SecondLife "Oz Linden & The SecondLife Technologist have an Informal Chat"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I first met Oz last year when Phillip had returned to the CEO post at LL, at that time Oz was pretty much put in charge of the SnowStorm Project. He and I have butted head's on a few occasion's. Mostly difference of opinion's. Yesterday he dropped by for a visit, very informal, but quite enlightening to say the least.

This guy is really deep, absolutely loves his job and is incredibly devoted to ensuring that Viewer2 is a success.        













And despite all the V2 bashing I regularly spew forth here, he still talks with me. You ain't gonna meet many people like this very often.

   So what's the game plan ?
Well there is a ton of power under the hood for V2, and the fact that Cory Linden ( no longer with LL ) and Phillip decided to Open Source the Viewer, was in itself a stroke of genius.

   We have Dolphin, Imprudence, Kirsten's, Hitomi's Starlight mod, Phoenix, FireStorm Preview,The Official Viewer2, SnowStorm, and a handful of others to use as we prefer. And here is the point that is so important. There is NO ! Correct or all in one SL client that will ever suit everyone's need's.

    Find the one you like best, and hang onto your hat's. This Party is Just Getting Started !

JayR Cela :_)

Epileptic Seizures in SecondLife "Part 2"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Let me first make one thing perfectly clear. I am placing no blame here on LL, this subject pertains to all video game's, virtual world's and computer use in general. The point I am however trying to emphasize is the amount of control a user has at their disposal, and how easily accessible that control is. I am not a doctor, therapist or in anyway qualified to make anything other than observations, and propose possible solutions. However I do have a friend that is, here is a letter she just sent me that may be of interest to you on this subject.


In the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, for the principle "Operable", one of the guidelines speaks about avoiding to design content in a way that is known to cause seizures.
Specifically, success criterium 2.3.1 of this guideline describes: Three Flashes or Below Threshold: Web pages do not contain anything that flashes more than three times in any one second period, or the flash is below the general flash and red flash thresholds.


It is known that flashing content (blinking of an element faster than 3 times per second) can trigger a immediate seizure for individuals with photosensitive seizure disorders or photosensitive epilepsy (PSE). People are even more sensitive to red flashing (transitions including saturated red).


Applications based on graphics, such as Adobe Flash, movies, and games can contain such dangerous flashes.
Second Life for instance, allows to animate textures with scripts (e.g., llSetTextureAnim) at more than 3 times per second.
Also it is possible to create particles that might trigger seizures. Sadly, for a user there is no way to know on beforehand if he or she will arrive on a 'dangerous' place in SL, nor is it possible to turn off this specific feature in the SL viewer.



    Since my last post several friends have informed me that particle effects can easily be turned of with a series of control keys. CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+=
    In other words, press and hold down the Ctrl, ( Command Key on a Mac ) the Alt, and the Shift keys on your keyboard, and then the = key. This will effectively defeat Particle Effect's on your computer screen while using SL.
    Well thats fine and dandy for an experienced user who has taken the time to pour over the various menu's in order to find all of the shortcut keystrokes. First of all you have to activate the Advanced Menu option. CTRL+ALT+D in a V1.x series viewer.

     I gotta hand it to the SnowStorm team for making this a lot easier recently, as Advanced and the Developer menu options are now easily accessible in the main Preferences Setup.

     Now I am a died in the wool Phoenix user, I think everyone already knows that. If you take a look at the following screenshots I will show you how easily this can be accomplished with Phoenix.

Nuff Said

JayR Cela !

How to Get Your Product Banned or How to Become the Most Hated Idiot in SL

by Cummere Mayo

Its been a while since I've posted. Partly cause I've been very busy, partly because I cannot talk about some of what I have had to talk about. (Two reasons for the later, some of it Ive been asked/told not to, and the other because some of it makes me far too angry.) But I'm back and I have something to say.

