5) Get comfy

There’s nothing worse than feeling uncomfortable. Whether it’s wearing clothes that don’t fit you, or being forced to watch Spanish tv broadcasting (expats are behind me on this), it bites to be in a situation that doesn’t feel quite right. The Moovida team recommends you get organized to avoid mediocre entertainment. How? First, get Media Center harware that includes Moovida, and browse our plugins for quality content. Moovida makes it easy for you by offering a 5% discount.

4) Never stop being entertained

Wifi has become our best friend, allowing us to stay connected 24/7. Instead of moping on your way to work this week, make sure to stream funny videos and good tunes on your mobile for the trip. The Moovida Team recommends a Nokia N900 Unlocked Phone/Mobile Computer. It’s ain’t cheap, but it’s currently the only mobile powerful enough for Moovida… we’d love to have Moovida packaged for it one day . It’s got the usual goods, Wifi, 5 px camera, GPS, Blue Tooth stereo music, so you can stay entertained while on the road.

3) Diversify your stimuli

Let’s face it, your local cable only allows you to watch a limited number of channels, 90% of which is mediocre at best. Watch what you want, when you want, on your own time thanks to Moovida’s plugins. Here’s a sample of some of the great content you can find:

• Funny vids

• Explore new music

• If you’re thinking of other kind of stimuli, I’ll let you use your sense of initiative to find the appropriate links…

2) Read more

How about reading 52 books in a year? Or if you haven’t gotten started yet, 49… Kindle can help you make it happen by allowing you to download a book under 60 seconds. Reading just got a whole lot easier with this gadget, so no more excuses (or maybe one more excuse not to exercise).

1) Produce something

Let’s face it, most of us prefer sitting back, relaxing, and letting ourselves be entertained. To conquer this sense of passivity ruling our lives in winter, be creative and produce something! Consult Vimeo’s plugin on Moovida for some cool suggestions… or produce your own video to share with friends or the whole world via YouTube and Vimeo.

This TV is perfectly timed, as my old TV just stopped working 2 weeks ago.

My name is Guillaume; I’m a 25-year-old Belgian Free software hacker currently living in Cambridge UK. I’ve been involved in the Free Software community for more than 5 years now. Most of my contributions have been related to the GNOME desktop; for example, I wrote the Jamendo Rhythmbox plugin.

I’m working for a Free Software company called Collabora. Most of my job is to maintain Empathy, GNOME’s official chat and audio/video client.

As a GNOME enthusiast I’ve been very interested in Moovida since the beginning of the project (when it was still called Elisa). A year ago I moved from Brussels to Cambridge and wanted to continue to watch news from my country. So I started my first Elisa plugin, RTBF, to be able to watch news and listen to Belgian radio stations directly from Elisa. I continue to maintain it and try to support as much content as possible.

I was quite happy with my plugin and have been thinking for a while that it would be cool to be able to access ARTE’s video content as well.

ARTE is a a Franco-German TV network well known for its high-quality documentaries. A few weeks ago, I learned about the plugin contest and decided that it was a good time to get it done. Thanks to my previous experience and the help of the Moovida community, it only took me a few evenings of hacking to get something working.

I’d like to thank all the people who voted for me during the contest and the Moovida community for having created such a great Free media center.

I’m very happy to have won, and hope you enjoy my plugins.

If you experience any issues with them or would like to see more new features, feel free to report bugs, I’m always happy to get feedback from users.

I’m sure I’ll enjoy Moovida even more with my prize, and already have some nice ideas for future plugins.

Stay tuned!

Michal is Moovida’s most active and prolific Forum member and moderator, and is responsible for the Vimeo, CNN and We Are Hunted plugins on Moovida.

• 1st place prize goes to Guillaume Desmottes from Belgium for developing Arte
• 2nd and 3rd place prizes go to Michal Sawicz from Poland, Moovida’s steadfast community member and most active Forum moderator, for his Vimeo and CNN plugins

Although We Are Hunted trailed behind, that plugin got my vote…

I will let the guys introduce themselves in an upcoming post. On behalf of the whole Moovida community, let me just say a big thank you to both for all your great contributions, and keep the great plugins coming!

If you’re not sure who to vote for, check some examples of the content you can now view from Moovida thanks to their participation:

Arte

If you’re in France or Germany, I’m really jealous because you can see the short documentary La Photographie Surréaliste on Moovida. If you have the priviledge to access it, make sure to comment what you think of it on this post.

Vimeo

Here’s a video I found browsing through Vimeo’s staff picks from Blake Whitman

Warning: This video features disturbing scenes (in case you have a phobia of clowns)

May the best plugin win!

You’re most likely already familiar with Vimeo, YouTube’s younger, more attractive and less trashy sibling.  Why less trashy? Maybe because Vimeo has strict upload guidelines, and was created by a community of artists.

So yesterday while I was perusing through the Vimeo plugin on Moovida, I came across some good recommended content, like NIN in concert. Cool beans. Image quality is great, and when searching for videos, both Vimeo and YouTube results appear, just in case you wouldn’t find anything in Vimeo (which would be my first choice for the reasons mentioned above). If you’re feeling uninspired, I’d suggested checking out the videos from the always entertaining Montreal based electrofunk duo Chromeo:

Chromeo “Night By Night” Video

Chromeo “Fancy Footwork” Video

Congratulations are in order for Michał Sawicz, Moovida’s tireless community member responsible  for the Vimeo, CNN and We Are Hunted plugins. To show your appreciation for his work and for bettering the lives of Moovidamankind, vote for Michal’s Vimeo plugin.

Here are the contenders:

• Arte [2]
• CNN
• Vimeo
• We Are Hunted

The criteria to help guide your decision should be:

• Functionality: Does it work the way you want it to? If not, make sure to recommend improvements on our Forum, or report the bug
• Value: Do you dig the content and are you likely to use this plugin?

These plugins are now available, so if it’s not already done, install Moovida now and start enjoying the new content!

Vote for your favourite plugin until December 15th, 11:59 pm CET in the poll below.

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Good luck to our participants!

[1] 1st place plugin developer takes home the 1st prize, 2nd place plugin developer gets the 2nd place prize… you get the point

[2] Arte.tv only makes news content available to all, the rest of the content is restricted to France and Germany

So what fruits have the dev contest brought so far? So far Vimeo, Arte and CNN will be available soon. Here’s a sneak peek of what type of content awaits on your Moovida Media Center:

• With Vimeo, you don’t need to search through thousands of crap videos before finding something worth watching. They’ve got gems of all kinds like this 5 second film:

• Arte offers audacious and artsy content in French & German, not to say weird. They also stream great live concerts.

• Dude, if you don’t know CNN, you need this plugin badly. It’s a little something we like to call news. Here’s a prime example of their high standards in reporting:

I’m pumped, are you?