Mallory Paine '05 describes himself as "an instant gratification knitter." He sticks to the small things -- hats ("I can make a hat in three hours"), gloves, mittens and socks -- never sweaters.
Knitting is not the only thing Paine does in his spare time. Instead he spends a good portion of each day running his own software company, a business which designs, markets, sells and supports Macintosh oriented software.
He calls his operation ilesa software. The name is the feminine form of an Old Spanish word that, according to Paine, means "pure and untainted."
The company creates products "designed for the general computer consumer -- stuff that an average person can use."
Paine's main project is Download Deputy, a download manager and accelerator for Macintosh computers.
"In a nutshell," Paine said, "it will download a file faster than any other piece of software."
The first version of the program came out in 1996. In its September 2001 issue, MacWorld magazine gave the latest version (4.5.8) four stars out of five for its performance. The magazine cited Download Deputy's "slick bells and whistles" as making downloading "more convenient and efficient." Since then, Paine has continued to make improvements and plans to release version 4.6 within a week.
Although he has enjoyed working with computers since the sixth grade, the self-taught Paine had no plans to begin his own company.
"It came out of nowhere," he said, "I just designed the piece of software that I needed."
Other Macintosh users needed it too. Paine's customer base now includes thousands of users from around the world.
Much of that following can be attributed to an activity that Paine participated in during his senior year of high school. For his senior project, Paine spent three months in Steamboat Springs, Colo., working as an intern for a programming company.
Following the completion of his project, Paine opted to remain in Colorado, taking a year off before committing to college. He quit his internship because, he said, "working for myself is so much more fulfilling," and he began designing web sites for local businesses on his own.
Although he spent 50 to 60 hours a week running his business, Paine also found time to engage in his favorite activity, snowboarding.
While Paine is hesitant to divulge exactly how much money his business has brought in, he will say that it has made him self-sufficient. And, as a result of his programming profits, Paine has been able to take up another hobby -- glassblowing.
"Glass has always been fascinating to me," says Paine. So, after many trips to the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, the Wellesley, Mass., resident signed up to take an intensive workshop on glassblowing. Unfortunately, the class was cancelled only a month before he was set to enroll.
No problem -- Paine taught himself. Although it took him "a good month" to learn to make beads, he now creates human form sculptures, vases and wine goblets.
While the obvious next step for Paine is a career as a computer programmer, he isn't so sure.
"We'll see. Computers are all well and good now, but I don't want to be behind a computer screen for the rest of my life."
His passion, he says, is in "the experience of designing, refining an idea, turning that into something you can sell and dealing with a variety of people -- programming is just one part of that."
