SL

Second Life user Sky Eclipse has a problem: something about their account or their avatar causes the sim they are in to crash. The sim they are in crashes as soon as they log in to it , if I understand the problem correctly, leaving them no way to do anything like remove attachments or delete the last few items they acquired.

The only solution for this problem lies in the hands of Linden Lab: either fix Sky Eclipse's account, or fix the sim crash problem such that Sky Eclipse's account remains just as it is but the sim Sky is in doesn't crash.

There's a Second Life Jira issue to vote on related to Sky Eclipse's problem. The Jira issue is at https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2281 ; if you'd like to help Sky Eclipse by convincing Linden Lab to devote resources to solving this problem go to https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2281 and vote for the issue. (Only members of SL can vote for SL Jira issues, so if you aren't an SL user, just join SL at secondlife.com, then vote for Sky's Jira issue. )

There's a thread in the SL forums, forums.secondlife.com, at http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=1661915#post1661915 where you can read about this if you have access to forums.secondlife.com.

The Sky Eclipse Jira issue VWR-2281 reads as follows
:

Second Life Viewer - VWR
Sky Eclipse's avatar crashes regions EVERYTIME she logs in, regardless of where she logs in
Created: Friday 02:42 AM Updated: Saturday 04:58 PM

Component/s: Crashes
Affects Version/s: 1.18.3
Fix Version/s: None

File Attachments: 1. debug_info.log (4 kb)
2. SecondLife.log (161 kb)

Environment: « Hide
CPU: AMD K7 (Unknown model) (1396 MHz)
Memory: 256 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 6200/AGP/SSE/3DNOW!
OpenGL Version: 2.0.3

The Connolly Telegraph showcases the 19th Century sims of Second Life... Caledon, New Babbage, Steelhead City, Antiquity, the Tombstone sims, Yankton, Deadwood, and many more. Our vision is to unite the 19th Century SL citizens while still retaining the unique character and atmosphere of these varied and fascinating places.

The Connolly Telegraph

I have an idea for a new gadget/tool that would greatly enhance both blog reading and SL time management...http://zoeconnolly.blogspot.com/2007/06/attention-scriptors.html

Just a quickie by request here. 

• There is now a search toolbar for Second Life available here - http://secondlifesearch.ourtoolbar.com/ . Sadly it only runs under Windows and is designed for the Firefox browser although an IE version is available. Being a Mac person, I have not been able to test it there.

• What I have looked at however is the "module" version which I embedded in my Netvibes page. It works a treat with quick access to SL articles on the web, SLURLs posted on the web and location links for SL itself. For those who use the web a lot but with a principal interest in SL it will probably be indispensible.

• Essentially, it incorporates all the SL specific utilities like Sloog, BlogHud, Sqawk, SLTweets and Gridmarker - all of which publish RSS feeds which are accessible both in-world and out - thus providing a bridge between both. Search options can be limited to one or more specific sources (eg. "inside" SL only) or can be carried out over the wealth of websites and blogs dedicated to SL on the web. All we really need is a version of the search facility than works inside SL in the other direction.

• Do check it out.

I just wanted to mention a milestone of sorts. I've been collecting second life links for a few weeks and I've reached 353 so far.  http://slblogosphere.blogspot.com/

• Immersed as I increasingly am in the virtual world, one of the things I now use more than ever are the HUD devices. Some you waer normally, but others you attach to your screen add features to the interface. Sadly, there are only nine positions available and my HUD count in the inventory now numbers around 40. We rapidly need some kind of HUD for switching HUDs I think.

• I'll come back to this is due course but would love to see comments on readers own favourites. Mine at present are ...

• SLOOG - Provides channel command to keep landmarks and tag them. GRIDMARKER - similar thing but uses drag and drop of landmarks from your inventory and gives you a publishable RSS feed. I use former for private (ish) bookmarks and the latter for public recommendations.

• SLICKR and SLBROWSER. First is an on-screen button and latter is a pop-up browser. Combined, these two enhance SL search facilities. SLICKR records your history in case you forget to landmark, whilst SL BROWSER privides search that will take you to the "exact" location of what you look for.

• BLOGGER and BLOGHUD - both allow me to blog directly from in-world. The fomer is not actually a HUD, rather it is a droppable object that you code with your "blogger.com" blog on the web. As owner you can then post directly to your blog, but best of all it acts as a launcher for your blog when anyone else clicks on it. The latter is a dedicated in-world blog which provides you with an RSS feed. It's on-screen HUD is a dream because the main tags are predefined, so you can use it quickly to post from wherever you are in SL. Other users can quickly find out whats happening too.

• On a side-note, there are now a number of RSS readers you can place in-world in you have somewhere of your own. I finally found one the other day which is only 1 prim and ideal if you have a low allowance. Sadly, that is the one which I have not got working yet! Have seen it working though.

• Twitter users have two in-world choices. SLTWEETS has an awkward interface but acts as an on-screen Twitter client much like "Twitterific" and its ilk on the desktop.Lately however, I have switched to SQUAWK - this does not use any screen real-estate and gives channel command access to not only Twitter but also Jaiku.

• 2L will have voice functionality in chat shortly and, desite a few bugs, works very well on the beta grid. One of the first HUDs I ever used however was SECOND TALK which enables the use of Skype running parallel with SL. You don't need a HUD for that of course, but wearers of the ST device can instantly scan for other users in-world and patch into them without all the normal Skype address lookup. Skype does need to be running already in the background though.

• MYSTITOOL is one of a whole breed of plug-ins that offer an animation over-ride facility, but it has extras which include launching yourself a temporary sky sandbox, avatar radar for 100 metres and chat distance radar separately. Animation over-ride is great for getting out of pickles, butI also like an animation controller at hand. This allows me to move and make gestures of my choosing without searching for them all in the inventory when I want them. I dumped the basic oneI was using yesterday when I purchased a more powerful new one. Guess - what? The one I bought is malfunctioning already!

• So a word of warning here. I have actually "purchased" three HUDS so far to replace those available for free. None of the "bought" ones have done what they advertised, whereas all the free ones seem to work like a dream. There must be a moral in that story somewhere.

• Finally, there is another rather awkward HUD called BABBLER which I make a lot of use of. Simply put, it provides language translation facilities in chat - esstentil when hosting multi-national events. When working properly (it IS buggy) it does a pretty good job of translating what you are saying into a number of different languages. Less impressive is some of the drivel it emits when trying to interpret others around you.

• I've added a couple of new links in the bit below these posts. You can find the links to what I've mentioned here in those listings.

• As I said, comments are welcome. I suspect this is a subject I will be returning to a lot. I'm still exploring details about an educational HUD called SLOODLE even as I write here.

So, until .....

The mysteries of artificial "intelligence". I mostly use an animal for transport in Second Life - faster than walking but still setting an example for RL ethics. "Bird-Mobile" as I rather unimaginatively call said beast (him?) can be ridden of course, but also programmed to follow me, stay still or wander.Wandering is the problem. Whenever idle for too long he tends to wander anyway! The result - somehow finds himself on other islands and ends up in my "lost and found" several times a day. Clearly the beast has an attitude problem but somehow I can't bring myself to dispose of him.Sucker me!