There are a lot of technologically proficient people in Janet's World: people who can remotely trouble-shoot computer, router and Wi-Fi issues. People who don't have an anachronistic cow at the sight of the Macintosh Spinning Wheel of Panic or the PC Perpetually Turning Hourglass. People who can upload and download in their sleep, effortlessly turning jpegs into pdfs the way preschoolers turn sitting into somersaulting.

I state this so that you know the competition was stiff for this year's Janet's World Technology Wizard Award. It might seem premature, granting this honor so early in January, but I've conferred with the Nobel Peace Prize committee and they've given me the thumbs-up. Without further ado, the winner is ...

My 3 1/2-year-old nephew, Jimmy.

I'd like to think he would accept this column and its associated notoriety as the prize, but who am I kidding? He'd much rather have a high-resolution Webcam.

Here's how he earned this prestigious accolade.

The Janet's World family was sitting down to dinner in Maryland, enjoying the kind of dinner best enjoyed at home - French onion soup. I rarely order this dish out, because I never know how to cope with the blazing threads of Gruyere that trail the crock from my spoon to my mouth. Only the French could come up with something so insanely delicious and yet so confounding to eat in public.

All five of us were alternately slurping and wiping our chins and exclaiming over the winter-night-wonderfulness of French onion soup when we heard the signal that a call was coming in on Skype from the desktop computer in our adjacent family room.

Skype, a free Web-based service, allows you to connect with friends and family through your computer. Basically, you can talk, chat or video chat for free - overseas or across the street - provided each party has installed the free Skype program.

My 15-year-old son leaped up to answer the call, because he views the computer as the sixth person in our family, giving it equal attention even in the middle of dinnertime.

"It's Aunt Patti," he said, turning the monitor to face us so we could all talk with my youngest sister in Chicago.

Imagine our surprise when what popped up on the screen instead was the beaming, round face of her preschooler, Jimmy.

"Hey!" he said excitedly, bouncing up and down on what appeared to be a kitchen chair in front of my sister's laptop.

"Hey, Jimmy," we chorused, "How are you doing?"

"Well, OK, but I can't see you," he said, sounding disappointed. At this point, I figured my sister had simply stepped away for a second and would appear momentarily. But it soon became clear that Jimmy had initiated the call. He was tapping and clicking away, searching for a way to turn on the video option so he could view us.

We chatted a bit, mostly about his recent accomplishments in the unrelated area of toilet training.

"Well, sorry, I still can't see you," he said. "I'm going to go now."

"Wait, Jimmy!" we shouted, but he was a small, computer-literate man on a mission.

"Daddy's green. I'm going to call him now. Goodbye," he said, and abruptly hung up on us. (Callers who are online and available to talk on Skype have highlighted green icons.) We couldn't stop laughing.

A few seconds later, he called back. He was really getting the hang of this thing. We began discussing the enigmatic Santa Claus.

Shortly thereafter, my surprised sister arrived on the scene; she had been upstairs tucking Jimmy's baby brother into bed. I brought my bowl of soup over and sat in front of the computer to chat, and we marveled at Jimmy's technological prowess. But then I flung a glob of Gruyere on the keyboard and had to hang up fast before I got the dreaded Spinning Wheel of Panic.