New home of SLN at Skybeam

Our new office is built and our new home at Skybeam is ready. Come and visit, sit and have a chat in the lounge area while you peruse todays news.
Skybeam have made us most welcome and I am happy to be here among friends.
Overlooking the huge sandbox is great fun as there is always something new to see each day. You never know you may even find me out there building just for the fun of it :)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/SkyBeam/164/199/38

What a week!

Actually its been pretty quiet all around, not helped by the fact so many friends have been hit by illness this week.
I have spent quite a lot of time on Skybeam as they changed from winter to spring thaw and had fun rebuilding Breezes and Glitters houses, its nice to be there and actually be made to feel like part of the community even though I don't actually live there - you will often find me at their events as they tend to be at a good time for me - but what was I saying, oh yes community; I expect there are quite a lot of communities in SL now and as it grows larger there will be many more, it must be a challenge in a virtual world to try to keep a community working together, just like in RL, you will find the bad apples in the barrel but I find in any community a good core to it can help to strengthen ties and its a great way to make friends.

Coming up soon is another community project I always get involved in that of the RFL clothing fair, I have had some inside info on the plans and this year the clothing fair will be absolutely mindblowing - I can't wait. Of course you will be able to get all the up to the minute events right here and we will do our best to talk to as many involved as we can, but knowing the sheer size this time around, it will a real challenge for us and one I look forward to.

We are still looking for some new writers so if you love events in secondlife or are determined to show the world what there is in SL pick up an application from our main office HERE just drop it to me inworld.
We also love to hear your stories and experiences from newbie days through to love and heartache, these go under our reader submissions banner in the appropriate section. drop us a snapshot too with a line of text - we want to show everyone what wonders there are to see and do in secondlife and for that we need your input - SL is so large now keeping up with all the places to explore is impossible but every now and then we all find a gem worth visiting or telling others about, Bixyl and Gemma are really good at hunting those out and letting you know in the explore section, why not tell us about somewhere you have found?

Dana Vanmoer

War of the World sl style?

I arrived at our boxapixels outlet to a scene of destruction,

all I could see was a gaping hole in the back wall and strange green light!

I slowly edged around the outer wall fearing what I would see,

the windows at the side were all blown out

What is it? Why has it attacked the SLN outlet? Maybe its just in the way. Only time will tell!

Gambling back in Second Life?

On September 11th, last week, the US House of Representatives passed Bill H.R. 6870 amending the UIGEA, the part of the Safe Port Act that forced Linden Lab to ban all gambling in Second Life in July last year. This new Bill states that the ban on internet gambling only attacks sports betting. Furthermore it appoints a commission that will determine further definitions of what constitutes internet gambling.

Last year, on July 25th 2007 to be precise, Linden Lab announced a change to its Terms of Service (ToS), banning all gambling for money in Second Life. Basically, any game of chance that involved L$ transactions were outlawed. As most of the people who are in SL for at least a year remember, this caused a huge uproar and large protests. Not only that, but the economy of SL also got a direct hit (see chart).

Now it seems that the House has un-done this ban, at least for normal casino games like Poker and Roulette and BlackJack and even including the good-old Sploder. As long as it doesn't involve betting on sports results, this bill makes it legal again.

But of course, the fans of gambling in SL can only call this a glimpse of hope, because the Bill hasn't changed into Law just yet. First the US Senate has to pass this Bill, and after that the US president (currently Mr. Bush) has to sign it. And after that, Linden Lab has to feel compelled to revoke their ban through the ToS.

So there are still a few heavy steps to take, but in general it seems that at least some people in the Land of the Free have come to their senses. And of course, with the commission in place, they still have the power to outlaw casino games again, but that is not expected because that is not the intention of this new Bill.

The SL Newspaper will keep an eye on further developments although it will probably take some time before we hear anything else about this. When it's time to start in-world protests to convince the Lindens to change the ToS again, we'll certainly let you know. Or protest AGAINST changing the ToS again of course, if you want to keep SL free of gambling.