As a content creator, (albeit a not so great one), it takes ALLOT of effort to make a great product and ship it to market. It takes patience and work to get noticed. You depend allot on word of mouth advertising. Every single trustworthy content creator, and even most untrustworthy ones will tell you this. Heck even LL will tell you this. So the last thing most of you want to do is get your product banned. Most of you want to make a long term profit and want your products to be fondly remembered and have people sad when you discontinue them, or leave Second Life, or whatever. For all of you, that want to have products that leave a lasting fondness and are well beloved don't read this. It doesn't apply to you.

For those of you that want to make a quick buck and have your name go down in the history of SL by any means necessary read on!

1) Form an LLC and claim it makes you invincible in a court of law! Seriously, you want everyone to know it would be pointless to sue you that way you don't have to waste time on lawyers in the first place right?

2) Spout off as if you know the laws of your area and that your product absolutely positively follows them, even when anyone with google can immediately spot at least four laws you're breaking. I mean if you can keep people thinking that either you're ignorant or an idiot they will be less likely to actually follow through with filing charges or suing you, and those with an even lower iq then you will become your loyal followers.

3) State that the TOS and CS doesn't apply to your product. In fact on your product advertise that it breaks at at least three or four provisions of the CS and TOS. Hey at least when people finally catch on you can claim you were upfront about it!

4) Pick a threat and blow it out of proportion. Better yet pick three, but market design and market your product to all three of them. Copybots, greifers, and stalkers do great for this. You can scare customers into buying your product by stating that it protects against all so they rush to buy it. Just leave out that really that Copybots, griefers, and stalkers are the only ones with a legitimate use for it!

5) Vilify those that won't buy it or use it. Everyone that doesn't buy your product means more money you don't have! So make sure to tell the world that the only people that don't want your product, fear your product, or worse know exactly what it does (probably better then you do) must have a reason. They won't by my product, they must be griefers stalkers and copybotters! that way people will feel they have to buy it and use it to avoid being labeled like that.

6) Make a database with illegally obtained information, claim its legal, and then make the opt out process require an account that by the terms and services of your service allows you to do exactly what they want opted out of. "Don't want me to reveal information about you? Fine. Join my website and opt out there. Why join? Because anyone could say you want opted out and not really be you! Oh and by the way by registering on my site, you agree that I can collect information about you anyways, and use it however I want." Aren't catch22's just great?

7) Make enemies and cause drama. People on the sidelines are great for this. Find someone, that's part of the group that you advertise should be using your site and isn't who just happens to provide a little help to someone that is passionately against your product. Send minions to her home, her store, her club, her roleplay sim, her friends' homes, stores and sims and have them use your products to grief people. Then when she joins the battle have your minions be utter assholes and when she asks them to stop order your people to claim shes harassing them, cuss her out, then post the conversation to ridicule. Repeat with more people on the sidelines.

8) Have more minions then claim the opposition is harassing you. Pick minions with nearly empty sims, and have them be whitelisted access only sims so no one can prove you wrong (unless they happen to look at the map or traffic counts or whatver.) Have them claim to be non-stop harassed by alts of enemies. Have them create alts with names similar to your enemies to use as "proof" and then list the "ims" sent from these people. Oh and do it in patterns and grammar styles that don't match the supposed harassers AT ALL. If you can pick people attached to a random majorly well known product to do this so much the better. Especially, if its someone too dumb to manage to keep from making the same tell tell spelling errors as the "griefer" that she routinely makes when she's on the job for that product!

9) Claim to be making policy for Linden Lab. Because you know, people won't know there are entire teams that decide different policies individually or in groups, or that Linden Lab has you know actual lawyers (even if they aren't that great, they are still likely not as stupid as you want them to be) who research this stuff who would be far more likely to be asked then some two bit lawbreaking, moron who lives in his mothers basement apartment.

10) Claim you will comply with terms of service changes that you claimed to help write and then don't. You know things like providing the ability to opt in or out to ONLY one account of eighty to one hundred linked avatars and claiming that applies for them all... or providing a 60 second timer that if expires states they gave consent, never mind they might be afk, still rezzing in, or possibly crashed... or providing initials because it says you can't provide names, but doesn't say initials so like that has to be okay right?

