A little quick research told me that it wasn't a PIM at all, at least not in the traditional sense. What it does is match telephone contacts between two PDAs via infrared.

Scratching my head, I first wondered why it had been put in the PIM category; it wasn't fair to MobilAir, for it was like comparing persimmons and pomegranates. Meeple belongs in a category of its own, which for now we'll call Snoopy.

Then curiosity got the best of me. Hey, because I already had it loaded, why not give it a try? Of course , I was also curious about the derivation of the term "Meeple" and what it meant.

For those readers wondering what a Meeple is, I refer you to Figure A.

FIGURE A


Meeple pieces from the Carcassonne game. Roll over picture for a larger image.

These are playing pieces called Meeple used in the game Carcassonne. Meeple means "My People." At least, I think this is where the name for this software comes from.

Anyone else have a better idea? I can't seem to pry it out of the developers, and Handango, the software's distributor, doesn't know either.

All right, let's check out the so-called PIM and see if it works. My first thought was yeah, so what are the chances of other machines already having Meeple installed so that the two units can communicate in Meeplese.

Good news -- a Meepled machine can indeed communicate with an unMeepled unit. Apparently Meeplese is some kind of PDA lingua franca.

For this experiment, we'll need to introduce a bit of terminology to keep things straight. First there will be a "Meepler", which is the PDA that does the "Meepling". Then there is the "Meeplee", which is the device being prodded by the "Meepler".

With that clarification we shall proceed. Unfortunately, I first installed Meeple on my Axim X30, which is a WMSE (Windows Media 2003 Second Edition)) machine.

I received a warning message that the software may not work properly because it was written for an earlier edition. I often get this message, but things usually work anyway. In this case, however, it didn't, so I gave up after several attempts that left me wondering if it were the operating system or the program that didn't work.

Undaunted and eager to continue the experiment, I tried beaming the program from the Axim X30 to an iPAQ 4150, which is a Windows Media 2003 machine. It transferred an install.exe program, which I had to run. It installed just fine.

Note to developers -- Why can't there be more programs that you can download into your Pocket PC and install them directly without having to do the whole synchronization process?