Friday, July 29, 2011

LL Adds More Griefer Tools.

by Cummere mayo

I'm not sure if I have written yet about the major griefing tool that LL has allowed jira to become. Basically as long as you cozy up to certain lindens you are allowed to use Jira to threaten, harass, degrade, and flat out terrorize your fellow SL community members. And if those same lindens do not like you, your account gets blocked from logging in. Which means certain devious individuals (I could name allot of these users) who are muted in world, blocked on the forums, etc, can sit there and reply to any jira you created or had on your watch list, and you cannot block that feed, or close/unwatch, the jira(s) that person is using.
The harassment of this form I've personally witnessed has ranged from simply being told over and over that your opinions are worthless, (ie: "I do indeed know what I am talking about. Kindly stop speaking as if you know one whit concerning privacy: You do not.") and that you're stupid, to outright threats of violence (ie: "Bitch I'm going to kick your ass."). All of these despite being abuse reported and even sent directly to Alexa Linden have been allowed to stay up.
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-3494 is a perfect example of this. In it a known SL harasser has constantly been posting there in nasty tones to other users, most of which have blocked him in world. When asked to stop he has threatened everything from Abuse reports to ass kickings to worse to those asking him to please stop.
I won't in this post go over all the KB's pointing out that this harasser is the one that doesn't know what he is talking about in this article. That is beside the point. The point is, that the Jira has become a tool that can be used to terrorize those that have had their access to Jira locked out and often those lockouts have been simply because people close to Alexa have been proven to be wrong or worse wrong and greifers.

If the Jira being remade into a griefer tool wasn't bad enough, now LL has added a new griefer toy: Facebook like feeds, but without even the few protections offered by that datamining site.
On Facebook, you can block anyone, no matter whose feed it is from being able to see your feeds, as well as hide their responses so you don't have to see them. I have not found any way to do that in the new feeds on SL. At best, and this is secondhand info because i have not had anyone post on my feed to test this theory, if someone posts to your feed, you can block them from doing so again.
However, they can still post on other feeds. In the less than three days since this feature has gone live, people are already using the feeds of "friends" of their victims to post harassing messages ranging from just mildly annoying taunts, to very sexually or violently explicit threats.
One of the most disturbing was posted by an exhusband to a woman who not only has him muted inworld but has a restraining order on him using one of her SL friends feeds he had seen she had posted to. His message was along the lines of basically told her he would find her, her kids, and her sister and rape and kill them.
As usual, LL doesn't even have a way to abuse report this kind of crap or to block it. Attempts to abuse report it inworld, if they even get a response are told to file a ticket or to use tools on the site. Tickets are responded to with "file an abuse report." There are no tools I can find on the site to report it. (Honestly I think certain members of the web team are actively trying to facilitate this stuff but that's just personal belief based on the poor design.)
Furthermore, even with the 2.8 viewer downloaded and installed, I cannot find a way to turn off notifications that you are getting responses on feeds, so even if you do not actually check the feed, a person or group can simply keep posting to one or more feeds you have so your screen constantly has their name(s) on your screen interfering with your ability to use Second Life.

Some Lindens claim that user feedback of these new features have been positive, but a few honest ones admit that the majority of feedback has been very negative. Ignoring the twitter feed and just going off profile feeds here are some great comments I have seen:

"Yay! SL came up with a brand new way for griefers to attack!! Griefing isn't for just in world anymore :S *sigh* SERIOUSLY???"

"OMG, not *another* social network.."

"How the FUCK do I turn this garbage OFF?"

"well another Facebook clone I am going to ignor"

"What in the hell is this?"
(and the classic reply:) It's SL trying to be Facebook. Because I need a graphics hog to play Farmville.

"This is my stupid feed." (The irony of this one is classic, but I cannot say why.)

"This kind of crap is exactly why I left Facebook."

and one of the most telling of all:

"These dumb feeds weren't my idea!"

"Yet one more way Linden Lab ruins SL."

NOT including Lindens I've seen exactly TWO comments in support of feeds:

"Hello, my people. I like the new web profiles." (This was posted after a joke about running away if they received farmville invites.)

"I like the feed. (And I don't even have a Facebook account!) Though, I'd prefer if the 'About' tab was the default tab for the profile, rather than the 'Feed' one. The main purpose of profiles is telling you who someone is. What they have to say usually can already be seen in local or group chat."

Even an LL exec admitted that the majority of SL users didn't like the feeds, and that LL ignored the pleas not to add them because they hoped people would be attracted into SL if it became more like Facebook. The same exec admitted they had already seen it used as a greifer tool and that it likely would continue to be because LL didn't know how to fix that.

Now, why doesn't that surprise me?

