Hey MediaPortal-Fanatics!

I’ve been forced by i-loop to write my first blog entry to revive the Team Blog…so what can I say??? I guess it’s the best to comment on something useful and – although it useful – I was involved

It's about adding the metadata from TVE3-Recordings to the MediaPortal.

We all know that reporting bugs is a very hard and timeconsuming job.

There allready was a Test Tool available for quite some time. But it was not included in MediaPortal and had soem downsites.

Now gemx has taken it to the next level and integrated it into our svn.

The new MPTestTool2 is a great step forward and it will make reporting bugs much easier for the community.

If in example MediaPortal crashes, then this will instandly trigger the Test Tool to start and export all your MediaPortal logs and (if installed) the TV-Server Logs into one zip file.

If you want to reproduce and report a bug you found, then the Test Tool can operate in "auto" mode.

This means that the Test Tool will automatically

• clear all logfiles
• start MediaPortal with debug logging enabled
• and export all logs at the moment you close MediaPortal again.

and you do not have to push a single Button inside the Test Tool.

The downside is that the shortcut for this "Debug Mode" is not available yet. It will be created automatically during the installation of the next MediaPortal release versions (0.2.3.0RC2 and later).

If you want to use the "auto" mode with current svn allready, then you have to create a shortcut of MPTestTool.exe with the parameter -auto .

You can find the full manual in our wiki.

There is more planed for this tool. We will keep you updated. 

who is Koschel, the man behind the Phantomias ? Well my name is Bernhard and I live in Stuttgart in the southern part of Germany. Some people call Stuttgart the biggest village on earth, but it's nice here and there is much more than DaimlerChrysler, Porsche and Bosch.

My first "big lifeplan" didn't contain anything about IT. I studied law and computers were only a hobby. While the time friend after friend asked me to build a computer. More and more studying became my second job and IT my first. Now I have my own IT company and I'm glad, that I didn't became a lawyer or judge.

I'm 40 years old, have a wife two dogs and a cat and hopefully next year the first child.

I came to MediaPortal while searching for the best app for my HTPC. Although I'm a member of the Testteam and having an eye on the german forum, I spent the last months with PR work for MediaPortal. I talk with hardware manufactors, press and TV, a very arduously job. The article in c't 23/2006 was the first small success and I hope other good reports will follow.

I like the great MediaPortal communnity and the pleasant work with the team, let's say we're virtual firends.

Moin, I'm Michael, better known here as Maschine. That - suprise, suprise - is the german word for "machine" and my nickname since school days. My friends thought it would suit me, as I always did a lot of stuff with computers (=machines) ;-).

I live in Hannover, a wonderful city in northern Germany. Maybe some of you know it from the CeBIT, the world's most popular IT fair. I was also born here in 1984 which makes me now 22 years old. The picture you see here was taken during my autumn holiday, so it's a pretty recent one.

Currently I'm a student at the University of Hannover and hope to get my Bachelor degree in Computer Science next summer. Next to my studies I try to earn some money with web design and here and there other computer related jobs.

MediaPortal is my hobby since 2004, some weeks after the project was founded. Unlike many other MP fans I never touched XBMC, the only console I own is a Super Nintendo ;-) My first job in the team was and is MPW, the MediaPortal webinterface, which is currently a little neglected - sorry for this, but time is short at the moment. Though there will be an all new MPW for the upcoming TV server. So stay tuned.

Besides MP I spend a lot of my free time with my girlfriend. I also like sports a lot and am playing Handball since many years now. Next hobby is music, check out my profile at last.fm if you're interested.

Finally I want to thank the whole MP community and especially all people of this nice team for the great time I already had here and hopefully will ever have :-)!

Hrmm ahhh where do I start - ok the name. Well the nickname DMAN is what my mates used to call be back in NZ which is sorta short for Dan the Man. The LFC standard for the most successful english football club of all time (thats Liverpool Football Club for you slow ones or you poor ManU supporters who think you are). OK ticked that box, erm whats next ah... I suppose about me...

Well I'm the Project Leader for MediaPortal which is quite cool as I get to boss people around and bark out orders but no one listens. Just kidding about bossing people around & stuff but the others not listening is all true ;-). OK seriously I'm the can do man for the team if they want I will try to get for them. i.e. New devs, new hardware to support etc. Many of you will know me as the TV card man, the guy who can add support and knows alot about them - I'm all to glad to help. I help out where I can on the project but time has been very rare of late with work & family :-(.

As for my programming experience it started back with Basic programming on Atari's and Amstrads and quickly developed skills in Pacal & C when I went to college but after that my allegences have always been with hardware. I say this because most of my working history has always been with a large worldwide IT vendor in numerous roles. Technical Support, Pre-Sales, Project Management, Product Management, Business Development and now Partner Sales. Yes IT Sales! I don't do this for the money (which is crazy) but for the love of the project.

