Now I was prepared to turn the tables using my iPAQ 4150 as the Meepler and the Axim X30 as the Meeplee. I'm happy to report that the Meepler detected the Meeplee right away. Figure B shows Meepler searching for other devices to connect with.

FIGURE B


Meepler searches for other devices to Meeple. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Meepler will present a list of discovered devices for you to choose from, like you see in Figure C.

FIGURE C


Meepler displays all the Meeplees it found. Roll over picture for a larger image.

When I highlighted the Meeplee on the screen of the Meepler and tapped Connect, both units started Meepling, like Figure D shows, and the little Scotty Dogs started sniffing each other, complete with sound effects.

FIGURE D


The Meeples are Meepling. Roll over picture for a larger image.

I love all the sound effects by the way. At this point I thought perhaps a better name for the program may be "Sniffer", but more on names later.

So, now I had determined that a WMSE machine cannot be a Meepler and must be content to be a Meeplee. Only non-WMSEs can be Meeplers. Just to make sure, I brought out my T-Mobile Pocket PC phone, a non-WMSE unit, and tried it as a Meeplee. It worked.

Then I beamed the program over to it and used that unit as a Meepler. It worked. And what a surprise, both units knew exactly the same people. How often can you expect such compatibility? Call the marriage broker.

This was fun. One last effort involved my Axim 3i as both Meepler and Meeplee, which performed admirably in both directions of the Meepling equation.

By the way, if you get the trial version, it will only give you match counts, not content information.

In the interest of elevating this interesting specimen from the Snoopy category, I began thinking of possible applications.

Let's see, an exclusive club could arm the members and their doorman with Meeple to see if a code phone number matched for entry purposes. A similar arrangement could be made for posh soirees, bank vault entrance, and security clearances of all sorts, including the military.

Instead of Military Intelligence, which some say is an oxymoron, there could be Military Meeplence. Or, you know when you meet someone new, you often play whom do you know? Well, think of the time you'd save if you just lined up the IR ports of your PDAs and let them Meeple like dogs sniffing each others' rears.

Or what if you were a cop and you had just purloined a Pocket PC from a bad guy and you wanted to know all the other bad guys he knew without having to beat it out of him? Just line up the PDAs with your list of bad guys and quicker than removing red eye from a photo he'd have his matches.

This might be a good place to note that if you want to thwart nosy cops, you can check any contacts that you don't want matched by Meepling.

What about tuning into your competitor's PDA while he's in the loo to see if he's hustling any of your clients? This could also have good or bad consequences on dates or with mates. I'll let you apply the soap.

Perhaps we should move Meeple from the Snoopy category to the Check-it-Out category. I have to admit, it's kinda fun and certainly has some interesting applications, but I can't quite reconcile it to the PIM grouping.