About

Hey. I’m Jim. 👋🏻

I’ve been blogging at this domain since early 2004. The site has gone through many style and platform changes since it launched way back then.

In 2014, I “decluttered” all of the irrelevant content, leaving the posts which received the most traffic. I then chose to start over with a focus on writing about living a simpler, more meaningful life.

Less but better.

The Site

This site runs on a proprietary CMS system I’ve developed with the assistance of Claude Code. It’s a php-based backend that outputs posts as static html, optimized for speed.

All code for it has been written using VS Code. Posts are written and published using MarsEdit. Image manipulation comes from several different sources, with the important compositions being put together in either Acorn or Pixelmator.

My History

Like many other Mac users, I got my start on the platform as a design artist back in the ’90s.

My love affair for all things Apple began with a road-worn Mac SE/30. It was during those early years working with Aldus PageMaker, Macromedia Freehand and Adobe Photoshop that I learned the importance of keeping a computer system in tip-top shape.

This led me to create the simple Mac OS X utility Yasu in 2002, which is short for “Yet another system utility.” Yasu became quite popular in the early 2000s, leading to featured articles in Mac magazines and getting me invitations to speak at user groups. In 2017, I turned the app over to another developer. If you’re looking to download the latest version that works with your macOS, visit the Yasu for Mac site. Maybe it will be up today…

Today

Today, I work as the Director of Salesforce Applications for VIZIO, a well-known US-based TV manufacturer now owned by Walmart, where I run the team responsible for their Salesforce initiatives (the wrangling nerds and herding cats part). Since this is my personal site, all thoughts and ideas expressed here are strictly my own and in no way reflect those of my employer(s).

I’m a Salesforce certified administrator, developer, and consultant. Other nerdy experience includes Microsoft SQL, MySQL, HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, and just enough Java to make me dangerous to my peers. I can still get decent results out of Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop when I have to.

I’m fortunate enough to have found and married an extremely patient woman that I’d be completely lost without, and I have some pretty neat adult kids because of it. In my spare time, I like to write code, spend time with friends and family, play music, and enjoy getting outdoors on a SoCal hiking trail.

I enjoy hearing from visitors, so if you’d like to ask a question, share something, or just connect in general, you can either email me, or follow on either Mastodon or Bluesky. I’ve stopped doing all other social media, so these are the only ways to connect with me now.

If you’d like to see what I’m currently up to, check out my now page.

Thanks for dropping by.