User:Zag

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Hi I'm Zag and I've been interested in HTPC apps for many years.


HTPC Apps

The first ever HTPC app released was something called MYHTPC which emerged from a thread on http://www.avsforum.com/. This quickly turned into a commercial product called Meedio, which then went opensource when they were bought by Yahoo. I was just a simple user back then but ended up running the project and its website over the next 10 years. Eventually I moved over to XBMC after Microsoft dropped support for their WPF technologies and have not looked back since. I use XBMC in 2 different rooms with an iPad as a controller. My real interest in joining the XBMC team was to help with Multiple Library Nodes and expanding XBMC to work with more Media. I was also very interested in promoting Add-Ons in a better way.


User metadata sites

I've had a hand in many of the sites you use today for covers, fanart and information, and plugins. I really see the power in crowdsourced data in the HTPC world. Over the years I have helped build a TV banner site which turned into TheTVDB.com, Movie-XML which was eventually superseded by http://www.themoviedb.org/ and http://www.TheAudiodb.com which is my latest project. I also contributed and maintained the MeediOS plugin repository front end http://www.meedios.com/OpenMAIDOS/ which was a fully functioning app-store before Apple and Google even thought of the name! Lately I've been working on http://www.thelogodb.com to supply TV Channel logos, and next up is a recipe and cocktail databases hopefully.


Contributions

  • Create Movie-XML.com website for movie metadata (2007)
  • Create TheAudioDB.com (2012)
  • New icons for every Add-on missing in official XBMC repository (2012)
  • New XBMC website template (2013)
  • New Add-on Front-end website (2014)
  • Complete re-write of the Add-on Developer Wiki (2014)
  • Test Video Node functionality and write Wiki guide (2014)
  • Test Audio Node functionality and write Wiki guide (2014)
  • Hello World Add-on guide (2015)
  • Create TheSportsDB website to provide sports metadata (2014)
  • Create TheLogoDB website to provide tv channel logos (2015)
  • Python Add-on developers walk through in guides section


Ideas I have a couple of ideas in general for open source software:

  • Always write simple to follow documentation
  • Never over complicate things, "Think as a user" first
  • Create supporting services that satisfy a need
  • Create feedback loops, let users contribute if they want features
  • Keep everything open and free, forever!

Real life

By trade, I'm a Microsoft server technician, so know a little bit about building and running web services. If its got a database, is virtualized or needs some heavy bandwidth then I'm your man :)


"Power through Simplicity"

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