Thursday, July 28, 2011

SecondLife "Oz Linden" "Time to Go"

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Ok I'm going out on a limb here, but the hell with it.

     The sooner LL gets rid of Oz Linden the better.

JayR Cela :(

SecondLife "Viewer2" "The Demise OF Second Life" " Let's Play Barbie "

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Well I kind figured it would happen sooner or later.

     Ken and Barbie have truly arrived

     If you look at Viewer2 and what a total joke it is, as far as content creation is concerned. It's quite apparent that LL does not want creative people to be involved any longer

     They are actively seeking out Barbie and Ken.

JayR Cela :(

SecondLife "Viewer2" "Worthless Piece Of Crap ?"

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Yeah, I guess I got your attention with that one. Viewer2 is a worthless piece of garbage to builders and content creators.

    Nuff Said

JayR Cela

SecondLife "Viewer2" "What Is It Good For ?"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Absolutely Nothing ! LOL, I'm just kidding.

    If you like to shop and play Barbie Doll dress up games, Viewer2 is a fine choice ( Choke's )

    When I step back and take a look at the overall strategy that LL seem's to be taking, it makes perfect sense. Increase sales, via a Virtual World Viewer that cater's to playing Dress Up, and spending money on virtual good's, making social contact's, forming your own circle of friend's, and chatting away incessantly about nothing.

    After all isn't that what FaceBook is all about ? Chatting away incessantly ? Mindless rambling's having to do with nothing at all. Oh perhaps your personal problems, or the Avi that just dumped you for someone else. If that is the target market, then Viewer2 is pretty darn close to hitting it's mark.

    To bad the Lab forgot about all the Builder's and Content Creator's during the process of creating this humongous piece of garbage know as V2

JayR Cela :(

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

I'm Not Dead, but Community Awareness at LL IS

by Cummere Mayo

So I've been gone a while from this blog, and many have noticed I maybe show up to snowstorm about once every couple of months now.
I've pretty much given up on Snowstorm, and for that matter, the "user groups" in general.
Between being invited to do for firestorm what I did for snowstorm, time constraints, and the behavior of certain people at LL, I have put my limited time to use at a place that listens.
Does that mean firestorm takes every idea or feedback I offer and put it to use? Hell no, but they at least listen and discuss.
As a result, in a few short months I've seen many major bugs that only affected a handful of users get fixed, several options that went into firestorm that would NEVER have made it into Snowstorm, and a level of intuitiveness and reliability on firestorm that is, for the most part, unmatched by snowstorm.
Please understand I am not bashing Snowstorm here. Snowstorm has done allot for a team that is so small, constantly turning over members, and whose leadership doesn't use SL in the same ways various parts of the SL community does. Honestly, I think Snowstorm was one of the best things to happen at LL.
However some of the design decisions just fly against common sense. As do many of the non-viewer features.
Social media is a dying trend, and overwhelming numbers of SL residents have shown that they don't want web profiles, twitter-like feeds, etc, and yet LL is forcing them down our throats, and has resorted to yanking the jira and forum accounts of many of those protesting.
Mean time concurrency still hasn't grown. In fact, it is shrinking again. Even within Snowstorm, many of the most requested changes have been dumped or put on hold in favor of being able to integrate changes that aren't wanted or respected by the community. These kinds of decisions are a large part of why LL cannot retain users.

As I said, Snowstorm is one of the best things to happen to LL. However, when it comes down to it, the larger Firestorm team, and the connectivity of the firestorm team to the community has simply meant Firestorm is better prepared to do the job Snowstorm set out to do.
Unlike Snowstorm, Firestorm will use groups, forums, and the jira to solicit feedback, and will sit out and discuss, debate the merits of designs and features, and whatever else. As a result their viewer is growing increasingly distant from LL's despite the fact several firestorm devs and testers are very connected to Snowstorm.

I want to share my personal comparison between the two viewers. I'm going to break it down to a series of simple number scores between the two.

Because it is hard to do a proper table, the first score will be snowstorm and the second will be firestorm. Each score is based on 0 being worst and 10 being best.

intuitiveness: 5 8

customization: 4 8

stability: 7 8

privacy/safety: 4 6

building tools: 5 7

Clothing design: 3 5

Radar: 7 7

Friends perms: 2 7

basic mode: 5 N/A

up-to-dateness: 9 7

profiles: 4 7

bottom bar: 4 10

Sidebar: 4 9

custom menus: n/a 4

retro ui: n/a 5

media filter: 5 8

overall: 5 8



These are just some of my own opinions when comparing the two. I challenge you all to try both and make up your own minds.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

LL respects your privacy ... NOT

Mister Acacia is online

LL apparently have decided that the almightly dollar is worth more than YOUR privacy. They have marked the above ticket as closed and that they will not finish it. It has to do with opting out of third-party metrics and tracking, such that they would respect your right to opt out and choose not to be spammed.

