the other night i made a single sim suggestion for those wanting to try OpenSim. it is affordable and offered by someone with a very solid reputation. Snoopy’s price point is about 15% the cost of a full sim in Second Life or about what you might pay for 1,500 prims in Second Life. her single sim offering should provide a near SL experience

with the Teen Grid closing, educators are looking for solutions that may not fit well with a single sim solution. in fact, a rather large online education journal, THE Journal, posted an article yesterday entitled K-12 Groups Stranded in Second Life Teen Grid Shutdown. like it or not, educators are pretty dinked on this one =(

with an educational discount a Second Life sim was about $150 a month, so what is out there similar to this?

single sims from many OpenSim hosts are not as “powerful” as Second Life sims (i suppose we should start calling them “regions” because that is really what a Second Life sim is). once you understand that with OpenSim you look at it from a server perspective and not a “sim” perspective, you’ll be able to make a better decision and meet your expectations more closely

when i first came over to OpenSim, i thought a sim is a sim is a sim. and it just ain’t so  o_O

it’s all about RAM (imo). of course, other factors are critical as well. as Snoopy pointed out to a quote of mine on another blog, a “sim” really needs its own cpu core and a gig of RAM. disk space is pretty minor and most multi-sim options are not lacking in disk space

in my first go (really “our” first go, but hey, i am the boss of me) we tried doing 16 sims on 2 cores and 1.5 gigs of RAM. i simply underestimated what we needed for our purposes *fires herself* =D

with under 15,000 prims (14,180 to be exact) and a total of 311 scripts (most very simple like spinning radars with the omega function, sit scripts, zip line script, and so on) i had hit 1.4 gig of RAM. the cores never spiked much and seemed to hum along under 10%

what happens when you get near your RAM limit is poor performance. i often would rez without a body and i crashed a lot. i rebooted the sims and restarted the server almost daily in order to try to be stable. and if a few people hit our grid? forget about it! i crashed like mad. so running out of RAM, in my experience, is very bad

RAM is also needed for concurrency (number of avatars) and the ability to have many avatars also does impact the cores you have

one good thing about OpenSim is that if you get a true dedicated server (not a virtual machine) your sims share the server’s resources. in Second Life when i had 19 sims, if i had a big event i would need to have it on a sim border to get the maximum number of avatars possible (that’s why Linden’s winter festivals and such occur on a four sim intersection). for my events, the unused resources of an empty Second Life sim a few over did not help me. in OpenSim, if a group meets on one sim or is spread out over all 16 sims, the load is very close to the same. all of your server’s resources are available regardless of where you need them

in comparing what is out there and needing to have more resources for what we are doing (virtual fields trips with many “learning activities”) it was clear who had an offering that could provide what we needed

SimHost, hands down, has a package that seems unbeatable (i have not seen anything close from other hosting providers)

budget was important (our money tree was stolen, dang) and for close to the educational cost of a Second Life sim we have a pretty powerful setup

a true dedicated server that uses our domain names (enclaveharbour.org and enclaveharbour.com), so we are not just a subdomain (not sure how important that is to anyone else, but it means that we can keep all our “stuff”, like the support website for the science activities all under domains we control 100%) and 4 cores, 8 gigs of RAM, and 500 megs of disk, plus some incredible bandwidth (32.4 terrabytes with a 100Mbps port) that i frankly don’t know anything about except that it’s a lot! see their package here (and the setup cost is only $50 too!) =)

we do have 16 sims on this but if you were looking for a near Second Life experience, i’d suggest just doing 4 sims (maybe 9, but that’s the beauty of this, you get to decide). in a four sim configuration, this would really scream and i think be more powerful than 4 SL sims! but the 16 sims works very well because i treat it like 3 full sims and then the rest as openspace sims (in general)