EXTRA) if you really want to go over the top manage to not only discriminate against a group of people ... oh say the deaf... by attempting to force them to have media on, but also make fun of them so much (and spread such blatant lies about them) that it goes into the realm of being criminally malicious, violates the Americans with disabilities act, and makes you look like a fucking ignorant neo-nazi that would probably murder a deaf person if you thought you could get away with it.

Follow these rules and you can't go wrong. Who knows you might even meet me if my rl job happens to let me have the pleasure of crossing paths with you.

SecondLife "Flying" "Off into the Void" "The Dreaded Corner Sim Crossing"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Motor sports in SL have all-way's been somewhat a challenge. You purchase a shiny new Car, Boat, or Airplane and are just dying to tool around with your wonderful toy. Well for the most part that's fine as long as you remain in the same Sim. Until Recently !

    Quite a bit of progress has been made the past several month's in regards to crossing Simulator Borders ( Sim ) in SecondLife. This is not a Viewer issue, it has to do with the handshake process that goes on behind the scenes as your Avatar leaves one region and enter's another. Enlarge these picture to see what I mean. First thing is first, call up your world map.

Here are some better view's,

notice that you can zoom in or out.



This enable's you to plan out your route.


    The SecondLife Grid is composed of multiple smaller Grid's, ( Squares - like a Checker Board ) each residing withing their own CPU, Physical or Virtual Core Processor. As long as you enter one Sim to another directly across adjoining  borders, there are generally no problems encountered. We can thank the dedicated Server Team at LL for the tremendous amount of progress made recently in this regard.

    Where the problem does show up, is when you reach the corner location of a Simulator. At this point your Avatar and Vehicle reside in a somewhat state of Limbo ( so to speak ) in other words. 4 sims are all competing with one in other to hand off the necessary information they each require.

    The result's can range from extremely irritating or down right funny, as can be seen here in the following picture's. A friend of mine and I recently went out for a test flight of his new airplane a few days ago. Upon reaching a corner Sim border crossing. Well, see for yourself. Everything starts out just fine. Weeee ! there we go off into the wild blue yonder. LOL :_)

 







  

    Now right about here is where the trouble starts. As we approach a Sim corner, all 4 CPU's are attempting to communicate with one in other. ( Handshaking )
Sometimes the handshake will be successful, usually though it is not. So what happens ? Generally you wind up being trapped in a Void. Somewhere, that as far as the Lab's server's are concerned, does not exist.

 Oh well ! So much for that flight.






     At this point you generally  have 2 options. Teleport Home or Re-log. If you are diligent, and plan your intended travel route in SL. I am sure it will be a very pleasurable experience. There are a lot of incredible, and fascinating user created builds out the for your exploring pleasure. 

Have Fun

JayR Cela :_)





xxx

SecondLife "Viewer2 the User Interface " "A Complete Nightmare Revisited"

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Ok  I am off on another Rant, Rampage, I have had it up to my ears with this horrible nightmare User Interface currently implemented on Viewer2, and SnowStorm.

    At one time i had faith that the S.S. Team would fix most of my complaints. Certain factions within are working very hard towards these goals, Cummere, Jonathon and Wolfpup are among them. But this is just getting to the point of being ridiculous.

    Why and the heck am I still NOT! able to  Mute Group Chats ? Why and the heck am I still unable to use my Old Chat Log Files ? Who is the Idiot that decided to make the Display Names Chat Log Protocol unable to be backwards compatible with the legacy User Name format ? ( he does not work for LL any longer ) Why can I not customize my User Interface ? Why is V2 a complete pain in the rear to use. Why is V2 completely worthless for Content Creators and Builders ?

    Stay tuned, I'm just getting started !!

JayR !!!

Epileptic Seizures in SecondLife

By Avatar JayR Cela

    This is an old issue, and quite frankly I do not know if  LL has any control over it. We all know that Particle Effect's in a Virtual World environment ca be quite spectacular and memorizing. However there is unintended potential for harm.