LL is closing that ticket and will not take action.

Well done, LL. Another sign that you don't give a shit about your users.

Mister Acacia is offline

Saturday, July 23, 2011

OpenSim~OSGrid "In Search Of HyperGates" "Getting Your Own Sim Up and Running" "I Still Got A Lot To Learn"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I spent about half a day's worth of time this afternoon. And she-ash I gotta tell ya, there is so much to learn before you can become proficient on OSGrid. One thing I did find out though there is a reason people have been using the Imprudence Viewer. And I dont mean the 1.4.1 Beta that thing has way to many bug's, and the Hippo Viewer is worhless. Imprudence 1.4.1.5 release the experimental version., is perfectly suited for an OpenSim environment.

    And trying to get my own server up and running without have to pay a monthly fee, has proven darn near impossible so far. I did find some additional information today that I am hoping will prove useful, and provide the final keys I need in order to do so. Anyways I figured I'd pass these WWW links along to you. I hope your ready to spend a lot of time reading, LOL :_)

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Public_Hypergrid_Nodes

http://4freedom.a.wiki-site.com/index.php/Hypergridportal

http://www.hyperica.com/

    Then there is the illusive HyperGrid ~ HyperGates or HyperLink's to figure out.


















 



 This is definitely gonna take a lot longer than I was figuring on. LOL

JayR Cela :_)

SecondLife New 64x64x64 Meter Prim Size The Forgotten Side Benefit Of Mesh

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Thank's to my Dear Friend, Hitomi Tiponi for reminding me of this, as a comment on my July 22 post about Mesh being rolled out to the main grid. This will really be an incredibly useful feature for SL builder's, that have not yet mastered the art of design with programs such as Blender.




Anonymous Hitomi Tiponi said...




Mesh is now on the Main Grid in various test regions.

To prove it here is a pic of a mesh duck created by Oskar Linden, with a 64 metre NORMAL prim (not a megaprim, you can have prims up to 64 metres now) cage around it that I put there - Mesh Sandbox 5.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6143/5960895341_eb1e42b2b0_b.jpg
July 23, 2011
Delete


Blogger JayR Cela said...




Hi there Hitomi, Thanks *bigg huggs*
JayR :_)
July 23, 2011

I had completely forgotten about this added benefit. 


                                                                                                  















    
In case you were unaware Hitomi is the creator of the StarLight Skin, a highly modified set of tweaks designed to address many of the typical user complaints about the UI of the standard Viewer 2. you can download it here

JayR Cela :_)

Friday, July 22, 2011

Two New Machnima's just posted on The VWTechnologist Channel "THE FURRY KILLER" & "SHAKE ME DOWN"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    The Furry Killer 
From: jjccccc  | Jul 22, 2011  | 69 views
It you get scared and have nightmares dont watch this just in case you get it. No furries were killed in the making of this video
Staring Anonymous grey Newb
Filmed at Deshima Second Life
This mammoth space station and colony exists far, far away. Wander through its enormous corridors or exit one of the airlocks and discover a beautiful atmosphere complete with floating asteroids and docked spacecraft. This is space-age role playing on a truly epic scale.
Music by Mike Oldfield Tublar Bells

    These are both very well done piece's of Art. Full of some wonderful effects and imagination.
   Shake Me Down
From: jjccccc  | Jul 21, 2011  | 55 views

Each of them take place in very futuristic setting's, excellent music, creative sound effect's and professional  quality audio mixing.

     Both can be viewed on this Blogs Machinima channel, the link is located on the opening page, very top located directly below the Total Page views counter. 


JayR Cela. :_)



Insilico Time Lapsed











































































































 Both of these are excellent examples of this evolving art form, in very futuristic setting's, great music with
 some intense sound effects, and exceptionally well mixed audio.






































SecondLife "The Lab Release's Mesh to Portion's of the Main Grid"

By JayR Cela

    Yesterday LL released V2.8.1.236285 ~or~Mesh Project Viewer, as a Release Candidate. That means portions of the Main Grid are currently, and more will gradually become Mesh enabled.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Tools-and-Technology/Mesh-Update/ba-p/990421

 You can download it here.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Alternate_Viewers 
    
 And find relevant articles here.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh


















 

 
     It has the same usual poorly designed User Interface, as the Standard Viewer2, crappy camera control, inability to mute group chat's, and the wretched sidebar.

     But let me backtrack here for a bit. It's clear to most everyone, the Lab's main job is to lay the ground work, and do the hard stuff, get their hand's deep and dirty into the viewer code. If you don't care for the UI or available feature set of the standard LL V2, there are already several popular TPV's available. One oh them already includes Mesh.

