SLim Pickings
I just downloaded the new SLim Second Life client released by Linden Lab. So far I like what it does but theres a few things that I don’t like about it…
Pros
- I like that I can contact friends in IM or be IMed by people when I am not logged in without using a webapp or other third party programs.
- Voice is enabled
Cons
- You need to download a first look client to be able to download your friends list.
- If you want to IM someone in the SLim client, they need to have the actual SLim beta.
- Unable to chat in public chat like you can with AjaxLife or similar programs.
/me understands that this is a beta and hopes it will be better. I’m sure as time progresses more functionality will be added to the SLim client. But so far I am enjoying it even if one person on my friends list only has the SLim client right now.
If theres one feature that needs to be added, I want a little popup that says X X is online at the bottom right side of the screen like some other applications do.
Donations
This is a kind of continuation post from my last blog post entitled The Greenies Problem. This entry is going to be about Donations.
If you ask me, it is entirely reasonable for any place in Second Life that offers an event to the public to have a donation / tip jar area for offering events or resources. When we look at something like the Greenies, they would likely make a lot more money from donations than charging an admission fee.
One example of an area in Second Life that offers free entertainment but gets donations is the Music scene. Every musician makes a good sum of money for doing the music and also the venues make money from it as well. The venues could easily say “You can’t get in without paying L$1000″ and in some cases they do when it is a big musician like Louis Volare.
Another place in Second Life that offers a service to residents is the Destination Station. Itazura recently added a tipjar for people to donate to. Again entirely acceptable because they make no money for promoting these places free of charge and is a hell of a lot better than any standard telehub.
Soon enough SLPN will be getting a donation jar as well and we have some cool stuff coming down the pipeline.
Harper Berseford made an interesting comment on my last blog post on the Greenies that I completely understand the point of view of.
“They have to insure the survival of their business so they can provide MORE content and pay the electric bill to keep the server running.”
Again, my argument has always been, If they people like it, they will be more than happy to donate. If I ever see a donation jar at a sim that is fun, helpful, informative, entertaining etc. then people will donate. Combine that with Merchandise (Greenies sells merchandise already!) then THEY will surely make money.
The Greenies Problem
I know this is old news but I feel like I had to write about this. A while ago on Podmafia we explored the Greenies sim which is an amazing build that all newbies and oldies should see. However they are now charging for entry into the sim, which in my opinion sucks.
OK L$99 doesn’t seem like a lot of money, but to a newbie that’s like L$1,000,000. When a newbie joins Second Life it can be a daunting experience and I think it is important to let them know about the good stuff quick so they can understand what is cool and possible about the virtual world.
What I’m trying to say is that Second Life builds when its a public place that you want people to visit should not be blocked off at all. The only times something should really be blocked off is a residential area or if someone has been banned.
When you think about the Internet you get websites that need to be paid to gain entries to certain areas, most of which never really work out well. Second Life is entirely the same, people expect to visit somewhere and be able to explore it for free. Sure there’s a cost attached to it for the service provider but they can make money other ways like Donation kiosks that can help facilitate the venue or merchandise.
I’m sure that Rezzable is making some money from the Greenies but to be honest I think they are already successful enough to not need to offer a charge for admission. I’m sure events like the Hair Fair make them money and the Greenies has always seemed to me like a good promotion of what Rezzable does.
Basically, charging for admission in my mind is a stupid idea and if people start copying the idea then it will negatively impact Second Life.
I am sure most of what I said has been said before but I don’t care because this is my opinion that has been badly written. Also thanks to Dakota Blackmountain for pointing out a typo 
Whats your Second Life?
I am currently listening to SL Under the Radar’s part 2 of The Toilet Bowl and it got me thinking, what on earth is Second Life to people. What is it that they do?
Me?
I am an evil tyrant who wants to wage nuclear war on Nowhereville who is secretly an evil timelord.
Why?
I love Doctor Who and thats why I am an evil timelord. The nuclear war thing is because I am scared of Nuclear War. I used to have regular nightmares about Nuclear War but for some reason, since I started playing around with nukes in Second Life it sort of eased my fears and I haven’t had a nightmare about it in a long freaking time.
Thats a sort of insight to why Warf is Warf. What about you? Do you do anything wacky that you wouldn’t do in Real Life that you do in your Second Life? Is this post entirely pointless to you?
Gridnaut
Earlier this week I was accepted into the Gridnaut program. For those who don’t know what a gridnaut is, A gridnaut is one of the beta testers for the Open Grid public beta. It allows me to use the Open Grid client and access both Second Life simulators and OpenSim simulators (that have applied the patch).
There is a lot of work that still needs to be done before this will reach the primetime but the developers are already working hard on this.
UPDATE - Radar asked in the comments about how he could sign up to be a gridnaut because dumb old me forgot to add that information in, so here it is (Quoted from the Second Life Wiki) :
- To participate as a developer, please send a request to join the Open Grid Public Beta Mailing List.
- Please subscribe using an email address associated with your SL account. We may discard subscription requests that we can not confirm belong to Second Life residents.
- Once you’re subscribed, you’ll be invited to join the inworld group for participants.
- You will receive two invitations, one from the main grid, and one from the Preview Grid (aditi). We recommend joining the group on both grids, however only Preview Grid membership is required for intergrid teleporting.
- To accept the preview grid invitation you will need to log onto the preview grid normally. You can use the normal preview grid viewer, available from the downloads page, or you can use your main SL viewer. To use the main viewer, hit shift-ctrl-g from the login screen and then select “aditi” from the pulldown menu that appears.