PLUS . . . getting a private grid with someone is also about developing a partnership and trust. after getting yanked around by Linden Lab (policy changes mainly affecting my residents which in turn affected me) i for sure don’t want to be yanked around and have little tolerance to it (read – i am an educated adult)

the SimHost guys are also OpenSim developers and very much into what OpenSim can do. James has been developing our server from scratch. i say developing because he is doing far more than just installing a grid for us. he has carte blanche with the server and doing things that i suspect others would not (or could not) do. he set up a hack that allows for us to burst to 4 gigs of RAM per sim if need be, has developed some kind of streaming television dealio that sounds very useful. he is currently coding our “get grid info” dealio so that it grabs from the Enclave Harbour URL so that we can put anything we want for the splash screen (like i mentioned the other night). he is also setting us up with their home grown registration system. their registration system does something that will be very handy for us – you can make it require a sign-up code

edumacated ener =p

for educational use, this sign-up code could serve as a layer of security if need be. i believe our main access will be via people hypergridding and not via account creation on our grid. many people already have an account on OSGrid or Reaction Grid and will be able to simply use that account to reach us (no need to force you to create an account for use only on our grid). the hypergrid protocol is a large focus in OpenSim development and will allow for access control also

this partnership aspect with SimHost has been much more action than lip service. James is a person of action and has been invaluable for what he brings to our grid

i simply can not say enough of the benefit of having someone so passionate and so talented who has a deep understanding of OpenSim and web technologies (plus he is a Texan and i have a very fond place in my heart for Texas) *hook ‘em horns!*

so that’s it! i am posting about this a lot because it’s crunch time for educators

the timing by Linden Lab is absolutely horrible

they should have announced this a few months back, not when school is starting! trying to move before the end of the year is a Herculean task for active educators but Linden Lab absolutely could care less. at least extend it a month so that teachers can use winter holiday time to move! (it’s not like they would be giving anyone a month for free!)

i know people think i bash on Second Life (maybe because i express the way i feel about them *shakes fist about cancelling account*). but for years i praised them to high heaven

for those looking for hope, here is an anonymous Linden Lab review from august 29th on Glassdoor.com

“There is hope.”
Pros
Even with all the recent turmoil, Linden Lab still has some of the best people to work with, and one of the most interesting and challenging projects as an engineer.
Cons
Still way too much chaos. If you’re not highly self-directed you’ll find it difficult. Some of the senior management was terrible, but it looks like many of them are leaving now.
Advice to Senior Management
Really focus on the transparency, and make sure that you give middle management the room to actually shape direction.

there is no doubt that Linden Lab has some really sharp people. nothing else can touch second life for how well it works at the moment. if this is an honest review, then the bit about chaos certainly is seen externally by some of the decisions lately (seriously, display names as a project?)

i have no ill will against Second Life – i won’t ever go back to Second Life (i can’t since my account is gone), it’s just not right for me anymore

but it is “right” for many people. maybe if the right people (the wrong ones) do leave as this person says, things will turn around

Second Life is 99% there! it just needs that last one percent

fully free to use in any way you see fit =) click for originals in flickr

a month or so back i mentioned the book The Tipping Point. it’s a great book and the phrase is now part of everyday conversation. a blog called Cafe Bucky has an article about this and outlines the tipping point for virtual worlds

btw, i am going to claim myself as a poster child for this

i *think* i was pretty much every companies wet dream of a great customer. 19 sims, daily blogging proclaiming the awesomeness of SL, volunteer Mentor, 8000 flickr pics all tagged second life (helps their SEO), and my virtual partner doing lectures at conferences about how great SL is

i would flip out if i had a customer that paid me nearly $3000 a month plus was a total spaz online saying how great i am! (even if obnoxious, darn straight and come on!!!) =p

but Linden Lab seems hellbent on peeving people off. one of the latest things is the stoopid display names. first off it seems really dumb because imagine the increase in ARs they will be getting

“waah, some meanie is using my name as EnerWiener HaxSux and you have to cancel their account”

anyway, this and stuff like the teen grid makes it seem that LL is kind of clueless on what they need to do and just trying this, that, and the other (like snowstorm – first off, if you live in the north – snowstorms suck, especially if you have to drive home after work in one)

is that kind of behavior on LL’s part bringing us closer to the tipping point?