   The Kirsten viewer has been gradually incorporating mesh capabilities into their S(21) series for quite some time now. A superior User Interface, along with a ton of extra tweak's and features as well.

















 

   
      Here is the link   http://www.kirstensviewer.com/
 
      There is also the Dolphin Viewer, which is just your standard Viewer2 with some modification's that according to the official blog are geared towards people that enjoy driving vehicles in SL.



 














 


     The Dolphin Home Page is here  http://dolphinviewer.eregion.de/    
 
     There is The FireStorm Viewer from the Phoenix Team, currently this is defiantly my personal favorite, for 3 reasons completely overlooked by the above three. The excellent camera controls, the ability to mute group chat's, and I can still read my legacy chat log's from the old V1.x series without being forced to open a separate text editor. I also feel the the User Interface is by far the best I have experienced so far.


















 



    Phoenix FireStorm Home Page  http://www.phoenixviewer.com/

    Eventually all V2 based TPV's will have Mesh enabled. Personally I would not be holding my breath on LL's ability to get this up and running smoothly overnight, or anytime soon for that matter.

JayR Cela

Monday, July 18, 2011

Virtual World Standards "Revisited" "Some One Need's To Take A Stand !!"

By Avatar JayR Cela

     The world in witch we live is rapidly changing. Virtual World's are proliferating like blueberry;s on a tree. So is the crap the birds splat on your car's windshield after a fresh wash and polish. Linden Lad set the standard, then completely through everyone one for a loop with Viewer2.

    I guess it was inevitable, after all Microsoft no longer supports Windows 98 , it just does not make any economical sense.

    Viewer2 has been a total and complete disaster. Oz Linden, a very nice person and quite likable guy. has banned me from meeting's. I can sneak in with an ALT Avatar, but I choose not to do so until I get word back from him. Unfortunately he seem's to have muted me. This childish behavior is very discouraging to a pressing issue.

  A Standard User Interface That Will Work Across All Platform's


JayR Cela

SecondLife "Appearing Nude on Other People's Screen's" "But You Look Fine On Your's" "How To Fix It !!"

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Well first off, take a picture of yourself, and ask the person you are seemingly unclothed on their viewer to do the same.

     I cant explain this bug, but it seems to have managed to sneak in the back door during the Emerald Viewer day's, and could be lurking around somewhere in your Window's Operating System Registry or your current Phoenix Viewer Cache.

    Getting rid of this odd problem may be as simple as opening your inventory, finding and wearing another Bald Hair Base. This usually seem's to work.







    Hope this help's *Bigg Huggs*

JayR :_)

Virtual World Viewer's "Will Standard's Ever Be Set ?" NO !!!!

By Avatar JayR Cela

    As more and more people just get completely fed up with their real live's, and choose to escape from reality into a Virtual Environment. We are bombarded with a plethora of various User Interface's. Some of them are good, a few are great and some are just down right lousy.

     Linden Lab and IBM several year's ago tried to get thing's set into motion with the InterOp project. Thing's did not work out to well. Right about this same time Open Sim was just getting off the ground.

    Here is the big problem, Intellectual Property Right's. Who actually created what, and by law's that vary from country to country can distribute the various virtual good's legally. I am a builder in SecondLife, but all of the textures I use were designed by people other than myself, therefore I have never attempted to sell any of my creation's to anyone.

     I give them away freely to friend's and acquaintances, and i design home's and rent them to people, but where does the buck stop.

     Unfortunately no where.

JayR Cela :_(

Saturday, July 16, 2011

SecondLife "SpaceJunky Concert" "Unfortunately My ISP Went Up The Creek"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I really wanted to be able to bring you some pictures from yesterday's SpaceJunky concert.

    Apparently someone hit a telephone pole in my neighborhood and took out the internet service. That person, having suffered a stroke, thank goodness is OK, and no one was injured.

    Anyway's, I was unable to attend for more than a few minutes.

    My dear Friend's Shakti, Zaphod and Zavier, are really wonderful people. They have done so much to help unfortunate people throughout the world. It is difficult to not just fall in love, and respect them.

    I did manage to get these 2 snapshot's before I lost my connection





























"Cosmic Love Is Everything"

JayR Cela :_)

Friday, July 15, 2011

SecondLife "SPACEJUNKY~Makes A Long Awaited Return"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Oh My, for me this is BIGG NEWS, my favorite band, and people, have returned to SecondLife !

     I'll be up all night taking pictures, and posting them here.

    This group is Really Kick Ass. You Absolutely Have Got To See Them !