    People that are afflicted with the RL condition know as  Epilepsy may inadvertently find themselves in a situation that could result in, at worst case an Epileptic Seizure. There is an International Standard known as the "W3C guidelines on Red Flash"  ( You will have to do some research on you own for this one )

     Basically certain timed events, Strobe Light's and similar Particle Effects may cause Seizure's !! Wild and Crazy Dance Floors in certain Club's are an example.

    The fact, at least in my mind is. LL has completely dropped the ball on people in SL with disabilities and Viewer 2. The issue is an old one, and it deeply disturb's me. V2 is cumbersome, difficult to use, requires way to many mouse click's to accomplish tasks that use to be simple. I don't know what planet these folk's are living on, but it's not mine.

     Later this week I will have a post from a professional in the field of Epileptic Treatment Therapy, to share her view's and what can possibly be done to circumvent this potential for unnecessary harm to afflicted SL residents.

JayR Cela :(

SecondLife "Phoenix FireStorm Preview 2" "Release Date Postponed"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I have been anxiously awaiting February 28, and the pending release of  The Phoenix ~ FireStorm  Viewer ~ Preview 2 for SL. Look's as if we all will be waiting a little bit longer. According to Jessica Lyon, PM of the Phoenix Team. A decision has been made to hold off  2 weeks, in order to put a little bit of  extra TLC into this next version before it is made available.

    Personally, I have to admit to a slight disappointment, and at the same time feel this is a wise decision.

    Unlike the premature official LL Viewer 2's initial offering, every one who downloaded FireStorm was warned that it was Pre-Alpha. We are now being told FireStorm Preview 2 will be considered an official Alpha release. With hopefully Preview 3 being an actual Beta. Ya can't beat that for honesty !

    If you would like to learn more, take a look at the February 22 video of The Phoenix Hour at this link.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJGCUFCmwdk&feature=feedf

JayR Cela :_)

Your replicator rations have been increased

Your replicator rations have been increased

-

by Selby Evans (Thinkerer Melville)

-

Sure. The tech been around for a long time.  But now the economics have changed.  

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

http://www.shapeways.com/model/199442/mini_city.html?gid=cg14

Mini City in full color sandstone

$ 262.56 

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

http://www.shapeways.com/about/how_does_it_work

"We define 3D printing as any additive manufacturing process whereby one machine turns a

digital file into a finished physical object by building up that object layer by layer."

-

Plastic objects in 10 working days

-

Metal objects in 14 working days

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

Creation-- details

http://www.shapeways.com/upload/about

-

"Create a model in almost any 3D modeling or CAD software"

-

Export to STL, Collada or X3D file.

-

"You can also let others order your model if you want."

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

Possibilities:

Artists create art in virtual worlds, get evaluations, sell objects as solids with companies like this.

-

Artists in virtual worlds take commissions, build models, in VR, make deliveries via 3d printing.

-

Architects and others who need models (eg, for rapid prototyping), hire VR builders to create the digital versions and to export them for 3d printing. 

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

Of course, this kind of thing is not like a game.  

• There is a steep learning curve.  
• Doing this takes time. 
• Getting set up is inconvenient.   
• So it won't work.

Except for a small number of people who don't understand obstacles.

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

Hobo Kit: Table of Contents

Looking toward Viewer 3.0

Looking toward Viewer 3.0

-

by Selby Evans (AKA Thinkerer Melville) 

--

Yeah.  A good PR move.  Project Snowstorm has been hard at work cleaning up Viewer 2.x.  Now that Snowstorm  has 2.5 done and 2.6 in development, I hope they will  follow the suggestion from JayR and round up.

-

Viewer 3.0!

-

Nice clean break with the past.    

-

JayR  says they are heading toward a highly customizable user interface.  

-

Actually, there have been a number of customizing options added to the V2.x series already.  Right click on the bottom bar in V2.4 and you will find that you can add and remove a number of buttons.  For example, I added the Map button and dumped the Move button.

-

Be wise.  Customize!

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

Webification

The user profiles have been moved to the web.  I am going to skip over the short -term problems with this.  I already had my say about this.  I have been working with computers since about 1962. I am use to things not working.  In fact, I don't think anything I did worked right the first time. 