it was enough to make me seek an alternative – OpenSim. i was very entrenched and heavily invested, time and money, into Second Life. leaving Second Life was very hard for me to do. but it was also hard to keep getting obstacles thrown in my way

eventually, the tipping point was reached for me

more and more people are making the move and this makes it easier for others. one BIG hassle when i moved was that there just was not the amount of content. so things that had been very important to me, like the Eville Atomic Lounge with its great retro furnishings, took a back seat to finding an alternative

with so many people coming over to OpenSim – content is growing atn  aexponential rate

if we are not at the Tipping Point, i believe we are very near to it

even virtual martinis were not enough to keep me inSL

with OpenSim, if you have a private grid and want registered people to visit, you have to supply grid information (unless you are hypergridded). our very talented Micheil Merlin commented on how to do this, but it’s too good to leave buried in a comment! btw, Micheil is rather passionate about OpenSim and contributed code to the latest version – that is pretty friggin’ cool in my book =)

~~~~~

Here is a link to the wiki page on the GridInfo service. The GridInfo service can be used to enable the ‘Get Grid Info’ button on the Grid Manager fill in the grid information.

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/GridInfo

And for v0.7, here is an example definition for iliveisl. According to the doc, it would go in StandaloneCommon.ini for standalone grids or Robust.ini for HyperGrids.

[GridInfoService]
; These settings are used to return information on a get_grid_info call.
; Client launcher scripts and third-party clients make use of this to
; autoconfigure the client and to provide a nice user experience. If you
; want to facilitate that, you should configure the settings here according
; to your grid or standalone setup.
;
; See http://opensimulator.org/wiki/GridInfo

; login uri: for grid this is the login server URI
login = http://iliveisl.enclaveharbour.org:8002/

; long grid name: the long name of your grid
gridname = “I live in Science Land”

; short grid name: the short name of your grid
gridnick = “iliveisl”

; login page: optional: if it exists it will be used to tell the client to use
; this as splash page
; currently unused
welcome = http://iliveinscienceland.com/

; helper uri: optional: if it exists if will be used to tell the client to use
; this for all economy related things
; currently unused
economy = http://iliveisl.enclaveharbour.org:9000/

; web page of grid: optional: page providing further information about your grid
; currently unused
about = http://iliveisl.com/

; account creation: optional: page providing further information about obtaining
; a user account on your grid
; currently unused
;register = http://127.0.0.1/register

; help: optional: page providing further assistance for users of your grid
; currently unused
;help = http://127.0.0.1/help

; password help: optional: page providing password assistance for users of your grid
; currently unused
;password = http://127.0.0.1/password

i get asked a lot (well, a few times a week) about what i recommend for a Second Life alternative. i don’t consider myself an expert and actually consider myself just persistent (maybe if i was an expert i would get to bed earlier!)

at least i alternated the colours =p

i’d like to think of myself as pretty average for virtual world stuff. now i do have the perspective of having had sims in Second Life but a fool and their money are soon parted, so that is not a reflection of expertise! but i do have loads of everyday experience – just doing those things that many of us do in the virtual world – just being a resident =)

i love to terraform and build but am horrible at making clothes (i will be in my current outfit forever i think!). i did get all crazy and dump my leather bracelets for some neon coloured wrist bands! talk about lack of originality! just a tiny torus duplicated and coloured with solid colours!!!  that kind of proves that point!  =D

but as an “average” avatar, i think my perspective can help others see a bit through my eyes and maybe learn from my mistakes (and sometimes successes!) \o/

when i do make recommendations, they are from my heart and truly what i think fits the person’s needs who is asking

like most people, i have loads of opinions on just about anything – but like most people,

they are just blah, blah, blah =)

one thing i get asked is what to get as a single OpenSim sim. if i was clever enough, i’d install it myself on my own machine, but techy stuff like that makes my eyes roll into the back of my head. i do find it very interesting but don’t have the aptitude to do it (read –> ener gets frustrated, throws tantrums, and has a cow!) good thing i like beef . . . .  =D