    Here is my conversation with my sister Shakti, you can find the LandMark below


[14:39]  Shakti Cianci: Hi JayR....hugs
[14:39]  Shakti Cianci: can you remind me what keys i have to press to link objects? my brain is failing me
[14:39]  Shakti Cianci: lol
[14:39]  Shakti Cianci: thanks!
[16:51]  You: hi sis / linking object's
[16:52]  You: whay viewer r u using ?
[16:53]  You: most work by holdind down the SHIFT KEY.....
[16:54]  You: clicking on the objects
[16:54]  You: the edit window should be open
[16:55]  Shakti Cianci: hey
[16:55]  Shakti Cianci: is ok I found it
[16:55]  Shakti Cianci: lol
[16:55]  Shakti Cianci: thanks
[16:55]  You: then you just link them
[16:55]  Shakti Cianci: :-))
[16:55]  You: oh / kool
[16:56]  You: i'll look forward to seeing you and the crew this evening *bigg huggs* :_)
[16:57]  Shakti Cianci: yay
[16:57]  Shakti Cianci: hugs
[16:57]  You: see ya there / luv u :_)
[17:06]  Shakti Cianci: :-)
[17:07]  You: :_)
[17:10]  You: I'll be there taking a bunch of picture's, you can read my review in the morning .....
[17:11]  Shakti Cianci: yay
[17:11]  You: http://jayrcelasecondlifetechnologist.blogspot.com/
[17:11]  Shakti Cianci: post me the link after you have done it and I will post to our groups
[17:11]  Shakti Cianci: send to me on a notecard later JayR
[17:11]  You: ok sis / luv u
[17:11]  Shakti Cianci: http://www.facebook.com/pages/SpaceJunky/102227407828
[17:11]  Shakti Cianci: thats our fb page too
[17:11]  Shakti Cianci: :-)
[17:11]  Shakti Cianci: love you too

JayR Cela :_)

SecondLife "Linden Lab Are They Desperate ?" "~and~ "Ya Can't Shut Me Up !"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Well this is a new one on me. A Linden offering to sell me land, check this out.
Someone, supposedly a LL employee opens a conversation with me, asking if I would like to purchase more virtual land.

    I tell him I cannot afford it right now, but ask for him to

    UN-BAN ME FROM LINDEN MEETING'S
    I have been a loyal paying customer for almost 6 years





















     So because I pissed off some pinhead on the SnowStorm Project, I get banned from access to certain LL location's. This is hardly what I would consider to be customer service.























09:57]  Guy Linden: Hello JayR, are you here?  I see you are just using 512m land, but you have the 4096m preapproved.  Are you interested in any additional land in Buckler?  I can help you with new land at L$1 per meter and hopefully optimize any new tier usage
[10:27]  You: hello there Guy
[10:27]  Guy Linden: hi
[10:27]  Guy Linden: no worries, just an offer since i have land next to you available
[10:28]  You: currently I am not able to afford anything extra
[10:29]  Guy Linden: ok, np at all.
[10:29]  Guy Linden: thanks for hte reply.
[10:29]  Guy Linden: have a good day
[10:29]  You: you 2
[10:33]  You: oh you could possibly help me out with something
[10:35]  You: UN-BAN ME from Hippotropolis Island
[10:44]  You: if you can do that then yes / i will purchase more land
[10:56]  You: u still there ?
[11:06]  Guy Linden: sorry, I am not able to assist with that.  you will need to dicuss that with the island owner.
[11:12]  You: the Lindens own it
[11:13]  Guy Linden: sorry, I am not able to assist with that.  you will need to dicuss that with the island owner.
[11:13]  Guy Linden: I cant help with ban lists, I really dont see what that has to do with you not wanting more land and prims at your location.  sorry I could not help.
[11:14]  You: :(

    They stuff this piece of trash Viewer2 down our throats, kill search function's, now I got some asshole trying to sell me land.


They can BAN Me

But I'm not going away  !!

JayR Cela

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Virtual Worlds"What Is Love"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Well anyone with a brain has by now figured out that virtual is only as real as your imagination. However there are real life dollar's to be made within this absurd industry.

    Falling off into your own little Soap Opera, can be an entrapping subversion from reality. So what is Love ?

     Love is respect for your fellow avatar in a virtual world


JayR :_)
     

SecondLife Viewer2 Status "SnowStorm 2.8.x"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Well the SnowStorm folk's finally hit the V2.8.x marker. It's still a piece of garbage. I said I would review the thing once it made it this far along it's long and sorry path.

    Well ya still can not read your old log files, the camera control is still over sized, muting group chat's, forget about it !

    Murky green and grey color scheme, it's still there.