-

And I use blogger/blogspot for my blogs.  Some things used to work and stop unpredictably.  Ok, that's Google.   But that's not how I got used to things not working.  I used Windows for years -- you get the drift.  

-

Torley mentioned some problems that they are working on with the profiles

• Web profiles tend to load slower than old-style sidebar profiles, so there's room for performance increases.
• Some stuff hasn't been migrated to the web profile yet — like you can't edit a classified in the web profile yet, so the behavior of hopping back and forth is confusing. But plans are hatching for better integration.
• Having both a web profile and the sidebar open at the same time takes a lot of screen space, and that could be tightened up too.

http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/tnt/blog/2011/02/17/guide-10-tips-to-get-the-most-out-of-web-profiles

-

So rather than complain about the past, I will speculate about the future-- possible developments that may come from the webification of Second Life.  

-

User profiles.  Already on the web.  I can access and modify my profile without using the viewer. I have a list of my friends on my dashboard.  If Second Life has made the connections I cab look at their profiles from my dashboard.  

-

With a little cooperation from Facebook, I could look up those profiles from  Facebook.  There ae some privacy issues here.  But that would not concern my friends or me.  We have our Second Life identities spread all over Facebook.  So I am happy for my friends to be able to find me on Facebook, as they already can, to a limited extent,  on Google (mail, IM), or Skype. 

-

But finding profiles is no big benefit.  I rarely need the profile of people I already know.  What I want to do it talk to them.  Of course I get IMs in e-mail and I can respond to those.  

But I am imagining a shift of IM traffic to Facebook. 

• Used from my smart phone
• Free of Second Life network congestion  
• No capped IMs
• Able to transfer files as easily as Skype does     
• And take another load off the Linden Lab network

Of course, I don't know that the Facebook IM system will do all those things.  The Facebook programmers may say "Can't be done."  But these are things readily available on the internet, so  Facebook can find programmers who know how to do it, whether it can be done or not.  

--

But this is just the start.  Other things that might go to the web:

• Group profiles
• Group chat
• Voice calls
• Local chat
• Local voice
• Notecards
• Textures
• Object inventory
• Other asset inventories

These are ordered by my rough estimate of order of difficulty.  And some of them may introduce unacceptable levels of inefficiency.  But it is someting to think about. Another time  

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

Hobo Kit: Table of Contents

"My Last Post ??" JayR Cela "The SecondLife Technologist"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Hello my friend's, due to recent events involving my Real Life, I May ~or~ May Not be able to continue  posting on this Blog for a while. I wont know until the very last minute sometime tomorrow. If things go well, I will return Tuesday evening or Wednesday sometime. Cummere, Selby and Laura are aware of this, and hopefully will be able to carry the ball for me if necessary.

    Wish me the Best, and hope to be back soon.

*Bigg Huggs*
JayR Cela :_)

 

Laura's first post: Technology and Fashion in SL

Hi everyone!
My name is Laura, and JayR graciously invited me to join her blog and give my take on SL from a technological point of view.

I am a fashion model, have been one for almost 4 yeas; I am also a photographer (been an amateur one in RL too) - I have my own studio in SL - and blogger.

So when it comes to looking my best, SL's technology (and its quirks and lag, which often get in the way) is important to me.

Today, I will talk to you about the "Make Outfit" option which is in our Edit Appearance screen:



edit appearance



This is a largely misunderstood option, hated and feared by many even in my own line of work.

In modeling, especially runway, the ability to change outfits very fast is crucial. We were taught to create a folder, copy all our items in it, put the no copy ones there temporarily, and wear that folder when needed. In some cases we copy poses and other stuff in there too; but that's neither here nor there for now.

SL has had this "make outfit" feature for as long as I can remember. But it has undergone a big change with Viewer 2 and some of the newer viewers of the 1.23 variety, like Phoenix.

• First: what does this feature do.

You make an outfit, choose all your things, dress, hair, shoes, accessories even HUDs you might be wearing. Then you click make outfit, and it presents you with a new screen to make choices:



new Make Outfit screen



Here you decide what you want in your outfit and what you don't.

