The future is already here.
We've been building it with clients in 18 countries.
This is Monday morning.
This is Monday morning β with us.
Your future is whatever you make it.
So make it a good one.
β Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future III
What we actually do
Software that fits your business instead of the other way around. That's the short version.
The longer version: I'm Jim, and I've been building custom tools for businesses since 2003. I've worked with clients in 18 countries across four continents β from a supermarket chain in the United States to a government ministry in China to a school district in Australia. What's consistent is that off-the-shelf software gets most businesses 80% of the way and leaves them managing the other 20% manually, indefinitely.
I build the part that doesn't exist yet. No account managers, no project-management theater β you work directly with the person writing the code, start to finish.
What clients say
“Our security cameras at the registers couldn’t display item descriptions when something was scanned — just a blank label. Fixing it the official way would’ve meant going through three different vendors and probably six months of licensing negotiations. Jim wrote something that read the mainframe console output in real time and pushed the item descriptions to the camera displays. Two weeks, done. No vendors, no drama.”
— IT Director, U.S. Grocery Chain (30+ locations)
“The problem with locking down Windows is that doing it properly is nearly impossible without enterprise licensing most schools can’t afford. We needed students able to run approved software and nothing else — no games, no unauthorized browsing, no workarounds. Jim replaced the Windows shell entirely. Anything not on our approved list simply didn’t exist as far as the students were concerned. It worked exactly as described.”
— Systems Administrator, Australian School Network
“In 2016, automatic translation was still considered experimental — most tools produced output that needed heavy revision before it was usable. We needed a system that could handle agricultural terminology across multiple regional contexts in China. The system Jim built was usable enough that our staff actually adopted it without being told to. For 2016, that was a higher bar than it sounds.”
— Deputy Director, Ministry of Agriculture, Hunan Province, China
What you can hire me for
💻 Custom Software
Desktop, mobile, and web applications built around what you actually need. Not a configuration of someone else’s platform — your logic, your workflow, your data.
- Windows, Mac, and Linux desktop applications
- iOS and Android mobile apps
- Web applications in any technology stack
📊 Business Consulting
Sometimes the bottleneck isn’t software — it’s a workflow that’s accumulated twelve years of workarounds and nobody remembers why it works the way it does. I find where the hours are going and fix it.
- Process analysis and automation of repetitive tasks
- Software selection and integration
- Productivity audits for teams of any size
🤖 AI Tools Training
Modern AI handles 80% of what used to require a specialist. The remaining 20% is knowing which tool to use, how to ask the right question, and when the output is wrong. I teach your team to get the 80% reliably.
- Custom AI workflow setup for your team
- Prompt engineering for your specific domain
- Lightweight tools built around your preferred workflow
The questions people don’t always ask out loud
“Can’t I just use off-the-shelf software?”
Probably, for most of what you need. Where it breaks down is the 20% that doesn’t fit — the custom report format your client requires, the integration with the legacy system you can’t replace, the approval workflow that doesn’t map onto anyone else’s org chart. Those gaps are usually where hours disappear every week.
“I can find someone cheaper on Fiverr.”
You can. For a clearly-specified, bounded task, that’s often the right call. The difference shows up when the scope has any ambiguity — when what you’re building needs to work with your actual business, not a generic version of it. Most of my clients arrived after a cheaper option delivered something technically correct that didn’t work in practice.
“How do I know you’ll still be around if something breaks?”
Fair question. I’ve been at this for over 20 years with no plans to stop. I structure projects so you own the code and understand how it works — you’re not dependent on me for basic maintenance. Ongoing support is available if you want it, but you won’t be locked in.
“Can’t AI just generate the code I need?”
It can generate a lot of it — it’s quite good at common patterns. What it doesn’t have is knowledge of your specific business rules, your data, or what ‘correct’ means in your context. Somebody has to know that, review the output, catch the plausible-sounding mistakes, and fill the gaps. That’s the job.
“My needs are too small / I’m too busy to deal with this.”
Filling out a form takes three minutes. If what you need turns out to be something I can’t help with, I’ll say so. If I can, you’ll know exactly what it would take — and can decide from there.
No commitment. No sales pitch. Describe what you’re working on and I’ll respond within one business day.
Get in Touch
Jim's TL;DR Guide to AI: April 2026 Edition
A practical, plain-English guide to AI models, context windows, agents, skills, tools, harnesses, and safety for developers of all levels.
2026-04-06 02:00:00
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Why Should I Automatically Translate My Website?
Or our alternate title: "Why should I get more customers and revenue without doing any extra work?"
2024-12-06 10:31:23
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What It's Really Like to Live in Podgorica, Montenegro
Stories from seven months of living in the capital of Montenegro
2024-07-14 09:22:36
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The New Way to Easily Share Files From an iPhone
The Pafera File Server is now available on iOS!
2024-01-20 16:39:38
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Jim's Review of the 1971 Movie "The Last Picture Show"
A retrospective of Peter Bogdanovichβs culture-changing look inside small town America
2024-01-11 05:26:28
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Useful Links for Montenegro in 2023
A Collection of Resources from My Time Here in Montenegro
2023-11-10 13:14:05
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Does Sharing Files With a Friend Have to Be So Hard?
Introducing Pafera File Server, the little Android server that grew into a full fledged file manager, slide show viewer, and media server
2023-04-17 22:41:37
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What Has Happened to Google?
Does it seem like Google is not as reliable as it used to be?
2023-03-29 10:47:49
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Yes, Virginia, There *Is* a Santa Claus Difference Between Web Frameworks in 2023
One defiant programmer's journey to find fast performing web server code before he succumbs to market pressure and technical debt
2023-03-24 11:52:06
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This website runs on a custom Rust web server β written from scratch for this specific workload because nothing off the shelf quite fit. Behind it: a database layer that can link any two data types without hand-written SQL, Redis for sessions and caching, TimescaleDB for long-term analytics, and a Kubernetes cluster that scales each layer independently based on actual traffic. Faster than the Python version it replaced. Worth it.
We are also 100% clean with no trackers or ads of any type. Read our privacy policy at pafera.com/about/privacy.html.