    This thing has got to be the biggest piece of hubris ever having any amount of money wasted upon it.

 
JaayR Cela :(

Talk about shoot first ... or ... LL screwed another pooch

Mister Acacia is online

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-7104

Need I say more? If you're not using a viewer that today uses web profiles, you can't give or take rights from your friends.

Not only did LL immediately alienate all their V1-based users (Imprudence, Phoenix, Ascent, Dolphin V1), they've alienated tens of thousands of V2-based users as well. In fact, Oskar stated it affects every user who is NOT using their latest SLV2.

This at a time when their stats puts Phoenix Viewer atop the list as the best viewer.

Oskar posted a workaround, but it's only useful if you have one, or maybe two friends to change.

And did LL announce this? Nope. Is it a problem or a planned change? Hard to say since LL isn't telling. I strongly encourage you all to go here, Watch, Vote and comment on this issue. It needs to be bumped higher than any previous issue because they won't be correlating their user losses with this issue. And if they're not stopped, I have a feeling it will get worse and every TPV will be disabled to extinction.

Mister Acacia is offline

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

We're #1!

Sources within the Phoenix Team have quoted a Linden as reporting that their V1.23 is no longer in the top spot. Look for the TPVD to change soon.

Open Sim ~ OSGrid "I'm Burned Out For Now"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I have Real Life Obligation's that need to be addressed. My time devoted to Open Sim will be limited or non-existent until I manage to get a grip on thing's.

JayR :(

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

SecondLife "Male or Female ?" "Does It Really Make A Difference ?"

By Avatar JayR Cela

   In many way's your Virtual Gender Identity does make a huge difference.

JayR Cela :_)

SecondLife "How Many Viewer's Do You Need ?"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Well the only real viewer, to make any sort of impression in the Virtual Reality World, was Emerald. Too bad they had a few misbehaving developer's. So we ended up with the Phoenix Viewer. Witch is very stable in it's current release.

    It does everything it need's to do, and seem's to be the viewer of choice for most SL resident's. So that brings us to a message that is full of conflict. Viewer2 is a piece of garbage, it has few redeeming qualities. The FireStorm Team has at least made it usable. And I would Imagine most people are very grateful for all their hard work.

    OZ Linden, now he is a different story, he and I agree on virtually nothing. But I do have quite a bit of respect for him. Maybe one day he will Un-Ban me from Linden Meeting's

    As far as witch Viewer to use ? Just about all of them are pretty decent. I know I'm repeating myself.

Find The One You Like, And Use That One !

JayR Cela

Kirstens New SecondLife Viewer S21(8) "Don't Waste Your Time"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    It does not even support Mute Group Chat's, wandering your way around the mindless setup is a total pain in the ass. It may be good for something, but I have better thing's to do.

JayR :(

Monday, July 11, 2011

Fear and Loathing in Virtual Reality "A Personal Soap Opera"

By JayR Cela

    Ok I'm stealing partial title from Hunter S. Thompson.

    And I am not known for being of sound mind.

    As a matter of fact I am quite insane and certifiable as such. So let me just babble away, if you manage to get some laugh's along the way.

    Then you may be just as crazy as me

    So What is a personal Soap Opera ? Well for one thing, it beat's the heck out of watching Television. You can create your own little fantasy world. And pretty much do what ever you like.

    Time to grab your insanity helmet and jump in.

JayR Cela :_)

Sunday, July 10, 2011

SecondLife "My Virtual World Insanity Follow's Me" "Real Life or Fantasy"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I have never claimed to be of sane mind, the majority of my post's are way off the wall of a normal person's look at reality. More and likely I am a lunatic, lost in a Virtual World.

JayR Cela :_)

Back On The OSGrid Trail "Give Me A Few More Day's"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I kinda lost track for a few day's covering Open Sim, I made a few upgrades.

    Actually I build my own computers from scrap part's. So getting them up and running is a matter of crossing my finger's and hoping the sucker's don't go smoke on me.

   In a day or so I should have everything worked out.

    C ~ YA ~ THEN

    *Bigg Huggs*

JayR Cela :_)

SecondLife Viewer2 and Icon's Everywhere "If I Wanted a Dam Smart Phone I'd Buy One"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok Viewer2 got the ball rolling on screwing a whole bunch of shit up, just exactly what we don't need is a bunch of silly ass icon's on the screen. Who the hell thought up this dumb ass idea ? Probably OZ Linden, he don't seem to be playing with a full deck of card's, for that matter neither am I.

    If any of the Viewer Developers out there are reading this, can we please stop this idiotic User Interface Icon Crap. 