Cartoon of the Day

Picture by Dana Vanmoer

Click for full size

SL5B: Rounding up the wagons ...

On it’s 5th anniversary SL is way passed the pioneer era. But then again ... It’s not.

"It is always an uneasy transition for the pioneers, and I think we’re going to go trough that again." (Mitch Kapor)

Under the flawless pixel summer sky, a crowd that was way passed the limit of safe occupancy of sims, struggled with lag and gathered to attend Mr. Mitch Kapor’s closure speech of SL 5th birthday celebrations.

People there where anxious, and hoping to hear announcements of change. Maybe we have this feeling about the Linden Lab being a kind of a nice Big Brother, but a Big Brother after all, that is supposed to provide us with tools for enhancing the experience and help make our virtual existence richer, more comfortable, more successful.

He encouraged residents to stop whining and start acting like the grown ups that the platform has become.

I sensed I bit of disappointment (Especially from residents who pay money to be here). I think both points of view are partly right. To people "in the know", the showing of clips from the video previewing his 3D camera (www.handsfree3D.com) was no news.

There was, instead, a 'political speech'. Sounding a bit like President Kennedy ("We stand at the edge of a New Frontier ..."), Mitch talked about the Internet, and about how a new technology always starts out in a frontier condition. In the beginning, SL residents have been pioneers, and he compared their spirit to those who settled the West.

The first pioneer era is ending now. We are at the gates of a transition. It's like we have reached the moon… and now we have to figure out how to move on from there.
It's not have been easy for pioneers. It's still not easy for newcomers. Only the strong stay.

He spoke about the 'high attrition rate' of the early years (many believe it's still high). "There are some things that Linden Lab has to do, to allow the potential of the platform to unfold, to improve ease of use, ease of learning", is a phrase that seems to point in the right direction.

Please see the video of Mitch Kapor's video, or just hear the audio, by going to the Linden Lab official blog. He spoke about the SL5B week, about the stage of development that Second Life is now in, and about new upcoming developments including real photo-realistic avatars, controlling your avatar by moving in front of a webcam. He also talked about other things, but please see the video on the LL blog for that.

Mitch Kapor is member of the Linden Lab board of directors. He has been involved with Second Life long before it was opened up to the public as an investor. Besides this, he has made a name for him self in the IT and internet world for various accomplishments. Please see the Wikipedia page about him for more detailed information.

Written by: Covadonga Writer

"How to get a second life" - writer interview

After having posted a 3 pieces from the book (links here, here and here) last month, it was time to have a sit down with the author of the book and ask him some questions. James and I welcomed Mr. Madddyyy Schnook in our headquarters and we had a fun and informative talk.




Dixie: Your rez-day is January 1st, 2006. Did you start Second Life on a boring new-years day or did you choose that date for a reason?

Mr. Schnook: It was a new years resolution to change my job and I had actually been in SL in 2005, so I had flu and re-rezzed while on antibiotics on that date. It was a name change from one name to a fresh one...

Dixie: Do you remember your first days in Second Life? How did that go?

Mr. Schnook: The usual opening a club, being so in awe of just what could be done with a little thought and determination. And seeing beyond the sex and gambling.

JamesT: How did you come up with your first name? Whats with the triple letters?

Mr. Schnook: My name goes all the way back to 1985. I used to work on ships in the merchant navy. I went with the currrent trend of blonde streaks and Miami Vice jacket and went to see Maddonna on a world tour. When I got back on board ship I got called Madonna, shortened to Maddy.

Dixie: But this interview is not about your first life, I guess. You have become an SL celebrity by writing how-to books, called SL Guides. When did you discover that there was a need for those?

Mr. Schnook: That was in 2005, in August to be precise. I stumbled across a very basic notecard explaing how to make a t-shirt and wanted to learn to make clothes. I managed to learn how to make multilayerd womens clothes and i had a club with my own mall. I showed a few women the notecard I had made from my own memory and it went from there.

