Ever thought about having a personal assistant?
Hi! We are Maria and James and we work as personal desktop assistants at Maria & James.
If you are spending several hours every day at your PC or laptop, this situation will be familiar: every day, you do battle with a flood of information. You receive a lot of email, so your inbox is overflowing. More comes in via Web-based tools which your Web browser tries ardently to collate. Every day is an attempt to maintain some sort of overview and not miss anything important.
And everyone expects you to respond to new information immediately. Sometimes, it feels like staying up to date is a full-time job. And I agree: it is.
So what can you do? You can delegate the job to one of us, your personal desktop assistant!

Get more done in less time
I work from the assistant bar at the top edge of your computer screen. I’m equally comfortable on the left- or right-hand edge of your screen, too.
Each icon on the assistant bar hides a quickie that allows you to access information you frequently need. One click and I show you the information. For example, your newsfeeds, your current project tasks, tickets allocated to you, bugs and issues or real-time website statistics (one-click information).
I can also monitor all your information for you and alert you to specific events – for example, new tasks, tickets, bugs and issues or current system failures (one-view alerts).
Don’t miss out on your personal desktop assistant!
Perfectly organised
With the quick commands for your personal organisation, I bring you quick access to your calendar, your to-do lists, your email and social media accounts, and your newsfeeds:
- One click shows your calendar for today
- Two clicks opens a calendar entry
- Two clicks display your calendar for tomorrow
Always up to date
I keep an eye on your tasks, work packages, bugs, issues, tickets, activities and any other information from you Web-based tools, keeping you constantly up to date:
- One click shows your tasks in your projects
- One glance alerts you to new tasks
- One click shows contributions to your discussion forums
- One glance alerts you to new contributions
Everything under control
I help you to maintain a constant overview of your projects, your IT infrastructure and anything else you are responsible for:
Do it yourself
The quickie development kit (QDK) enables you to create your own quickies and either use them for yourself, or share them with your colleagues.
There are virtually no limitations to your creativity: you can convert anything that can be shown in a calendar view, a list view or a diagram view and can be fed from an API into an individual quickie with just a few clicks:
- One click shows what is happening at home
- One click shows new tickets from your own CRM solution
- One click shows sales from your e-commerce website
Wouldn’t it be great to have a personal assistant?
Your personal assistant will ardently support you every day, so that you can get more done in less time. Of course, she’s never going to make you coffee, but she will bring a lot of fun and productivity to your desktop. Ladies, if you prefer a man, there is also a male smart assistant.
I am Sven – the founder of Maria & James, a professional software developer with more than 25,000 hours of commercial experience and the spiritual father of the desktop assistant.
As a software developer, in recent years I was confronted every day by more and more information, all of it demanding my immediate attention. I got visibly frustrated maintaining an overview because it just takes up so much time. The idea for the desktop assistant was born of this frustration.