      And Just add another panel on the bottom with actual WORD'S

JayR Cela :(

Friday, July 8, 2011

SecondLife "Get Rid Of The Dam Icon Mentality" "I Want Easy To Locate Menu's"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Well I have had enough, I am completely fed up with all this Viewer2 crap. Screw the fancy Icon's,  I want a readable menu option on the bottom bar. With WORD'S, not some bullshit Icon  I have to guess at what function it actually performs.

Nuff Said

JayR Cela :(

SecondLife "What Really Is It, ?" "A SandBox Of Thought's"

By Avatar JayR Cela"

    Hi there readers, I'm back for more rambling's,

    What exactly is the Virtual World, SecondLife ?

     Well for one thing, it is just about whatever you want it to be, you can call it a social networking client on steroid's. That seem's to be about the best description I can come up with.

    It is very hard to pin down a particular category to place it into, the reason being is, because it does not fit into any.

     My own personal feeling's are, that it is a gift from some extremely talented folk's who just were one day having some fun.

    So we ended up getting a crazy MetaVerse full of all different sort's of  people interacting with one in other, in all sort's of different way's.

     Is this social media ? Yeah for the most part, it is.

     You can do just about whatever you like in SL The limitations are however, based upon what the Lab's server's are capable of accommodating. And your own Imagination.

     Your best bet is to remember.

     It's Not Real !!!!

     Physically  !!!!!

SecondLife is a SandBox of Thought's

JayR Cela :_)

Thursday, July 7, 2011

SecondLife "Why I No Longer Attend LL ~ SL Meeting's"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    So why don't I attend the former office hour meeting's any longer ?

    Well one reason in particular, is that I have been banned by OZ Linden for my outspoken disgust for the official version of Viewer2. The second reason is that it is a complete waste of time to think that someone in a position of authority will actually listen to you.

    Yeah I know OpenSim is still way full of glitch's and Bug's, and there a quite a few advantages to having a closed system like SL

    Inventory control is one, friends list's, making notes on a persons profile are just to name a few. And let's face it LL is in business to make money.

     In September I will celebrate my 6'Th rezz day, and I someday hope to celebrate my 20'Th

    Lol I'll probably be passed away by then. In the mean time I will continue to explore the OpenSim World's as well.

JayR Cela :_)

Windows XP Activation After You Have Exceeded Your Maximum Allowed

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Well it is bound to happen sooner or later, your computer goes kaput, you build your own new one, or you upgrade the hard drive.

    You have a legitimate copy of Windows XP, but your product activation key no longer work's.

    Now some people may ask, why I am still using XP. The computers I am using are old and XP and Linux work just fine. I just replaced the Hard Disk, and could not activate Windows.

    So what do you do if you come up against this barrier ? Try calling this telephone #  ( 1-800-936-5700 ) have some patience, and you will  be connected to an actual human being. ( Make sure you are in front of your computer ) You will get a case number. And after about 5 minutes or so given a new activation code.

    You will also receive support for 60 days, if any problems arise afterward's.

    I know this has nothing to do with Virtual World's, but I just spent the past day and a half pulling my hair out and thought I would pass this along.

    I know a lot of folk's regularly bash Microsoft, but that is unwarranted. My experience was the entire process took about 30 minutes.

JayR Cela :_)

Geek alert: How to set up your own OpenSim

Quest: Tell how to set up you own Opensim grid
By Selby Evans
-
-

YouTube - How to set up Myopengrid region opensim

===========================================
JayR will be setting up an OpenSim.  I will just kibitz and get a little help from my friends.  For my first kibitzing effort, I Googled on sources I knew about, especially Maria Korolov because I knew she had done that and had published a write-up in Hypergrid business.  Here are some of the best things I found. 
==============

OpenSim 102: Running your own sims – Hypergrid Business

There are plenty of reasons to run OpenSim on your own computers. If you’re a content creator, you can have as many regions as you want, for free, and load them up when you need to work on them. There’s no lag due to connectivity issues, because the users and the servers are both on the same computer — or, at least, on the same computer network.
======================
With OpenSim hosting prices dropping fast and features and stability improving, it surprises to me that people still ask why anyone should pay for OpenSim. Yes, OpenSim is free. You can go to OpenSimulator.org and download the software and run your own world, at zero cost.  But, like much open source software, OpenSim is “free as in puppy, not free as in beer.”
=======================
Maria Korolov creates her own virtual world and gives a step-by-step account.