so if you are even a bit techy, try installing it yourself. Maria has great instructions on how and the Diva Distro is also well documented. at least with your own installation you won’t be out any money and can get a sense of what OpenSim is like

okay, for the rest of us . . .

a hosting company is a great alternative and what you look for depends on what you want to do. since i am doing the virtual world stuff for a set end goal, my purpose is strongly defined. i am to build 50 plus activity points for science education stuff. so we need multiple sims that can handle 20 concurrent people to start (it probably will not need to handle that many because these are self-paced activities). but who knows, maybe subQuark will want to rent out this stuff to teachers, but that is a ways down the road. for a mini grid of nine to 16 sims, i don’t see any deals out there that even come close to what we have with SimHost. i’ll beat that horse later in another post . . .

many people don’t need something that robust, but they also want something that is close to a Second Life experience

if you want a sim where you can have a home, an art gallery or store, make cars and vehicles, and have a few friends hang out in a residential/workshop setting, then you need something very similar to a Second Life sim

Snoopy Pfeffer is an uber OpenSim expert and has a strong Second Life background (plus she has an MBA from URoc, so she is no slouch). i mention this because she has an excellent online reputation and does not BS about this stuff

she understands that many people looking to try OpenSim are just like me – coming from only knowing Second Life. if you read this blog, you know that i had a really hard time making the transition. had i understood the differences better or had my expectations better matched the reality of what i was getting into, it would have been way smoother

it seems that Snoopy really gets that part. her services include groups (omg, you have to have groups), money (PayPal), voice, hypergridding, and even a search that works! sounds minor eh? but that stuff is not always there or as smooth as you think it should be. Second Life does run very well, despite all the moaning and groaning

for a single Sim, Snoopy seems to have something that would be very close to Second Life and for a heck of a price! $45 a month and no setup fee! that is pretty cheap by SL standards and i would trust Snoopy enough to say that what she claims on her website is true (she is not a short timer by any means). see her hosting details here

i base this on looking around online, reading lots of blogs, the actions Snoopy takes, and keeping in mind my past experience. for $45 it’s a pretty safe way to try what should be representative of a good OpenSim experience

if you want to try to judge her with one click, take a look at her twitter stream – she is pretty hardcore about what she does!

shop around, this is just based on my observations and Hypergrid Business has an up-to-date hosting directory that sums up services very well – good luck! =)

Second Life has very good audio when you consider how much info has to transmit back and forth (and lip synch too). if it is still the same as two years ago, voice is carried on different servers and that helps with server and bandwidth load

one really nice thing is that you can set audio to be from the perspective of your avatar or from your camera position

i started in Second Life before there was voice. i remember when it was first introduced, many people complained

lol, anytime Linden Lab does anything – people complain!

that’s just the nature of being the leader in something

G.A.M - Gallery Art Monkey

my first “real” project” in Second Life was building an art gallery for a Deaf artist in Norway who was having an real art opening and wanted one to coincide in Second Life

this was in the days of massive SL media hype

as a result of connecting up with this artist, i was introduced to the Deaf and HOH community in Second Life. because there was no voice then, it made everyone Deaf in effect

today, the majority of people still do text chat and not voice. there’s enough drama without incessant blabbing going on! (plus i imagine the sound effects from bling and scripted objects has to run from very well done in incredibly craptacular!) =p

there are all kinds of reasons for this. ranging from physical voice issues, to gender bending, to age, and to what i call the “veil” of virtual worlds. being an avatar can be an escape for many people and thus, derr, the name of Second Life, right?

it does not mean that you are a freak or hiding behind your avatar, it’s just a way to express yourself online (but you could be a freak too!) =D

many celebrities do this in plain sight. like The Rock! if that is not an alter ego, i dunno what is!

Tom Cruise – Thomas Mapother IV
Jamie Foxx – Eric Marlon Bishop
