Nonetheless, today's cell phones are usurping many of the functions of PDAs. Although I don't use my cell phone for these things, it offers a date book, to do list, and voice memo functions--sound familiar? Problem is, it won't sync up with anything else I have, so what good is it? And, if the battery runs out, I'd say goodbye to my data, unless it's stored in the SIM card. I admit, I don't know where it goes. There are no sync cables or software available for it, so I bought a SIM card reader from ThinkGeek just in case.

I think we're starting to see the long, slow death of the PDA as a separate device. In a few years, I believe most of us will be carrying around mobiles with an operating system that'll handle all of the functionality of our PDAs, and all of the telephony services of our mobile phones. This is what the network bidding battles were about in Europe; this is what the phones and networks do today in Japan. So why buy a PDA? I don't think I can answer that question today.

Heather Wardell received her first Palm handheld in 1997 (from a boss who couldn't get the hang of Graffiti) and has never looked back. She worked in banking as a systems analyst for four years, and then moved into elementary education, teaching computers at a private elementary school for four years. Heather is now a full-time women's fiction writer, and her first novel, "Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo" is available for free download through her Web site at http://www.heatherwardell.com.