Check the boxes for the things you want. In some cases some boxes aren't available; that means you aren't wearing that particular piece of clothing.

(If you click "more info on outfits", Phoenix takes you to this Wiki page)

Type a name for your outfit on top.

When you click SAVE, it makes a folder, with all the things you are wearing in it which you checked in the above screen.

Seems great, right? You can reuse that outfit now anytime you want.

Now - this is where the problems - and differences - arise.

This is how the OLD "make outfit" box looked:



old "make outfit" screen



If you still have an old 1.23 viewer, up to and including Emerald, Rainbow and some others, you would see this. Stay away from that Rename Clothing option!

What this did is what I outlined manually above. It made a folder, copied all your stuff in it, and if the stuff was no copy it moved it!! More often than not, after your show, event etc you might delete that folder. And the no-copy item was gone. I lost a great skin that way. :( 

• Enter Viewer2

 Viewer 2 has devised a new way to make outfits. Furthermore, it also works with Phoenix, and probably the other new viewers like Imprudence etc. You can tell by what the Make Outfit screen looks like.

In Viewer2, there is only the new way. Phoenix allows you to use either one - note the option "use viewer 2 outfit folders".

The lindens invented something called "Links". Well, they are something been around a long time in computers; if you have Windows you know that on your desktop there are icons, but that they just "point" to your programs which are elsewhere. Windows calls them Shortcuts. In the Unix/Linux world they are known as links. They represent something and you can use them to access that something by another name and in another location.

Well the option "use viewer2 folders" makes a folder full of LINKS. This means:

1. A folder full of link is made in your "My Outfits" system folder
2. Your item of clothing is never moved
3. Your item is not copied, which often resulted in 50 pairs of same shoes - no more!
4. If you yourself move your item, the link will not work anymore and will be listed as broken link. So if you wear the outfit that one piece will be missing

In fact, there is now a folder called Current Outfit, made of Links, and if you have a "Worn Items" tag like in Phoenix, you will see it is now full of Links

The outfit you made will look something like this:



Linked outfit



Note that once you have several, the things you wear most will appear (worn) in every outfit folder that has them - I am not wearing this outfit now, but I am wearing some of the components.

If you don't like the one accessory in an outfit anymore, you can just delete the link from that folder. Next time you wear it, the item will not be worn. ONLY DELETE LINKS! They are marked clearly with the tag (link).

You can make as many outfits as you want; furthermore, if you switch from Viewer2 to Phoenix and back, the My Outfits and the links are compatible. It used to be changing viewer you would likely end up with what you wore last time you used that viewer - as Viewer 2 saved it all as links and the others didn't. Now the outfits are compatible both ways.

Note that in Phoenix, making a new outfit with an existing name will make an entirely new folder. As far as I remember, Viewer 2 is smarter about that and will overwrite it - but I am not 100% sure.

So this was my post about Making Outfits and Links.

I hope it was useful and not too confusing; but it's a great feature to have, whether you model or just want to have your favorite outfits handy to wear.

Hugs!

♥Laura♥

New Machinima "Fusion ~by~ Iono Allen" of SecondLife

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I ran across this very well done Machinima created in SecondLife today, defiantly worth viewing. It is available now on TheSLTechnologist Machinima Channel.

From: Ionoallen | February 19, 2011  | 81 views

Pure Love.
A female robot animal: the Rabbicorn.
A robot girl: the Daughter of Gears.

This machinima is my way to interpret the story and installation "Standby" by Bryn Oh in Second Life®.

The text is inspired by both "Standby" story and the movie "L'amour à mort" by Alain Resnais.

Filmed in Second Life® at IBM Exhibition Place (January 2011).

I hope you enjoy it.

JayR Cela :_)

Team: Collaborative blogging. Team Blog. Use case

Collaborative blogging

-

By Selby Evans (Thinkerer Melville)

-

Team Blog: A blog in which some group of people work together in pursuit of an objective, possibly divided into several subgoals assigned to different contributors.

 -

Team Blog

SecondLife Technologist 

This blog is now set up as a team blog.  JayR is still the lead blogger.   I am one of the bloggers and have made a few posts.  Other bloggers are being added.   We will see how it works out.