JamesT: Those first notecards are collectors items now :)

Dixie: How many SL Guides are there now? Are you still expanding the SL Guides series? And what are they about?

Mr. Schnook: I have over 65 and i have just started expanding them 3 days ago. We have one on advanced texturing, advanced photography, skins, and we have another 200 planned for release this year.

Dixie: Did you write all of the SL Guides yourself, or did you have any co-writers?

Mr. Schnook: i wrote all but 2. 'Business in sl extended edition' and 'snow family' were written by someone else.

Dixie: Let's talk about your RL book, or paper book, called 'How to get a Second Life'. On the cover it says 'Build a successful business and social network inworld'. There already are plenty of 'how to' books about SL, which also cover this topic. What makes your book unique?

Mr. Schnook: imagine a jouney through sl. Day one is you signing up to SL. The last day is your business in place and all your knowledge in place. That's the book from page one to end... The rest is up to you.

Dixie: So the book is more than 1 thing. A beginner's guide to start with, but also about more serious matters, like branding and having a successful business. What part of that has the upper hand, you would say, and why?

Mr. Schnook: It's different because it's not a user guide. It takes you through building, scripting socialising but more importantly it gives you my knowledge of branding and marketing. It's more heavily biased towards marketing and brand recognition in SL. How many times have you seen a fantastic product, and its got some dumb blonde sitting on it without good advertising. I have seen the holodeck 2 years ago and the guy had zero knowledge on how to sell it... He got left behind.

JamesT: Whats the most stupid thing you did in your newbee years?

Mr. Schnook: 'Click here for free lindens', and ended up with a chicken on my head. In a sandbox. Actually, I think i still got that chicken.

JamesT: You have become a celebrity in SL, through the SL Guides and now with a paper book. How does this affect your Second Life experience?

Mr. Schnook: Unfortunately I live in my selfmade prison cell. I go nowhere now or even talk to anyone except close friends. So I wouldn't know about being a celeb, lol.

Dixie: In your book you say that RL branding and marketing also applies to SL. You did marketing etc in RL. Does that help you out a lot? What do you think is the biggest difference between RL marketing and SL marketing?

Mr. Schnook: Knowing your market in sl... There is not really any big difference, although not being to big to be seen as corporate is my main concern... the Anshe effect.

Dixie: You have said that you constantly try to look forward at least 3 months and anticipate on any changes in Second Life. How do you do that?

Mr. Schnook: Also being low profile. I look at what is going on daily. I visit about 15 blogs, newspapers and sites and have friends who I talk to... and I have a nose for business.

Dixie: What are upcoming changes that you are anticipating already?

Mr. Schnook: Windlight is the main one and new viewers and new grids. I have land in a new off-world grid, which hopefully will connect to SL someday. It's good to be a breast of new technology. Like when prims go, importing meshes from 3dmax etc. Meshes are also already used in most 3d shooter games.

Dixie: What is the hottest type of business right now in SL, would you say?

Mr. Schnook: Still has to be fashion and skins. Land trade is a very small minority I think, specially with land bots, were as fashion and skins is more wide spread and accessible. Land prices are driven up because the land barrons keep buying off each other .. lol ..

Dixie: In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake people make when they start or run a business in SL?

Mr. Schnook: thinking they will make lots of money in a short time and expecting to stick a badly done picture of a pair of jeans on a box in a white box in a mall and expecting to make money.

Dixie: So people who are in sl business for the longer period will do better, you think? People who are in it for the long run?

Mr. Schnook: the long run and those who plan what they do. If you plan and market correctly then you will succeed in sl, but to do that takesd time, because it takes time to get to know SL.

JamesT: Did you ever fall in love in SL? or have loving feelings in SL?

Mr. Schnook: lol. Maybe. Not the sex thing, never understood that bit.

Dixie: Over a year ago, you were ready to quit your day job and earn a living with Second Life. This is probably the dream of many people who are SL addicts. Was that an easy decision to make?

Mr. Schnook: Not really, no. But I had to do it. I was totally fed up with my RL job, I was good but it was hard. So I had enough to see me through a 3 month trial shot at it. And it worked.

