NPUG | The Tennessean Article - "Learn To Read Your Palm"

The Tennessean Article - “Learn To Read Your Palm”

Preface: On April 6, 2000, The Tennessan ran an article in the Living section of the Thursday edition. Catherine Darnell came to our March meeting and conducted several follow-up interviews via telephone with our Director, Michael Ashby. The following is a reprint of the article that appeared courtesy of The Tennessean.

At the bottom of this page are scans of the actual paper.

Learn To Read Your Palm

Users’ group meets to compare notes on hand-held computer organizers
by Catherine Darnell
Staff Writer, The Tennessean

There is a geek around here who has it all in the palm of his hand and is proud of it.

This proud thing didn’t used to be that way for a geek. Time was when being called a geek was answered with an invitation to step outside. Not for Michael Ashby, who is a geek by his own definition.

“Now a geek isn’t necessarily negative. A geek is anyone who is technically inclined ,” he said. “I’m technically inclied, so, technically, I’m a geek.”

He and other geeks like him meet once a month to discuss what they all hold in the palms of their hands. That would be a Palm, the wildly popular hand-held gadget launched in 1996 to replace a paper planner. Ashby formed the Nashville Palm Users Group in October 1999 to keep up with technology and applications that are growing so fast that, while a Palm won’t yet take out the cat, some versions can control a Furby, which may be almost as good.

In fact, the Furby software was part of the discussion at the March meeting. Fifteen or so people braved a torrential rainstorm to hear what one can accomplish with infrared Palms (that’s where the Furby part came in), see some new products, get basic address book/planner advice in the Newbie Corner and receive some giveaways.

Open to the public. No dues. No cover charge. Doesn’t cost a dime.

Ashby, a 32-year-old information technology consultant, started NPUG after he moved to Nashville from Kansas and its Palm users group. The Kansas City club had little more than 200 members when he left; Nashville is at 134 and growing.

“The purpose is just to have fun,” he said. “When you have a passion for something as silly as a little computer and other people share the same passion, you want to get together and talk about it. It’s no different than a motorcycle club or a book club.”

Maybe. In a foreign language. Or so it might seem to someone not familiar with the product that will send business cards through the air and tell a Furby to shut its trap.

As one would expect, the meeting was organized as heck, name tags, sweet rolls and all. Things like Internet relay chat were mentioned. The Palm IIIIc was just out, a color version of the Palm III. Yippie. In Newbie Corner, the technique of looking up addresses while driving was discussed. Scary. Also software that has more robust find capability. Don’t you just love it when that happens? Or a lack of memory. Don’t you hate it when that does?

During the break, Keith Crowell, a sales representative with Tupelo Fire Equipment, Inc. had this say: “This place is dangerous.” Translation: this place will make you want to go out and spend a fortune.

However, not all of the members are techno-junkies. Ashby says there are essentially three kinds of NPUG members: 45% of them are geeks like Ashby; 45% are average Joes; and 10% are Albert Einsteins, the uber geeks.

Chris Beatty, a vocal coach, is in the Joe category. He estimates he uses his Palm 50 times a day to change schedules or look up phone numbers. At the meetings he gets news he can use.

“I come here and I learn a ton of stuff,” he said.

He and newbies are the NPUG vision.

“So often people are intimidated by technology,” Ashby said. “Our target audience is really the new user. If you don’t know anything about it, come on down.”

If one should ask - and get a reasonable answer - why Ashby should spend in the neighborhood of 15 hours a week updating the Web site, lining up giveaways and programs and lugging equipment to meetings for no obvious gain, tell his wife, Holly, the answer.

“My wife wants to know that too,” Ashby said with a laugh. “It’s hard to quantify. But when you’re getting more than 4,000 (Web site) hits a month, you get charged.”

If you’re a geek, maybe.

Catherine Darnell is a Tennessean features writer and columnist.
She can be reached at 259-8037 or cdarnell@tennessean.com.

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