Who Are We?

Decimus Software was formed in 2003 when Ben Rister decided to adopt a snazzy piece of software named Synk which had been left unsupported when its previous author, Randall Voth, moved on to bigger and better things. After a few maintenance updates to address urgent needs, a total rewrite of the software was released as Synk 5. The Synk 6 line of products was released in June of 2006, featuring the revolutionary new ZeroScan technology.

In recent times, Decimus has been diversifying beyond the Synk products. DTerm was released in January of 2008, and in March 2008, Decimus acquired Polarian Technologies, including Screen Mimic. Another new product is in development, as well as major and minor upgrades to our existing products.

We remain obsessively dedicated to the software design philosophies that have earned us the affections of our users, and hope to continue to delight all of you for years to come. We also feel that the "personal touch" has been tragically missing from the industry lately, and are doing our best to bring it back through staying personally visible where possible (e.g. on the forums), and through prompt and personal responses to emails. Do feel free to get in touch anytime you like—we're just these ordinary guys.

Benjamin D. Rister, President/Janitor

A Mac user since the days of the Mac Plus in the mid-80s, he's been developing software for the Mac for just about as long. Having previously started a game development tools company out of his dorm room in college that turned out as what one might affectionately call a "learning experience," Ben clearly did not learn the pains of entrepreneurship well enough, as he later founded Decimus Software to try to do something about the significant student loans that are the unfortunate consequence of being a chronic academic. (And as he is recently engaged, he especially encourages you to purchase Decimus's products so that he can feed his wedding guests something besides ramen!)

When not hunched over a computer programming, doing research, or harassing Mike and Rob, Ben can be frequently found on the racquetball court, hunched over a Go board (he's ex-president of the Pittsburgh Go Association), dancing Argentine tango, or showing off his impressively bad flick playing Ultimate. At home, he cooks a lot of good stuff and is a bit of a movie buff, with an emphasis on film scores. You should not get him started on green chile.

Michael De Rosa, Contract Killer Coder

Mike De Rosa was a fellow student of Ben's in the Ph.D. program at Carnegie Mellon, and is working on getting the ever-elusive thesis done. Mike has lent his energies to help out with development as the amount of work grew unmanageable for a single person to handle, and is guilty of much of the implementation in code of the Synk 6 interface.

Prior to signing on to help Ben, Mike worked as a researcher at Dartmouth College, as a programmer for a now-defunct .com company, and as an IT staffer for a car dealership. Mike enjoys the finer things in life: travel, cooking, and explosions. In his rare moments of free time, he can be found playing with Farah (his dog), or plotting to take over the world with Jenn (his wife).

Rob Rix, Avatar of Correctness

Very dangerous over short distances

A student of public speaking, agile programming, holism and reductionism, it's Rob Rix's job to tell Ben and Mike that they're wrong, but not so loudly that he gets fired for it. He's here to stress-test, pressure-treat, analyze, and empirically prove the code. At the end of the day, if there's a bug, while usually Ben and Mike's fault, it's Rob's responsibility to see that it gets fixed. And if he's the only one on earth to have ever seen the bug, so much the better.

In past and present lives, Rob has been a freelance warrior-poet, prepress technician, graphic designer, web developer, systems consultant (whatever that means), photographer, philosopher, and anything else that happened by—and he's also had some hobbies. He lives in Canada with his wife (Kelly), Max, their sabre-tooth kitty, and Pixel, the Silliest Cat That Ever Was. They've already taken over the world but aren't letting Mike know because it'd ruin his fun.

Other Business Associates

Mischa McLachlan: Icon/graphic design
Rory Prior: Website/icon/graphic design
Linda Griffith, Dave Hardin: Accounting/business support