Dixie: Now some other practical questions, if you don't mind. What viewer do you currently use most of the time?

Mr. Schnook: I use the official SL viwer but as old as I can. And sleek.

Dixie: Is your book based on a specific viewer, or even computer? (Windows, Linux, Mac)

Mr. Schnook: Mac and Windows, and it mentions alternative viewers.

Dixie: One of those alternative viewers is linked to the CSI:NY thing. What do you think about the whole CSI business? Where did they go wrong?

Mr. Schnook: I think the concept was fantastic, one of my fave shows, being in the UK it was not aired here so I watched it online. But they abandonded the concept to quick. It was not maintained if you know what I mean, a shame really. By the way, I love the Die Hard 4 film set. Another good sim. Static but a good example of what SL can be. Like being inside a movie.

Dixie: Allright, last question. You already had a lot of publicity on your book. RL and SL. If it hits off, which it very probably will, will you be writing more books about Second Life? Or do you have any other plans?

Mr. Schnook: Hmmmmm ... I wanted the book to be more technical than it was, and it originally was. But it never ended up being that way in the end. So if I was to do another book, then it would be a far more technical book.


Again, James and I would like to thank Mr. Schnook very much for this opportunity. We both are great fans of the SL Guides series and are looking forward to seeing more of his work.

This book is published by Fusion Press and is available through Amazon.com and Visionpaperbacks.co.uk.

Chat logs have been used with permission from Mr. Schnook.
SLurl to SL Guides main shop: click here.

Are you a Linden?

If you are online right now, you must be a Linden!


Due to some troubles at Linden Lab (how come they often happen during the weekends?) the grid is offline. The official LL blog says that they're working on it and that the global shutdown is intentional.

I personally feel like I'm leading half a life right now, with only my Real Life being 'online'. On the other hand, this gives us the opportunity to give our RL loved ones a call or a hug, right?

Let's give the guys and girls at LL a break. I bet they must be breaking a sweat right now to fix the problem. Don't panic!

In the meantime, this is a nice opportunity to catch up with the SL news in our newspaper. :)

Body Snatching reported!

On this lazy Sunday afternoon, my girlfriend was shopping for a new skin. And trust me, if there is anyone who knows just about every skin and skin shop on the Grid, it's her! Usually I am reluctant to interfere with her shopping sprees, but in this case there were so many 'OMG's' coming in my IM that I just had to accept that teleport.

Where I landed was just amazing. It was a camping spot from hell. I felt like I was dropped into a sequel to 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'. Just imagine being surrounded by all naked ruthed avatars dancing and making weird moves.


So, here I was, surrounded by alts or script controlled avatars. The reason why people do this, is just to create extra traffic. They create a number of alts and bring them in-world with a clever script or program. They park them and there you go.

So I was wondering why we were here. My darling told me that she had stumbled on to something really really bad. There already have been numerous reports on stolen skins and clothing for the last couple of months. There's even a long article about it on the official Linden Lab Jira site (link here). And she had found the place where they sell the contraband goods. We flew down from the camping platform in the sky to a big mall on the floor. There was a big shop selling skins there. And piece by piece, they are exact copies from famous skin shops like Naughty Designs and X2.

Look at the resemblance and examine the detail of it.



So far, Linden Lab hasn't done anything about this. The place still exists, the illegal copied textures haven't been removed from SL, the search is still unfairly screwed up, and suspected thieves still make tons of money from it. And the worst thing about it, is that these skins aren't even given away as freebies, they are actually sold as quality original goods, although we all know that they're not.

The problem with these things is that without the help of Linden Lab, it is very hard to find proof of the theft. LL could easily see when the textures were uploaded and thus see which ones are original. But so far they haven't done anything, it appears.

And these people are in breach with the Terms of Service and Community Standards altogether, because the regions that they show these skins (including explicit adult content) are rated PG, not Mature. To complement this statement, on the other side of the street is a Dicks & Pussies store, showing their wares !!