==============================

How to set up

 a mini-grid – Hypergrid Business

=========================
OpenSim does not run out of the box. Rather, it depends on other software to be installed first. This is a common and useful procedure for software development, since most programs depend on preinstalled software or software libraries developed by others. The reason we don’t notice this too much is because the majority of applications comes with the software they depend on packaged into the installation. Second Life viewers, for example, come with several libraries included1 . OpenSim depends on the Microsoft .NET framework, which is only available for Windows users; however, there is an open-source alternative for several other operating systems called Mono. If you are on Windows, you can use both .NET or Mono, if you’re on OSX or Linux, you will have to use Mono.
=======================

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

SecondLife "Linden Lab Turns Off Viewer 1.x Functionality 1 Step at a Time"

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Oh this was bound to happen sooner or later, it only make's economical sense. There is no way to keep supporting the old V1.x and V2.x at the same time. Ya gotta move forward.

    Personally I absolutely hate the official LL V2 what ever version it is / it is a piece of garbage.

    A horrible User Interface is my major complaint. And it is completely beyond me why someone at the Lab does not address this issue.

JayR Cela :(

SecondLife "New Phoenix FireStorm Beta 2 Released" "Lack's A Grid Manager" "No Access To Open Sim Grid's"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Well the new Phoenix FireStorm Beta 2 was released yesterday. It is very close to the Phoenix Viewer when it comes to look's and usability. However it lacks a Grid Manager, the option is there in the Preference's Menu, but it does not function.

    This is a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT to me :(

    I am unable to use FireStorm to log into Open Sim Grids, it is beyond me how this error slipped by the developers. For the time being FireStorm is completely worthless to me.

JayR Cela :(

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Open Sim " .IAR ( inventory archive files ) What Are They ? " "And How Do You Use Them"

By Avatar JayR Cela

     So if you are like myself, and new to Open Sim based Virtual Worlds, you have undoubtedly heard of and begun to grasp the modular approach this open source platform embraces. IAR files or inventory archives serve two basic purposes.

    #1 backing up your personal inventory
    #2 transfer of virtual goods from 1 avitar to another while off world

    For some background reference's you can read here.
    http://justincc.org/blog/2009/09/14/introducing-opensim-inventory-archives-iars/

    So how do you use them ? Well I intend to find out today and tomorrow as I go shopping for a new wardrobe and various other Open Sim goodies. Stop back later for another read, and a list of web based  .IAR  file location's.

JayR Cela :_)

SecondLife "Is the Dolphin Viewer2 Dead ?"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    In SecondLife there are really only 4 variant's of Viewer2 available, excluding SnowStorm ( the official LL experimental version of V2 ) you have Kirsten's ( most people can't seem to run this viewer without a very high end computer )  Kokua ( if you can find the download page ) FireStorm ( the only one actually worthy of using ) and the Dolphin Viewer. Well seems as if Lance Corrimal, Dolphin's team leader has flown the coop, so to speak.

     He has been M.I.A. for over a month. His Blog's last post is dated May 31 2011

     That's really to bad, Lance was making some nice gradual progress towards making V2 more navigation friendly for people that enjoy SL boating ( exploring SL via the rivers and lakes on the mainland )

     So if your out there reading this Lance, I hope you are doing well.

JayR Cela

Monday, July 4, 2011

A New Contributor & Selby Return To This Blog "We are Going To Focus On Open SIm" "And Operating Your Own Free OSGrid"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Yep you heard it hear first folk's, I have finally found some help from our friend ThinkererSelby Evans, and one of his colleagues. This blog is going at least 50% Open Sim Coverage. By the time were done / we will all be connected to no cost Free Open Sim Regions.

    It might take a while to figure everything out, but if ya stick with us and post your comment's and question's, it will be worth the time.

JayR Cela :_)

Breaking News "Phoenix FireStorm Beta 2 Due out this Week"

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Well the rumor seem's to have been broken, if all goes well Phoenix FireStorm Beta 2 debut's this week.

     Stay tuned here, I will more and likely be one of the first people to know.

JayR Cela :_)

Open Sim Month / July 4 thru 31 / "Phoenix FireStorm and Open SIm Together" "Coming Soon"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    That's correct, the entire month of July, this blog will be devoted to understanding, and running Open Sim. With a few deviation's here and there back to SecondLife.

    I am doing this as a labor of love, on one hand I love SecondLife, on the other hand I want to explore Open Sim. If you have been following the past few day's, you can obviously see that I am an Open Sim greenhorn. I really don't know what the heck I am doing yet. But I am learning really fast. I will continue these post's as long as it take's, to not only get myself up and running, but you as well.

    Week 3 and 4 of July will be pretty much devoted to the Phoenix FireStorm Beta and how it work's with Open Sim.

     And Rumor has it from a reliable source that Beta 2 is due to hit download status very, very soon. So stay tuned.

    Also I am looking for contributor's to post Open Sim issue's, event's, news, how-to's etc...

    If you would like to participate, just leave a comment or E-Mail me at JayR.Cela@gmail.com

JayR Cela :_)