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"Lots of us find it a very helpful, human, sometimes humorous, always interesting, often surprising column that has no peer on the freelance market, And, yes, you can use that as a testimonial if it helps."
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"No one talks about the ups and downs of technology like Michael Finley. See his columns online at www.mfinley.com/. -- James S. Derk, Evansville (IN) Courier

"Editors want everything to fall into a neat little box, and your stuff doesn't do that. You don't write merely about technology, you write about what technology means to us and how it has changed us. I like it." -- John Boxmeyer, St. Paul

I forgot the millennium and holidays came together this year. We have to prepare for two big deals simultaneously.

On the millennium side, we have to batten the hatches, have cash on hand, and set aside plenty of potable water. When it's time to ring in the triple zeroes, a shotgun is never in bad taste.

On the holiday side, we are asked to think more generatively.

The Christian tradition, which mathematically provided us with this whole Y2K mess (way to go, Christianity) has a powerful tradition of year-end charity. Likewise, the Jewish tradition challenges us all to perform a mitzvah, or deed of virtue.

So what's a good mitzvah for folks like us who use and enjoy technology?

I used to think it meant giving away computers to people who couldn't afford them.

For years we've bemoaned the splitting of society into techno-haves and techno-have-nots. This scenario envisions a future of affluent knowledge-workers having a ball exploring, inventing, and racing around in SUVs, and the rest of us parking them.

People as disparate as Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton have suggested that if we just give every poor person a laptop, or wire every school to a T1 line, the gap between haves and have-nots will fill in.

That seems to be the thinking of Bill Gates, who donated $1 billion this year to college scholarships for the disadvantaged.

But I'm less in love with that idea now.

For one thing, technology is inherently unstoppable. Though 70% of the world has still not placed a telephone call, it is estimated that by 2004, every village on earth, from Bushman to Bedouin, will be connected by cell radio.

People who fret about the black/white technology gap in the U.S. - 70% of white Americans log on, versus only 30% of black Americans -- should take note of the Black Entertainment Television Cable Networks conglomerate going webwide, creating a new Internet portal specifically designed to be Afro-friendly.

"White folks already have white portals," says BET founder Robert L. Johnson -- "all the others."

Even countries as forlorn as Bangladesh are already Internet-ready (http://www.cyberbangladesh.org/), thanks to top-quality fibre-optic cable thoughtfully laid along the railbeds of the country's 4,000 miles of train tracks.

And computers are cheap. You can pick up a used early Pentium for $100. Bottom feeders can find new Celeron clones for as little as $450.

No, we are awash in hardware. What is in short supply is user-friendly software to make the hardware meaningful to people - ourselves.

Have you ever sat in front of a new program or machine, able only to make it perform rudimentary tasks until a friend or colleague helped you to take it to the next level? You can be that friend to others.

Have you ever sat there, knowing which buttons to push, but knowing why, unable to make it work for you - unable to make all that information relevant to your life and your plans?

A computer without a strategy is a computer without a clue -- just a TV with buttons. You can teach strategy to techno-newcomers. How to use technology to learn, to build personal networks, to make a living, to create something new.

Go ahead and donate your old PCs to your local school or charity, if they'll have them. But better to concentrate on developing human capital - crossloading your knowledge and insight to others firsthand. Volunteer. Mentor. Tutor. Teach.

If you don't know how to do this, just dial your local public school and ask how you can get involved. You don't need to have school-age kids.

You know the saying. Giving a man a fish feeds him for a day; showing him how to fish feeds him until he gets sick of fish.

The wired and wireless world everything faster and faster. The temptation is to think we must run ourselves ragged to maintain the same pace - eliminating the time we once devoted to communication and community.

But guess what? We are still in charge. That's one promise technology can't renege on.

So as the mother of all New Years dawns, make it your millennium resolution to slow down, take charge, and lend a hand to the people around you.