Mind you, with the term 'help' in the name of one of their regions, they suggest that they're an official Help Island. I can tell you, they're NOT. That, combined with the high traffic numbers that they produce themselves, it's basically one big scam.

All in all this is just a very bad place to be and it made me feel very very uncomfortable. About the stuff that I could prove, I have submitted a few abuse reports. Please remember that at least part of what they sell is illegal (if not all) and you would be supporting copyright breach if you buy there.

Skin designers like Backstage (Naughty Designs), X2:Exotica and RaC have put a lot of time and effort into those skins and that's what makes them quite expensive. So the only right way to do it, is use a (legal) freebie skin like the CS-Passport ones and save up to buy a good one at the right places.

"Age Verification Failed"

After Linden Lab announced the availability of the new Release Candidate viewer, and also an article about a new Knowledge Base article of the week, on their official blog, there has been a lot of complaining amongst residents.


Many of us have tried to get verified on www.secondlife.com and also many have failed. And today Linden Lab has given an update about this, confirming that there are indeed problems, primarily with non-US based residents. However, this reporter also heard from US based residents that they have been experiencing the same problems.

Of course we can't complain about this, because, as Linden Lab clearly states, they are still in the test phase, or Beta stage. And because of that, the only thing you can do right now is either wait it out and hope for the best, or to let Linden Lab know that you are unable to verify your age. And according to that latest LL blog entry, that is exactly what they want.

So please, we call upon you to do 2 things:
The first one is not to use the new Age Verification parcel options, because you might ban some people from your land who might otherwise be perfectly legal to see your adult content.

The other one is to go to www.secondlife.com, log in, go to your account details and click on the right hand side of the screen on 'Age Verification'. Fill in your details, and if you don't succeed, please send an email to the ID Verification taskforce of Linden Lab.

As Linden Lab announced, verification during the beta period is free. After that, getting yourself verified may cost money. But when certain groups of people (like from certain countries) are unable to verify and are not able to use the free option, that might even be considered discrimination. However, because the whole age/identity verification is already a controversial topic amongst residents (there even have been protests), Linden Lab will probably be very careful about this, and hopefully they will have a beta version online soon, that works for everyone.

Warning: Quicktime security leak !!

As Linden Lab announced on their official blog yesterday, a direct security leak has been discovered in the Quicktime video player. The Second Life viewers use Quicktime to play in-world video's. To date, Quicktime have not released an update on their software. Until that time, any software that uses Quicktime, like the SL viewer(s) that you have installed on your computer, is affected by this security leak.

Linden Lab found this important enough to confront everyone with an extra warning when you log in. This warning has taken the shape of a ToS (Terms of Service) change that you have to agree to. The ToS hasn't actually changed, but I guess it was a quick way for LL to implement such a warning sign.

What does this mean?

People with bad intentions can make videos that you can stream in SL that might take over or crash your viewer.

What can I do?

Until Quicktime releases an update of their software and until Linden Lab can include this in their viewer, it's better to switch off your video player in-world. Of course you can still use it, but beware that you only play video's from people or companies that you trust.

How do I do that?

In the login screen, you can click on the Preferences button. Or, when you're already in-world, go to the Edit menu, then go to Preferences (or simply press Ctrl-P). Once you have the Preferences panel open, go to the Audio & Video tab and you will see 2 tickboxes. One is for audio streams and the other one is for videostreams. Simply deactivate the 2nd one and you're good.


I use the ON-REZ viewer. Does this affect me too?

Yes. For now, any viewer that is capable of playing in-world video's and that's using Quicktime, is affected.

What happens next?

Nothing. It's a waiting game till Apple releases an update for the Quicktime software. Beware, this does not only affect Apple computers, but any computer that has Quicktime installed on it. So this warning is active until further notice. In the meantime LL is able to track malicious video streams and they will remove those upon signt to make your Second Life as safe as possible.

