Sane advice for Linden Lab

If you haven’t read Dusan Writer’s post with advice to Linden Lab’s incoming CEO, you should. I hope that someone at the Lab is paying attention.

We have incredible content and we have a stable platform on which to ‘perform’ that content, and yet we’re working with a platform provider who seemingly has no interest in making it easy for us to build and maintain a community – and, shockingly, this is true within Second Life as much as in our ability to reach out to wider markets.

Groups don’t work, advertising doesn’t work, search is ineffective, there are no e-mail channels, few Web channels, few ways to reach out to current users let alone reach out to the crowds on Facebook except by our own effort.

International SL

Today I was jumping around with the Registrator-Tron and came across OfficialGreece, with quite a nice Acropolis.

[photos lost, post left for the record of old sims]

To give you a sense of the scale:

In the same block of sims: GreeceOfficial2 and GreeceCommercialPark. And adjoining corners: Syros Greece and Digital Scotland. And then just to the east: polimnia, talia, urania, euterpe, terpsichore, clio, erato, PIAXXA ITALIA, and BEST OF ITALIAN. Quite the international neighborhood!

Gridnaut!

Tonight I received my group membership in the gridnauts, and have successfully TPed between Linden Research-owned simulators and Open Sim simulators owned by others. Yay!

Adventures with .raw files

Part of the expansion of Orcadia was made possible by a partnership between nox Pinion and I: Muckle Green Holm will house nox’s building efforts in the sky, while the ground level will provide an experimental and sales space for my terrain files.

The current maze in Muckle Green Holm has gotten enough positive comments that I’ve started work on other maze and labyrinth terrains. It’s still somewhat of an experimental process, however, as these photos will attest:

Interview with the librarian

Baron BardHaven discovered lacunae in his knowledge of the Caledon Library system:

I set out in a quest to find out more about this mysterious library.

Thank to position and repute, I was able to quickly find the right address for my questions, that being the Director General of the Caledon Library, Miss Scandaroon Beck.

The result is an entertaining and informative report, Library Cards.

Victorian Shopkeepers Association

I am happy to announce the creation of a new group in Second Life: The Victorian Shopkeepers Association exists to enrich the 19th-century communities of Second Life—Caledon, New Babbage, Steelhead, Antiquity, and other sims as appropriate—by helping shoppers and shopkeepers alike mitigate the 25-groups limit.

For discerning consumers, a mechanism to consolidate notices of new products and specials in a single group.

For shopkeepers, a way to reach a wider audience through cooperative effort.

Open enrollment. Business owners, please IM me to be added as a shopkeeper.

The Rules

Shopkeepers may send up to one notice fortnightly (*subject to review) announcing new products or sales. No general advertising.

No chat.

Rules strictly enforced.

Group owners as of 28 October 2007: Kamilah Hauptmann, CoyoteAngel Dimsum, Otenth Paderborn. Officers: ZenMondo Wormser

Please feel free to spread the word of this effort.

Torley’s tips weeks 4 and 5

Tip of the week #4: How to use beacons and highlighs

General tip

When you are in a menu with a ========= at the top, you can tear it off into its own movable window.

Beacons and highlights

The various beacons (3-D cross-hairs) appear under view menu; these will help you find specific kinds of objects (including griefing objects that are spewing particles).

When you turn on the highlight beacons under the view menu, you won’t see any change on the screen unless you are in the edit mode, or use View > Beacons Always ON

Types of objects:

  • scripted items with touch only: red beacon (shows only scripted objects that activate when touched)
  • items with scripts in them (shows ALL scripted objects)
  • physical objects: green beacon
  • sound sources: yellow beacon (show whenever the sound is playing)
  • particle sources: blue beacon

Highlights are an alternative to beacons, makes objects slightly red (but not sound sources). You can use either or both.

In Edit > Preferences > Graphics you can change the width of the beacon (currently only up to 10).

When you turn on beacons, in the lower right corner of the viewer there will be a list of the beacons that are currently on.

Dealing with griefing objects

You can hide particles several ways: In the View menu, click “Hide Particles”, in the Client menu > Rendering > Types > Particles (CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-=, CMD-OPT-SHIFT-= on Mac). [Torley didn’t mention it, but you can also turn particles to 0 in your preferences.]

If an object is spamming particles, use the View menu to turn on the beacons for particle sources while hiding particles, and you will more easily find the griefing object and can return it to owner (assuming you are on land where you have the power to do that).

Tip of the week #5: Useful “Show” options in the Tool menu

General Tip

World > Force Sun > is a local effect. You can set the sun on your viewer to Sunrise, Noon, Sunset, or Midnight. No one else will see this change in the lighting.

Show Hidden Selection

Create a cube as an example (easier to see if you blank the texture and make it gray).

When editing, a yellow glow shows the edges of objects. “Show Hidden Selection” will show all the edges, even the ones inside the object or on the back.

Show Light Radius for Selection

When editing an object you can make it into a light source in the Features tab (check the box); you can also choose the color of the light and three other variables.

To see the effect of making an object a light source, you must be using Nearby Local Lights in Preferences > Advanced Graphics (whether you can see this depends on your computer’s graphics card). It’s easier to see if you use World > Force Sun > Midnight.

Show light radius for selection shows you the sphere where the light will reach (the actual effect is affected by falloff).

You can also select objects owned by other people to see the light radius.

Show Selection Beam

Default is on; these are the dots that appear between you and objects you are editing. These dots are a particle effect, and you can change the dots’ color in Preferences > General > Color For My Effects. This is a viewer-side control: Disabling it will hide everyone’s beams on your screen but everyone else will still see your beam if they still have it enabled.