View source for User:Zag

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 infromation, 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 Over the years I have helped build a TV banner site which turned into TheTVDB.com, Movie-XML which was eventually superseded by http://www.themoviedb.org/ and http://www.TheAudiodb.com which is my latest project.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!


'''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"''