Hacking failed, L$ 50,000 paid after new competition

Is Second Life safe from hackers? Or is it at least safer than other online worlds like Habbo Hotel, where a 17 year old kid stole for about US$ 6,000 on virtual goods from another kid? Although innocent until proven guilty, he's at least brought to court and charged for this crime, so that makes hacking serious business.

DNBmedia, a Dutch company who is also the Dutch full-service partner of Linden Lab and has set up www.secondlife.nl, has the answer about security in Second Life. They are certain that this could never happen in SL, at least not by in-world hacking. About two weeks ago they started a hacking competition on one of their sims (read more here). The object was to hack into an in-world script stored inside a prim looking like a bar of gold, stashed away in a big vault. Getting to the prim was easy, but actually gaining access to the no-mod, no-copy, no-trans script apparently was too hard, or even impossible.

So, DNBmedia did a great job at actually blocking access, and has proven that Second Life is a safe place. According to DNBmedia employee Rickus Rodenberger:


"We did everything that is deemed normal for security measures. The fact that no-one could get in using a normal method, really shows that most of the hacking is done by gaining access to an account. And that is mostly due to people being careless with their account details."

When I talked to Mr. Rodenberger, I asked him if there was a back door, if it was a game. As he stated:

"No, this was not a game, there was no back door that we knew of. We considered this to be a serious test and treated it like that. Apparently SL is safe enough not to loose your inventory or rezzed objects or even your intellectual property rights to hackers."

So I asked Mr. Rodenberger what's next, after the hacking challenge. He said:

"Nothing concerning hacking anymore. We made our point and we can tell the world that SL is a safe place. However, we did still have the L$ 50,000 prize that we haven't had to pay to anyone. So last week's Thursday, at 4pm, a new competition started and we had a winner in under 4 hours! We stashed away 3 gold bars, hidden away on the 14 sims that we have developed so far. The person who found them first, won this follow-up competition, and of course the L$ 50,000. It was a big success."

As it seems, DNBmedia is quite dedicated to Second Life. In fact, they are a full-service partner of Second Life, so you can imagine that they were eager to show that Second Life is in fact safe, as long as you take your own precautions. Never give away your login details, and if you don't want to share the secret behind your designs with other residents, SL has plenty of tools and settings to prevent it.

Hack your way to 50 K !!!

Yes, you heard it right, you can win L$ 50,000 this week in a hacking competition at a sim called '0031 NO'. This is organized by DNBmedia, a Dutch company who provides several services in both Second and Real life. One of their main activities is maintaining the Dutch site www.secondlife.nl, where Dutch residents can buy L$ by paying directly from their bank account, amongst other things. The cluster of sims called 0031 are all aimed at Dutch people (+31 is the international dial code for the Netherlands), although everyone is welcome.


As a reaction to the drama that unfolded in another virtual world, Habbo Hotel (7 million residents world wide, aiming at kids and teens), where a 17 year old kid stole furniture from another kid's house. He did so by 'hacking' into the victim's account and thus transferring the furniture. Damages ran up to US$ 6,000 and this hacker has been arrested and will be charged with theft, stolen goods trade, digital trespassing and vandalism. That last one was because virtual goods are data. And if you remove data from an account, or server, that data is destroyed. DNBmedia set this hacking competition up as an experiment, to see how safe things are in Second Life.


I talked to Rickus Rodenberger, one of the DNBmedia people, to ask what the story was behind this competition. "We want to challenge everyone to hack us here. Our challenge is to show the world that Second Life is a safe place. If someone would actually succeed, it would be a great learning opportunity for us."

Taking the words of Mr. Rodenberger into account, there will always be a winner. If it's not a hacker that finds a way in, it is Second Life itself, for having things in order. Mr. Rodenberger says: "If there is fraud, it's mostly because of stupidity of people. For example if they reveal their account details."


About the challenge:

The prize is L$ 50k (about US$ 188) for anyone who can decode the script inside the vault, find a 10 digit code and an email address inside the script, and if you find it, you have won. Mind you, you have to do it within the boundaries of the Terms of Service that rule the world of Second Life. The competition lasts till November 21, 2007, even if someone actually hacks into it, there could be more than 1 way in. Right?

