New Office for SLN

We outgrew our old office so have had a makeover with a much more spacious building.
Feel free to visit you will be able to pick up all our freebies in the main reception area plus we have 2 money trees to help those just starting in Secondlife, one is by the entrance the other in the courtyard - also a great place to sit and read todays news!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Ian%20Bernard/95/161/37

Each crew member has their own office plus we have added an online indicator board so if you have a story you will know if someone is online to talk to you.

In the top of the water tower is our photo studio a great place for getting just the right shot for your story.

We will probably have a party next week just to celebrate - but more on that later, for now come and visit and have a wander around.

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.

Forward thinking and consideration for others.....

Check out my new rant for the week in the PEOPLE section.

New Terms of Service (TOS)

When logging into Second Life today, you might have found that before entering the world, you got a popup to agree with the new Terms of Service (TOS). What about that? What are the changes?

Well, of course you can read it on the official Linden Lab Blog, but we thought that it would be handy to give you a short explanation. In short, it introduces a new system to deal with disputes between you and Linden Lab.

So what is it?
In the past, when you had a dispute with Linden Lab, you had to contact them, write them, and eventually sue them. You would have to go to court over relatively small issues and amounts. Linden Lab is not known for being easily approachable, so a lot of disputes were left alone, just because people weren't in the position to go to court. This could be because they live half way around the world, but also because costs of legal representation could easily rise above the disputed amount.

For these smaller amounts (up to US$ 10,000), Linden Lab now offers to solve any disputes through established arbitration organizations. We're not going to list them all, but in case you do have a dispute, you can find some examples on the Q&A on the LL Blog. Basically you can choose your own mediator/arbitrator, as long as it meets some reasonable prerequisites.

Of course, you will have to go to the LL complaint department first. That is, try to contact Linden Lab by phone or email, wait for a reply, and hope for the best. And if that doesn't work, then you can choose to go foward with arbitration.

So is this an improvement?
In a way, yes. It's a more standardized way of resolving any 'small' disputes, without having to go to court. Most of it can be done through old fashioned snail mail, by phone, and through the internet. You don't have to actually travel to San Francisco and be physically there. And it's binding. So whatever the decision will be, the dispute is always resolved.

And what are the dangers of this new TOS?
Well, Linden Lab has to approve the mediator/arbitrator that you want to use. On the other hand, if you and LL really can't agree on this, there's still the option to go to court, even for those smaller amounts. This new arbitration system doesn't exclude the other.

The costs of such arbitration can vary, but usually are no more than a few hundred US dollars for disputes under US$ 10k. But please mind, the new TOS and the LL blog do not say anything about getting reimbursed for these expenses if you do win your case. So if you do go forward with using this kind of arbitration, make sure you include a claim to get reimbursed in case your claim is acknowledged.

What the TOS is NOT!
The Terms of Service do not deal with new issues like identity verification, although through the TOS, Linden Lab is authorized to set any rules of behaviour they like, and publish additional sets of rules, like the Community Standards. So the changes to this TOS only concern changes to the new arbitration options.

And finally, what IS the new TOS?
In our opinion, the new TOS is what it was before, but the new changes are most probably to prevent small time lawsuits. This is not a bad thing, because it doesn't exclude any legal options for you, it just regulates more options that are available to you. Some say that this was long awaited, others are cynical or sceptical about this TOS, but those people felt the same about the old TOS too.

So if you agreed to the TOS before (which you did when you went in-world at least once), you can safely do it again now.