I first noticed MediaPortal when it first started after looking for MediaCenter software on the internet and since having a modded Xbox with XBMC I kept a close eye on the devlopments. After doing alot of evaluation work for a STB side project which went commercial btw I quickly opted to help the community out as the potential was awesome. I think you'll agree it continues to live up to expectations.

I'm currenlty 32 but fast approaching 33 and have a son 5 and two adopted children from my second marriage (live fast, die young ;-P) a daughter 12 and son 15. I live in the north west of England but I'm fortunate to travel alot in my job which I enjoy especially being from the other side of the world. At a recent training event we had to count the number of years in the IT industry - I had 15! Time to become a farmer :-).

I love working for the team on this project we have a good laugh every now and then and it's great being part of something that forms a community around the world with our varying cultures. The team at MediaPortal are a great bunch of lads (no one's admitted to being a girl yet) and I hope you enjoy all the efforts the combined team puts in, especially the developers! If you have any C++ or C# programming experience we would gladly welcome you aboard to help expand MediaPortal's capabilities - just contact me with what you want to do.

In addition I have a keen aspiration to invent technology I miss the product design and customer solution development aspects in my current role (I have an engineering background) and would be keen to meet with fellow Brits to discuss HTPC hardware solutions to take to market. If you have a good background in electonic engineering drop me a line.

DMAN

..what is behind the nick "Harley", in real life i´m a technical leader of a care company. And besides i have a little firm for building pc systems.

I´m since the beginning of the project a user of mp.

In the early days of mp, the project has lost his first default skin. So i have start to make my first skin for mp. (called "naley")

But i have not know anything of xml working, so i have learn here the basics for Skinwork more and more.

After this i have do another skin (called "Naley evo") and this skin was then a default skin of mp.

By those days, i was a team member of mp. So i have done then allways skinstuff and designstuff for mp and hold Defaultskins uptodate with all changes and new stuff that has growing up mp more and more.

Then i have make a new defaultskin for mp (called "Project X") ,current i´m doing the port of xbmc skin (called Project Mayhem III)

With outgoing of the skinner of B2, i also make gfx and updates for B2

..and sometimes ( it´s most the time in dezember) i help a little bit Santa claus to bring the community the xmas skin. ;) :-)

Since some month i´m design team leader of mp.

I realy love to be in here and working together with the team on this fantastic Project.

The work with the team is what makes such many fun here, because we have a great team. :)

Harley

Hi!

The person behind rtv or F1n4rf1n has a real life, too ;-) My name is Ralf ter Veer. Although born next to the dutch frontier 25 years ago I am currently living in Osnabrück. Here I got a versatile job acting as system administrator, firebird database consultant and Delphi developer for a small company developing an ERP/CRM solution. 

When I am not in front of a computer I enjoy windsurfing, music, rc-helicopters or cars. The latter brought me to MediaPortal: Installing a carputer I've found this nice piece of software with its great community. Although another great open source software called RoadRunner won the competion because of the touchscreen usability and navigation software integration MP was too sexy to forget it and therefore found its way into the living room on a dedicated HTPC.

Since then I was trying to help other people in #mediaportal and finally looked at C# although I am more a linux guy. Until now I try to jump in at those MP parts which most urgently need attention. With the integration of the audioscrobbler services I hope many people listen more often to their hidden treasures again ;-)

With that great support of the team members and the community it's much fun to contribute to MediaPortal - it's getting better every day!

My name is Eric Dolou, and I was born in France, were i live, 36 years ago. I have 3 sons , who are respectively 10 years old, 9 month and ....  9 month. 

My net friends usually call me Broceliande or, shorter, Broce... 

I choosed this nickname many years ago and used it in many places. This nick refers to a forest of legends that i love in my region: just think about King Arthur's Legend.... 

My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81 , with 1ko ram!  

I was 11 years old when i started to learn basic and made my very first Program. After that i had many different computers until my first PC. Maybe the one i loved the most was a MSX ( MSX was a standard computer , that could have been THE standard in place of actual PCs..). I also used to be an atari guy... well that's the past now.

For my job i generally use Php and Delphi for programming, and some others from time to time like actionScript, VB.... I started with C# for Mediaportal only, like many other members.

I was invited to join the team a few month ago and i must say that it's probably the best meet i had on the net. Mediaportal is a stimulating project and i'm really happy if i can contribute to it. I really am in love with this software and feel so nice in this team ...

Now you already know too much about me, let's keep a little privacy ;)