Location: 0031 NO (SLurl)

BREAKING NEWS: Windlight is Back!

Yesterday, at around 3pm SLT, Linden Lab published an article on their official blog that Windlight is back as a FirstLook viewer release. Shortly after, they posted another article with more information about Windlight.

Since May 21st, when Linden Lab announced that they had aquired Windward Mark Interactive, a company that already had a specialization in realistic clouds rendering and other superb graphics technologies, with their software called Nimble.

It was said back then that the implementation would go at a rapid pace. A FirstLook viewer appeared not too long after and a lot of hurray's, comments and suggestions came in. After this little preview period, the newly aquired team at Linden Lab worked on developing and de-bugging, and it was said that a new FirstLook viewer with windlight would be available in August. Since than, many residents have been looking forward to this and yesterday it finally arrived.


What is Windlight exactly?

Windlight is a whole new way of rendering just about everything in Second Life, that is not a prim. Although it does affect prims as well. Windlight is mostly about having prettier skies, more realistic clouds and alltogether much better views. Including better reflections on the water and other things, and a whole bunch of new settings so you can customize your own views. You can even set how much overcast you want in your own personalized sky.


Will this increase lag?

Probably on the contrary. With the experience that LL already has so far, and with the added experience of the newly added crew of Windward Mark, they basically have re-written the whole thing. And that usually is a good thing, because you don't have to mind too much about the old software and tweaking it. And with this release, some other features are introduced as well, like a different way of rendering other avatars who are beyond chat range. From that range on, they will be rendered in a 2d way which will especially be decreasing lag in busy places. You will not really notice it when you look at the people, except maybe some jerky movements here and there.

Why a FirstLook viewer?

After the first FirstLook release including Windlight, they did a lot of bug fixing, working on suggestions from residents and testing. This has resulted in a new version. But before incorporating it into the standard viewer, they probably want to do more bug fixing wherever needed, and see how the public at large responds to it. It is expected that not too long after this FirstLook viewer, there will be a new release of the standard viewer with Windlight. This usually takes one or two months.


Is Windlight optional?

For now it is. You can choose to have Windlight by using the FirstLook viewer. But when it will be included in the standard release viewer, it will not be optional. The old strangely twisting clouds and obviously virtual skies will finally be gone forever.

How do I get Windlight?

You can have Windlight by downloading the FirstLook viewer by clicking here. This is basically the latest standard viewer (version 1.18.5), but with Windlight added. You can install this viewer next to your standard viewer, so you can switch between the both of them. At least as long as this FirstLook viewer is there.

The Buzz at Woodhaven Park

Dixie Barbosa gets his own exhibit. Check out Peoplefor the scoop.

New Dance Mix

Where is the latest hot spot? What are the coolest grooves?
Join Dashwood Dayafter in Explore and find out.

IBI Fair - Leonardo da Vinci OPEN NOW

"LEONARDO DA VINCI" is not just art, but various events, everyone with a specific topic.
And this months event is about to start, its all about the media in SL and yes you guessed it , you will find us there too in amongst the magazines and radio represented in secondlife.
come along and find out what is available there are magazines to appeal to most, plus you get to meet a few interesting people and ask some questions and hopefully get a few answers.

Once you have had your fill of the media stalls come on down to the right of the entrance ramp where you will find DJ Ravishal Bentham pumping out the tunes; come and join me on the dance floor!

Dana

Statistics of September 2007

On October 2nd, we posted the resident statistics of August 2007 (or, the SL Metrics as Linden Lab calls it) in a handy format. This time, I will just give you an update on the most important changes.