-

Team blogging advantages:  

• several points of view 
• wider coverage of sources
• more regular flow of content
• interconnect several blogs
• broader range of skills and background
• allows discussion among bloggers and  people who comment

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

Background

Team: Collaborative blogging. Interblogging

-      

Team: Collaborative blogging. Overview

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

Hobo Kit: Table of Contents

SecondLife ~ "Your Avatar and Inventory, Not Loading ?" "My Secret Tips" "Shhhhh !!"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok, your Avatar is a Cloud, your Inventory Refuse's to Load. You are Ruth'ed  Most of these problems are not your fault ! It is because the main SL Data Base, is ????

     Guess What ? The BackEnd -MySQL- DataBase.  ( Witch was never intended to Scale Out to the necessary requirements of a Virtual World Environment, In the First Place ) Is trying to accomplish a monumental task.

     So what are you to do ? Hmmm that's a good question.

    Yes clearing your Cache is the usual answer, suggested by most people. But that does not always solve the main problem.

    When the SL Server's, for one reason or another are unable to, load into the client's software, your Avatar, and or your Inventory ?

     You could Freak Out !  ~OR~  Piss and Moan, on the Main and Somewhat Worthless SL Forum Pages. ~OR~ I may be able to help.

     Here is my solution, It works for me,I hope it works for you as well.

     First thing you need to do before logging in, is turn off everything !!!!!  Everything !!!!!  Any possible extra feature's available in SL. Just kill, or turn them to the minimal settings. Draw distance is a big one here !! Set it !! as low as it will go, is best !

    Next step, log into a barren Sim.
    I am going to recommend this one. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Highgate/171/74/22

Once you are there, immediately open your Inventory Window.

    Type in a random letter or vowel / A-E-I-O-U,one at a time,progressively.

At the first letter ( A ) you should see your Inventory begin to load, when it stop's loading, proceed to the next vowel ( E ) and so on.

   You may need to re-log numerous times. This seem's to depend upon how large your inventory is. Mine is approximately 42,000 items. And can sometime's take me several hours and numerous re-log's.

    Over and Over and Over Again, Eventually I get there.

Good thing I am Unemployed in RL, with quite a bit of free time right now, because otherwise I would never put up with this sort of crap !!

JayR Cela :(

SecondLife "Creative Picture Taking"~&~"Free Software" MWSnap~Paint.Net~G.I.M.P. "Part 1"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I am going to veer off my normal beaten path a bit, and and turn you on to, three very handy freeware programs. Programs I use on a regular basis while working with SL, and this blog. MWSnap3, a screen capture utility, Paint.Net and GIMP, the later two, which are both graphics editing  tool's. MWSnap3 and Paint.Net are for Windows users only. The Gimp ( Graphic Image Manipulation Program ) works across multiple platforms.

    MWSnap3 can be useful for quite a few thing's besides taking picture's in SL, I have found it to be quite handy on numerous occasions. It allows saving in the following formats : .jpg .bmp .gif .png .tff, and includes an Auto Save to Folder, File Name Prefix feature, Hot Key's, and easily run's in the background. It can reside in your Window's System Tray, while using a minuscule amount of memory.

    Paint.Net has been around forever on the Windows platform. It's no real competition to Photo Shop, but neither is the price, and will easily get the job done for most users.

    The Gimp ~or~ ( The Graphic Image Manipulation Program ) is also free-ware, and in many cases is quite on par with Adobe P.S.

             During the next few day's or so, I will be showing some example's, so stay tuned.
                                      
                                 Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel.

                     Information you can only find here ~ On the Expanding 
                                          SecondLife Technologist

JayR Cela :_)

P.S.
http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html

http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

http://www.gimp.org/

Do You Want to Facepalm

When you read Vogt's blog post? You're not alone...

by Cummere Mayo

Vogt posted a new post tonight announcing the new forum/blog/knowledge Base/Resident Answers platform. And from just about every corner of Second Life I am in the reaction is pretty much a resigned sigh... It is quite obvious that Amanda's post about Linden Lab wanting to listen was pure bullshit.

