by Marlene Heller
The hand-held computer known as the Palm or Pilot is a hot gadget. Besides the usual date book, phone book, calculator, notepad, games and expense sheets, some have great Jewish stuff.
I happened on a site www.palmgear.com, with a listing for PilotYid. Hm, sez I, is this something offensive that snuck in there? A click on the hyperlink brought me to http://welcome.to/PilotYid (you can also access it through http:// members.aol.com/ ari11210/pilot).
Ari Engel, a 21-year-old Yeshiva University junior from Brooklyn, created the site. While majoring in computer science, he is also the webmaster for the BankBoston Foreign Exchange Department.
Ari purchased a Pilot two years ago and watched "as all sorts of software trickled out." Shortly after, a Jewish calendar called Tamar (which translates to Date Palm in Hebrew- clever, Huh?) was introduced. That's when Ari realized "there are Jewish Pilot users out there."
The enterprising computer science major began by designing a Palm program that displayed the Hebrew text of the Jewish Wayfarer's Prayer and Grace After Meals. "It's convenient to have these prayers available, so people don't have to shlep around prayer books," he says. He put both files up on one of the PalmPilot websites so others could download and use them.
Currently, his site offers 35-40 Jewish applications. "I was surprised to see how many people download them," he said," and I'm getting 'thank you' e-mails from people all over the globe."
The software includes Jewish calendars to overwrite the datebook in the Palm, the weekly Torah reading, software that allows you to track the moon phases for Rosh Chodesh, candle lighting times, even the Talmudic Daf Yomi cycle. You can keep track of yahrtzeits and Hebrew anniversaries, with all the Jewish holidays literally at your fingertips.
The site includes a mailing list you can join, not only to alert you when new software is added, but also to put you in touch with other Jewish Palm users. There are links to other items of Jewish interest, plus a list of NYC kosher restaurants with addresses and phone numbers as well as an international database of restaurants.
Ari Engel can be reached at Aril12l0@aol.com.
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