- If you have more than one avatar associated with the same email address, we will invite one of them. If our guess wasn’t the av you wanted to participate, email us at ogpb-info@lindenlab.com
- Claim a space on the map for your OpenSim region.
- Download the Open Grid Beta Viewer.
- Build an OpenSim region with the OGP patch.
- Use the Open Grid Client to Teleport between Region Domains
Getting Somewhere…
For over a year I have been using an open-source piece of software called OpenSim which is a reverse engineered Second Life simulator. (If you don’t know what a simulator is, it is the thing that gives you land and prims and all that happy stuff). Ever since it was released I have always felt that those servers would one day interact with the Agni grid.
Another thing that I love about the OpenSim project is the ability to run your own simulator locally. This is great for a variety of reasons. Testing scripts outside of Second Life, Building Practice, Tutorials etc. I basically love OpenSim. There are a few problems with it i’ll admit. It is still unfinished in terms of physics, inventory and usability but this will all be ironed out in the future.
So, recently the main grid was able to connect to an OpenSim server, which of course excited the hell out of me. Then this happened to appear in my feed reader. Open Grid may still be in it’s early days but it is something that makes me excited for the virtual worlds. This obviously opens up so many possibilities such as independantly run servers.
I will continue to keep watching the space and finding out what happens with OpenSim because whatever it will bring. It will be a good thing for all.
SpaceNavigator Arrives!
OK, Yesterday I ordered a SpaceNavigator from Dabs.com. I decided to choose the cheapest delivery option for the delivery. This morning I wake up and find that a box had arrived for me. So here is some unboxing photos
So far I have been amazed with this little mouse wonder. Why did it take me so long to order one of these? Seriously it is a great toy to have and the best part is that it really intuitive to use. I’ll continue playing with it and give it an early review on tomorrows Podmafia Podcast.
Not long now…
… I hope …
In case you aren’t aware, for about 10 weeks my main machine which could handle Windlight well went out of action. At first we thought it was the Motherboard that was bricked so we sent it off with the warranty and then found out that it was not the case. So then we discovered it was really the graphics card that was to blame for the problems. Assuming that everything else is fine I should have the machine back very soon and enjoying Second Life like I should have. It’s annoyed me to no end because I wanted to fully experience things like SL5B and the Relay for Life.
So while I was in the downtime I managed to get my old computer up and running again. During the downtime some things went wrong with the machine. But it gave me a chance to experience Second Life from the older hardwares perspective. It intrested me because I always hear people with low end machines complaining that their machines are unbearably slow and get 1fps. It makes me think, what exactly are they putting the Settings at with the viewer. Case and Point this screen capture of my settings, hardware and frames per second.
This machine right here is about 4 or 5 years old now. Yet I seem to be getting 17fps on this low hardware. The only problems I get sometimes is that the machine will hang for a few seconds. But that is down to the machine having 512 MB of memory. Now I understand that some people having laptops and they really do suck for Second Life if they are cheap laptops but the fact is if you buy one of those cheap laptops you are shooting yourself in the foot for any 3D application. I know because I got one for the laptop and yes it sucks big time. I wonder what other people with older hardware get when they are on Second Life. If you read this blog let me know in the comments.
Microsoft + OpenSim?
OK, so I heard something about Microsoft and OpenSim over the weekend but I didn’t really look into it. Then I saw Radar blogged something about it and since he’s a Mac user and it mentions Microsoft I decided to take a look at it and learn about this whole Microsoft thing.
Apparently Microsoft (And I quote from Mixed Realities) say:
Zain Naboulsi, a “developer/evangelist” at Microsoft looking closely at OpenSim, told the Reuters bureau in Second Life that the company seeks to integrate at least three of its free services into the evolving open source package:
- coding tool C Sharp Express;
- SQL server express, Microsoft’s database platform to handle OpenSim’s inventory calls;
- Windows Live ID, a identity-management tool.
OK, So C Sharp Express coding for Open Sim…good I guess
SQL Server Express for Open Sim Inventory calls…good I guess
Windows Live ID management….nope not good.
Why do I think Windows Live ID for Open Sim isn’t the greatest idea for Identity Management? Because it isn’t something I would want. I would much rather prefer something like Open ID. Maybe I am wrong on this opinion but because Open Sim is open, I’d rather it use something like Open ID for the interoperability between servers.
Am I wrong in thinking this? Is Windows Live ID all that bad?
If I am wrong then it may go back to the days when I used to use the .net passport system which I hated but had to use and it drove me nuts.
Moving On…
So. Maybe you have heard or maybe you haven’t.
But I am going to be leaving Nowhereville. Why?
Well. I figured that I would leave to make way for a change to Nowhereville. Theres some prime candidates who want to move in and it makes sense that I should leave to make way for change. I have always been a big believer of change and the good it can do but having looked back at Nowhereville I just don’t think it has changed all that much. The major changes to the island were mostly on my parcel(s), Gomem’s parcel, When the Newggenheim came in and when Caleb changed things around. But now it probably needs a major change and I believe that may be around the corner, and it’s gotta be good…right?
But what about you, Stuart?
Well. I am moving to Podcast Island. Why?
To be honest not a lot happens there. It needs to be injected with new life and events to make it seem more active. The main event that happens each month is of course the Podcaster Meetups. But with SLPN moving in there will be more events garunteed with the live podcasts we are starting to do more and more at SLPN.
-
Plurk
-
Hostgator
