go?" If you spend most of your time away from the office, you may wish to consider one. If you are in one location most of the time, a PDA is probably not necessary.

The prices vary from $100 to over $1,000 depending on the features. I'm quite happy with my Sharp Organizer. It's technically only considered an electronic organizer … that means it has no Internet access, it also means it was less than $100. It is a hand-held unit that achieves my main goal of storing addresses and appointments. My main concern was screen size … I never could read those little screens.

Guess I'll never own that Dick Tracy watch!