If you thought the PalmPilot was already ubiquitous, just wait: This icon of the New Entrepreneur is going mainstream.

With 3 million units sold, 3Com's handheld organizer commands an almost cult-like following. You can tell who the disciples are. They already run their entire business lives by poking and scribbling a tiny little stylus at a tiny little computer screen, usually in public. It sometimes leaves entrepreneurs who don't have this über-toy of the Information Age feeling like backward Luddites.

But total absorption is not enough for some crusaders. They're adapting PalmPilots to run the rest of our lives, and you won't find these new capabilities listed in the official owner's manual.

Reports have emerged that the PalmPilot's infrared device can been used as a remote control for VCRs and stereos. Less benignly, its computing power can be a handy way for thieves to override auto alarm systems. Meanwhile, major Web sites are designing separate versions suitable for browsing on the PalmPilot's small screen.

Other folks are installing software that's already available for personal uses. For example, Abigail Dougherty, a training manager in Aloha, Ore., uses the PalmPilot and Franklin Covey's Ascend software to help her play matchmaker for cats. Dougherty keeps track of the breeding, buying, and selling of Rag Doll cats in the Pacific Northwest. She matches cats with specific traits to be bred, and then she runs a brokerage to get the cats to the families who have requested the unique breed.

Other PalmPilot users have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, and have developed novel software that could eventually expand the uses of the organizer even further.

Engineers at Salt Lake City (Utah) emWare Inc. developed software that allows them to operate vending machines via the PalmPilot's infrared port. By embedding a receiver with special software in the vending machine and loading the client software onto their PalmPilots, the engineers can walk up to the machine, point the PalmPilot, and out pops a can of soda.

GEAR FOR GROCERIES. Developers at HighPoint Software Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., have come up with another use for the PalmPilot's infrared port: a bar code scanner for food shopping. Jonathan B. Greene, the company's president and chief executive, explains that HighPoint's software lets the user scan in the bar codes of items purchased at the supermarket, which can be saved in a list on the PalmPilot. After the list is generated, it can be sent via the organizer's modem to the supermarket, which gathers the items quickly and easily.

What's behind this populist surge? Sheer sales volume and word-of-mouth, says David Pogue, PalmPilot aficionado and author of PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide. "The huge majority of people who have one was sold on how it was so cool. PalmPilot owners have a Macintosh zealot-like affection for it," he says.

Want more evidence of cultural inroads? PalmPilots have become a wearable fashion item. Carrying cases and styluses are now offered in color-coordinated pairs or in leather from tony manufacturers such as Coach. That may sound like a frill, but a 3Com spokeswoman says accessories now make up 10% of PalmPilot revenue.

The most interesting uses for the PalmPilot often have little to do with the technical, software-driven inventions designed by engineers. Many users have taken a page from the entrepreneurial playbook and repurposed the device to make it work for them.

Gilad Ben-Yosef, president and founder of Globalware Computing Inc. in Chicago, jokes that the PalmPilot was responsible for saving his marriage. Too many late nights caused some tension in his family, and turning on the lights at 4 a.m. to pack his clothes for a trip would have woken his wife and two-year-old daughter, who were sleeping in the room. So Ben-Yosef enlisted his PalmPilot III, and he now packs for trips using the organizer's green-tinted backlight as a nightlight.

Perhaps the PalmPilot user with the most unconventional uses is Elizabeth M. Ferrarini. The Boston author of Confessions of an Infomaniac says she's used the organizer's reflective screen as a makeup mirror, its stylus as a coffee stirrer, and its plastic cover to unjam staplers and remove small stones from her car's tires.

"It's kind of a prop for all the other things I use," says Ferrarini, who notes that her PalmPilot is rarely used as it was designed. "I don't find the thing has been helpful as an organizer, because I already carry a laptop and a Day-timer."

Granted, this organizer is an expensive prop. But with prices on PalmPilots plunging, you're likely to see a lot more electronic coffee stirrers.

By Keith Kirkpatrick in New York
kkirkpatrick@mindspring.com

Digital Manager Archives
To: TECHNOLOGY