MinimServer

It's almost the end of 2012, and I couldn't let it pass as a blog-free year!

In January, I released the first MinimServer beta. I'd been working on it for a few months, and I wanted to see if it would be as interesting and useful to other people as it was to me. After my previous experience with JStreamer, I didn't set my expectations too high. I decided to set a goal of having at least 100 users to consider MinimServer as a success and worth continuing, and I had prepared myself for not achieving that goal and moving on to other things.

I think that number of users was reached in the first few months, though it's hard to measure how many active users there are. Based on downloads and user feedback (forum posts), MinimServer probably has a few hundred active users now. This has kept me busier than I could ever have imagined, doing everything from requirements analysis, architecture, design, development, test, build, webmaster, user support and bug fixing. I've used an open development model, with lots of discussion about what new features should be added and how they should be implemented. I haven't made the code open source, mainly because I'm enjoying having the opportunity to make MinimServer what I think it should be, without the inevitable compromises that would arise from having multiple developers with different perspectives on how things should be done.

Looking forward to 2013, I've spent the last few weeks integrating my earlier JStreamer work with MinimServer. The combination should provide some interesting real-world uses for this audio streaming technology that I developed in JStreamer. The result will be launched in the next month or two, and will extend MinimServer by providing support for network streaming as well as streaming from a local server. The world of digital audio is heading rapidly in this direction, and I'm hoping to bring a few innovations to the network streaming party!

There has been a bit of time for other things this year as well as working on MinimServer. We've been to Pembrokeshire, the Lake District, Northumberland and Normandy, and I was very lucky to get a ticket for the memorable "Super Saturday" in the Olympic Stadium.

With all best wishes for a happy, healthy and successful 2013,

Simon