Look at how we’ve been treated.
Somewhere along the way, software stopped being something we owned and became something we rented. Our data became a commodity, our attention became a product, and features that once came standard became reasons to charge another monthly fee.
How many subscriptions do you need just to do the things you used to do for free? How often do you find yourself working around the software instead of having the software work for you?
Why should an application need to know who you are, what you’re looking at, or what you’re doing when none of that information is necessary for it to function?
And why are we expected to accept this as normal?
We’re increasingly treated as resources to be extracted rather than people to be served.
AWLum is my response.
I didn’t start AWLum because I wanted to disrupt an industry. I started building these tools because I was tired of adapting myself to software that should have been adapting to me.
I want software that’s fast, flexible, efficient, and customizable. Tools that let me organize information the way my mind works, not the way someone else decided everyone should work.
I want to own my work, keep my information on my own devices, and decide for myself which features I actually need.
I don’t want your data.
I cannot adequately express how much it bothers me that companies have normalized collecting, analyzing, and monetizing information about people simply because they use a piece of software.
AWLum projects are designed around a different set of priorities:
- Local-first whenever practical. Your information should remain under your control.
- Privacy by design. Collect only what’s genuinely necessary, not everything that’s technically possible.
- Ownership over dependency. Favor one-time purchases over mandatory subscriptions.
- Interfaces that adapt to you. Rearrange, customize, simplify, or expand your workspace to suit how you think.
- Function over engagement. Software should help you finish what you’re doing, not find reasons to keep you using it.
- Transparency and independence. Tools should explain what they’re doing and leave important decisions to you.
Some AWLum applications focus on productivity and organization. Others explore media manipulation, research, digital independence, and the ways technology influences how we think.
They’re different projects, but they come from the same frustration and the same desire to do something about it.
AWLum isn’t about disruption. It’s about agency.
You should be in control of your technology, not the other way around.
About Me, AWLum’s Founder (I picture the monopoly guy here)
My mind has always been overwhelmed by tangents that could become useful ideas.
Not just passing thoughts, but ideas that develop into helpful systems. I’ll see something that doesn’t work the way I think it should, and my mind starts designing a better way. Features lead to other features, problems reveal other problems, and the ideas can continue looping until I stop and write them down.
Sometimes I have to quickly type an idea just to get it out of my head and free up enough mental space to move on to something else.
I’ve always wanted to program.
I passed BASIC back in the 1990s. Later, I learned HTML, CSS, and enough web development to build and customize websites. I could visualize interfaces and understand what I wanted software to accomplish, but traditional programming was another matter.
I have a language-based disability, and the syntax, symbols, and seemingly arbitrary differences between programming languages could send me down tangents. I’d become caught up trying to understand why something was written a particular way instead of moving forward with what I wanted to create.
The ideas weren’t the problem. Translating them into code was.
That didn’t stop me from finding other ways to build things.
Throughout my career in photography, engraving, and public-library technology, I’ve looked for ways to improve processes and solve problems. At one point, I taught myself WordPress and built a website in approximately 48 hours of work spread across two weeks. That website remained in use for 11 years.
Understanding how my mind works
At 48, I was diagnosed as autistic and I am also ADHD.
That discovery helped explain a great deal about how I think, what comes naturally to me, and why some things that appear straightforward to other people can be unexpectedly difficult for me.
It also helped me understand that my way of approaching problems wasn’t necessarily something I needed to correct.
I tend to think in systems, possibilities, relationships, and visual structures. I can become intensely focused on an idea, exploring how different pieces might connect and how something could work better.
What I needed was a better way to translate those ideas into something usable.
Then AI changed what was possible.
AI-assisted programming gave me a bridge between what I could envision and what I could practically build.
I can describe a problem, work through a design, create a functional prototype, test it, find what doesn’t work, and refine it. The process is still demanding, and the results don’t always work the first time. But the barrier that kept so many of my ideas trapped in my head is considerably lower.
(FYI AI leaves out this requires 10s to 100s of revisions. My first plugin took 80 hrs.)
AI hasn’t replaced my ideas or my judgment. It has given me a way to act on them.
Now I’m creating the kinds of tools I’ve wanted for years.
I’m also a father with a full-time job. Much of AWLum is developed during lunch breaks, late evenings, and whatever free time I can find.
There isn’t a large development team behind these projects. It’s mostly me with technical frustrations, a lot of curiosity, and a determination to see how many of them can become useful.
Why AWLum matters to me
AWLum is both a collection of practical tools and an ongoing experiment in what independent software development can look like.
I don’t expect every idea to work. I don’t expect everyone to need the same features I do. In fact, that’s part of the point: people think differently, work differently, and should have more control over the tools they use.
If something I’ve built helps someone work more comfortably, protect their privacy, question what they’re being told, or simply spend less time fighting with their computer, that’s something worth continuing.
Purchasing an AWLum product gets you a license for that product, while helping support the development of other AWLum projects. Those who simply appreciate the work can also choose to support it voluntarily, without expectations or promises attached.
I want AWLum to remain independent, useful, and respectful of the people who choose to use it.
Technology should expand what we’re capable of doing, not determine what we’re allowed to do.
(BTW much of this was re-written by ChatGPT from it’s analysis of my needs and work. Then a bunch I had to re-write etc.)