Lets skip past the garbage about how LL has apparently cought up with 70% of the support tickets (most of which they closed with some variation of "We're sorry, if we had fixed this when you first filed a ticket we could have fixed it, but the data is long since deleted.) Lets get right to the heart of it when Vogt brags about this new system:

On March 2nd, we will launch a new, and much improved, self-help community platform--comprised of Forums, Blogs, Answers, and our Knowledge Base. This new fully integrated platform helps you to more efficiently leverage the power and knowledge of the community. Among many architectural and usability improvements, the system also includes:

okay so far sounds like the same garbage that is routinely spouted off...

* Robust Self-Help Functionality: It will be easier and faster to find the answer to your question or the information that you’re looking for. For example, in Answers, when you begin to type a keyword, an intuitive category search will return common matching solution results. And, solutions accepted by the question author are automatically nominated for Linden editorial review and possible inclusion in the Knowledge Base.

Hmm an intuitive autocomplete? This as intuitive as the UI design for V2? If so pull the plug now! Solutions to questions asked automatically become nominated for Linden Editorial review and possible inclusion in the Knowledge base? Not only does that sound kinda illegal, you know swiping other peoples work without asking, but hmm do we really need the answer about who has the best prim parts in the knowledge base?

* Unified Search: You can find the information that you’re looking for in one federated search field that returns organized results from relevant content in the Forums, Blogs, Answers, and the Knowledge Base.

Really? we already have an integrated search. It sucks. As one person in the AW groupies noted, try to search for Rob Humble's introduction blog entry and you get dozens of completely unrelated, useless forum posts.

* Single Sign On: Just as you can in the current system today, you will use your current Second Life username and password to log in to the new platform.

If we already have this, this worries me about why they feel the need to announce it here...

* Contribution-Based Roles: Based on your contributions to the platform, you will be able to earn new capabilities and roles in the community--from a brand new Resident to seasoned and experienced Helper.

Okay I can already see the abuse here. People like Daria Afterthought, that make up stupid questions and then answer herself on another alt will get promoted to the role of helper while people that actually know stuff, like say Jonathan Yap, or Moragaine Dinova will be regulated to brand new resident... Yeah that makes sense... NOT!

* Easier for Experienced Residents to Share Their Wisdom: If you’re an avid Second Life Resident who wants to participate in the community, then it will be much easier for you to update existing articles; comment on published articles; and nominate, review, and include subject matter for the Knowledge Base.

Wow, okay I repeat what I said about people like Daria, and people like Jonathan and Morgaine.


* Industry-Standard Social Media Features: As you can in many other community platforms, with the click of the mouse, it will be easy to Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc., interesting content that you want to share with your friends in the Social Web.

Industry standard? for what industry? Certainly not games, most of the games I know of and play never needed anything like those widgets and banned the use off their sites or sites they allow to use their names, copywrites, and trademarks. hmm, come to think of it, most real life stores I visit don't need those widgets either... Amazon, Borders, etc... yes they do have facebook pages and even twitter but still no like or share widgets on their websites...

Hmm didn't the community have an uproar about these widgets being put on their profiles without their permission? oh yes they did? hmm. Seems LL still hasn't learned their lesson. Maybe this will help. If there is a widget added to any forum post or blog comment, or knowledge base article I write, I'll happily see the Community group from LL and LL's lawyers in court. That explicit enough for you?

The Resident testers who were given a sneak peek into the system gave us great feedback and insightful reviews. Big thanks to everyone who participated!

Well, lets assume there really is a group. With LL's history, often times that's doubtful. But we will say there is. In that case, I can guarantee it was handpicked from people that think that "Social Web" is an actual technical term (its not, its a slang for the network of facebook, twitter, blogspot, myspace, and a couple others.) and who masturbate to the thought of having thier 15 minutes of fame in something like Penthouse's "Girls of Myspace" or People's "who's who of Facebook"

From the mutterings in all of the groups I am in in world, and the number of notices calling for protest already issued, it seems everyone can see this oncoming train wreck but LL...