Usercount:

Number of 'unique' residents: + 571,881 (+ 9.3%)
Number of residents: + 343,961 (+ 3.7%)
Number of premium accounts: + 454 (+ 0.5%)

What does this mean? Well, the number of accounts is ever increasing. But that's not so strange with all the alts and increasing popularity of Second Life. The number of 'unique' (as LL calls it) residents seems to increase more than the total number. This could indicate that less people have extra accounts (alts), at least legal alts. That's alts that are linked to primary accounts. The group of people that have more alts than average, are griefers. So we suspect that the amount of griefing has been decreased, maybe because in September the Summer holidays came to an end, so less bored teens on the grid.

However, the number of premium accounts lags badly, compared to the resident count. This could have to do with the introduction of VAT for European Union based residents. We can probably safely say that the growth of premium accounts in the rest of the world would approximately go ahead as normal. And that would mean that more EU residents actually have gone back to basic accounts. However, Linden Lab does not provide numbers of premium accounts per country, so this is not exact science.

Activity of residents:

Number of active residents: - 24,002 (- 4.4%)
Number of hours online: + 699,996 (+ 3.0%)
Average hours online per month: 45.9 (42.7 in August, + 3.2%)

Obviously, the number of residents who logged into SL at least once a month decreased, but the total number of hours increased. If you look at the number of hours per user per month, spent in-world, increased quite a lot. Again, this could have to do with the Summer holidays being over, but nonetheless it seems that there is a shift from quantity to quality.

Origin of active residents:

It seems that there are only minor shifts between EU residents, USA/Canada residents and residents in the rest of the world. EU residents have broken through the 40% barrier though, looking only at active residents. And residents outside EU/USA/Canada have increased a bit more in hours online than residents within EU/USA/Canada.

Top 10 of countries:

America is still leader, although the market share of active users has gone down a bit. Japan is down by 2 places, from 2nd to 4th. Germany is up by 2 places, from 4th to 2nd. That's a swap and can be called a substantial shift. In the lower ranks, the Netherlands have dropped from 8th to 9th and swapped with Spain. Other than that, no significant changes took place.

Overall conclusion:

The most important difference between September and August is that the average numbers of hours online have increase quite a bit. Other than that, it's mostly minor shifts.

Source: official Linden Lab blog

Your 15 minutes of fame? Be on MTV!

Not long ago our newspaper received a request from a Casting Director working for a show on MTV USA. They’re looking for people who have a second life in a virtual world. What better place to look for than in Second Life. Right? So here is the info they sent us:

MTV TRUE LIFE - I Lead Another Life on the Web

MTV True Life is casting for their next episode, "I Lead Another Life on the Web". We are looking for Second Life players who are entirely different online than they are offline. Players who become whomever they want and live out their ideal fantasy life in Second Life.


Do you DJ in Second Life but never had the opportunity to do so in real life? Are you a successful business owner in Second Life yet an average student in real life? Are you shy and single in real life but in Second Life you are the most popular sought out fashion model?

We want to know - how do you lead your life online? All candidates must must appear to be between the ages of 18-28 and reside in the US. Please email your name, age, photo, and phone number to acordova@leftright.tv.

You can also send the information in-world to Dixie Barbosa and your information will be forwarded to the casting director asap (full privacy/confidentiality guaranteed). And make sure you check out the website of the show: MTV True Life.

Real phonecalls from within SL

We have seen many real life companies come to Second Life. However, sometimes those companies make it possible to link the SL to RL. Like Vodafone, the worldwide telecom company.

Vodafone has launched a new product called InsideOut. With this product, it is now possible to make phonecalls from within SL to Real Life phones. Currently this new feature is only available between those people who have Vodafone InsideOut, but this might change after an initial market test period.

How does it work? Well, Vodafone links your Second Life account/avatar to your Real Life mobile phone, and makes phonecalls possible through that channel. You will need a HUD for your avatar (which will attach to your interface), and you will need to go through registration first. Not only phonecalls can be made this way, but also text/sms messages.


The service will be free until the end of November 2007. After that, charges can be up to L$ 300 per minute, or per text message. If you want to know more, or if you want to register for this service, go to the Vodafone Sim and pick up the HUD there. An introduction movie can be seen on their website or in-world in their own sim.

Location in-world: click here
Website: click here