I began craving a Palm V personal organiser when they first came out a few months ago and I saw a friend demonstrate one. Let's just say I'm glad my wife held me back from buying what is an expensive, and for me unnecessary, gadget.

I've since decided that my little ratty pocket book is good enough when comparing $1.50 with the $600 price of the Palm V.

First there was the pricey but sleek Palm V hand-held personal organiser at about $600 in the US, now there's the Visor from Handspring ranging at a more reasonable range of between $149 to $249 depending on how sophisticated you want to get.

Palm V was in desperate need of some competition. A bottom of the line Palm costs about $230. When Palm Computing Ltd., owned by 3Com, came out with the Palm V the company knew it had the market and didn't allow retailers to discount.

The strategy of announcing a fixed price was designed to push potential buyers into making the purchase now, and discourage them from holding out in the hope the price was going to drop in the future.

What the company didn't anticipate was the walkout of the team which created Palm from the company. Palm inventor Jeff Hawkings and his business partner Donna Dubinsky set up the rival company Handspring and came out with the Visor. Up to now Palm has had 80 percent of the market.

Visor uses the same operating system as Palm under licence from 3Com, allowing users to use the same software. A Visor without the cradle used to attach it to a regular computer costs $149. A Visor with cradle and two megabytes of memory is $179. Visor Delux with 8 megabytes of memory sells for $249.

Currently the Visor can only be bought online at www.handspring.com, and is due to hit the stores next year.

Handspring promises to get a full range of communication devices, including wireless Internet, on the Visor by next year. Then it might be better than the convenience of my little notebook.

There's a great resource in the Bermuda Telephone Co. Ltd. (BTC) directory that I hope the company expands in the next edition. It's a resource for Bermuda's Internet users that both explains the basics of the Internet and how to get connected. The real nugget for those already on-line is the directory listing of many of the key Bermuda sites.

Many of those sites in turn have their own lists from which you can get to other Bermuda Internet sites. The decision to include the directory is of course a result of BTC's buyout of Internet service provider Logic Communications Ltd., now a sister company under KeyTech Ltd.

Just when you thought cellphones were getting blamed for everything from cancer to car accidents and lightning strikes, along comes another hazard -- explosion at the gas pump.

The Canadian Press wire service reported that British Colombia fire services are investigating a fire which burned a driver and severely damaged a car in the province reportedly caused by a spark from a cell phone.

The incident occurred when gasoline fumes ignited and exploded while the victim was talking on a cell phone. Apparently the high-powered batteries used by cell phones can generate a spark which can cause an explosion. A BC fire services spokesman said the likelihood that such a spark could cause a fire is "rare'' but possible.