About Accidental Software

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About Accidental Software's updates, origin, people, location, and motto meaning:

Update 2003: Our brilliant leader stepped (or rather fell) down, due to a progressive illness and accidental accidents, leaving Jane to run the company. Clint and Andrew remain available for consultation, in spite of what their shirts may proclaim! ("I will not fix your computer!" and "Let me drop everything and work on YOUR problem!")

Update 2003: We are returning to "normal" following the Southern California wildfire storm, evacuation, and cleanup. Jane, our new leader, is reorganizing all aspects of the company. Repetitive duties, like processing orders and money, have been outsourced, lightening our work load, so creativity and having fun can remain our focus.

In spite of the changes, validation of our name remains. Bandaids, slings, and walking aides are par. Over the years, Jane adopted and continues the popular policy of allowing pets in the workplace, giving "Accidental" a whole new meaning.

We wanted a name nobody else would have (or want), so we looked not to, but at, our fearless leader, Terry. Terry is our brilliant programmer, ex-fighter pilot, and accident prone boss. In the early days, when different names for our company were being tossed around with stale bagels, we were known amongst the employees as "That place I do stuff... eventually." That's when Terry, through acts of gravity and happenstance, evolved our company's name.

While rebuilding a car, he dropped the transmission on his big toe. The aftermath was reminiscent of the best of Road Runner cartoons. Just after he discarded the crutches, he locked himself out of his house. While attempting to climb through an open window, he fell, but managed to break his fall with his collar bone. After he discarded the arm sling, he flung caution to the wind and drank tap water. Unfortunately, the water main had broken, the pipes had not been flushed clean, and the water appeared as though it had been strained through all kind of nasties. He lived, just barely... When he finished the antibiotics, he again started work on his beloved sports car. Immediately upon finishing the work, he misplaced most of his thumb in the fan. Hence, we had the name of our company locked down and Accidental Software was born!

Our office was a mess before Jane, our office manager, came into the picture.

Originally the company's lead computer illiterate, her fingers were in a perpetual state of bandage, due to paper cuts received from vicious paper. She developed a unique filing system concept of old papers on the bottom, new ones on top. Jane may be the only one who understands her filing system, but at least now everything that needs to be done gets completed on time.
Her relationship with customers and vendors defies convention, as her self-defined "chit-chat mode" translates into sales, contracts, compliments galore, and the occasional marriage proposal. Unconventional in her thinking, and virtually every other process, finding information and solving problems are her forte. (Singing is not!) We have surveyed the occurrence of Jane's behaviours and have concluded her behaviours are sufficiently unsystematic in appearance to prevent anyone from describing or predicting in detail her position and/or actions.

The guy who puts it all together, literally, is Clint. For years now he has been addicted to computer hardware. He spends endless hours combing the pages of computer hardware and software specialty magazines and futuristically advanced manuals and books to ferret out information on which piece of hardware is the fastest. After finding and gathering the necessary components he assembles them. Based solely on his findings we now have several kick @$$ systems.
When not buried in text, Clint attends hacker conventions and conferences. A top-notch network system security specialist, he wards off intrusions and viral attacks with his sword of invincibility (ok, so it's really his extensive knowledge). And, no, you can't have him, he's ours!!

Now we come to Andrew, a self-proclaimed other dimensional diety, lead graphic artist, the guy responsible for the pictures on our pages and in our games. While developing graphics for our games, he survived senioritis and got his university degree. His voice can be heard as most of the male characters in Ultimate Poker and Gin. Most of his work was done sitting in front of a TV watching old reruns of Gilligan's Island.
Andrew appears to be a mild-mannered, Java and intranet programmer, but in his secret life, is a mild-mannered cook. Correction... mild-mannered, other dimensional diety, cook. Applets and pizza to die for, what more could you ask?

We are dedicated to having fun. Our location, on the far side of

Apple Valley, California, is among the Joshua trees, cactus, and endangered weeds and varmints, but we can be reached by many ways. We are a tiny company, that tries its hardest to develop good original software and give good service to our customers. Hence our motto, "If it's good, it's Accidental!"