Whoopi Goldberg – Caryn Elaine Johnson
Demi Moore – Demetria Gene Guynes
Mr. T – Lawrence Turead (i <3 mr t)
Lady Gaga –  Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
Snoop Dogg – Cordazer Calvin Broadus Jr (i <3 him 2)
Marilyn Manson – Brian Hugh Warner
Shania Twain – Eileen Regina Edwards

for some people (who could that be? oh, yeah, “my friend”) this veil let’s them express parts of themselves that they don’t, or can’t, express in real life (like being tall, or able to walk, or a furry, or any zillion other things)

for many people, voice is not a big deal and fortunately, you don’t ever have to use it =)

but for business and teaching, voice can be handy and even pretty necessary (although this is somewhat new ground for the American with Disabilities Act – ADA section 508)

OpenSim has had voice (FreeSwitch) but from what i hear (lol) it was iffy at times. for some people, like an adult language teacher friend in Reaction Grid – voice is crucial

fortunately, OpenSim development is addressing these issues (thank you OS peeps) and Whisper is available (and connects up to lip synching)

if you want to try out Whisper and see if it is good enough for your needs, you can head over to Snoopy Pfeffer’s Mumble sandbox in OSGrid (Snoopy is a massive expert/guru/ninja of all things OpenSim) =)

to read much more about this, take a look at Maria’s extensive blog post on it. if it looks (sounds) good, maybe your provider can hook you up! (SimHost does this btw, of course!) =)

w00t! see you, err, hear you in-world! =D

to those i met in Reaction Grid – thank you for enriching my life

to Phoebe – you are the only person i have ever given my parasol to – thank you for reminding me of the joy of being a kid =)

good luck to the teachers i have met and who have inspired me to look beyond science in my builds

we may be gone from Reaction Grid but we are very much in-world

once everyone gets on the same version of hypergrid, please come visit the ever growing Enclave Harbour and the start of I live in Science Land

namas te

*wipes tears and needs a kleenex!* =)

i had a tweet thanking me for mentioning the URL-in-the-viewer post and so i started looking into what else might be out there. one issue with having your own grid is access

do you create accounts for everyone? do you allow hypergridding from HG-enabled regions? do you encourage people to create OSgrid accounts and hypergrid to you?

if you are an educator or library scientist setting up a private grid, what do you do about access?

i know that many teachers will take the time to create accounts for their students. that’s just the way teachers are =)

when i taught middle and high school, i used a lot of my own resources for the sake of the kids. the small private school i taught at only had one media player but several TVs (not sure why that would be, without a DVD or VCR the TVs were pretty useless). so i’d strap mine onto the back of my scooter and bring it to school. even in the rain! i’d just wrap it with a garbage bag and hope that was good enough!

so teachers just do stuff for their kids and i guess that goes with the territory. but kids understand how to make accounts online so why not let them for your world?

over on the OpenSimulator wiki site i came across a listing of web interfaces. keep in mind that a wiki is, err, well, a wiki! and some info may be out of date although this page says it was updated last week, so this should be good info

the first one, called Wifi, is very nicely designed and made by the infamous Crista Lopes (Diva Distro and core OpenSim developer). it allows you to use it without needing to have a PHP installed and has both an open registration and one that sends you an email to approve new registrations. she has documentation listed here that actually does not scare me off (ener <– easily intimidated by code) =)

if you use her 0.7 easy-to-install OpenSim package, her beautiful interface is already built in!

wanna see how easy it is to install her Diva Distro OpenSim? look at her 6 step process!

© Crista Lopes

there are several interfaces to look at, even one that connects up with MOODLE called Modlos. i have only used SLOODLE in Second Life and it’s neat to see that someone has connected MOODLE with OpenSim

there’s even one that ties into OpenID (that sounds pretty progressive)

another registration system, GridMix, that i have come across is posted on Adam Frisby’s blog. he is one of the core developers of OpenSim and i think this interface is only available on grids setup via SimHost atm. however, he makes mention of having it available for sale once the bugs are worked out. he has integrated CAPTCHA capability into it which would be nice for public facing grids

© Adam Frisby

some of tips that i use all the time i like to mention from time to time in the blog. the ability to hide and show water and hide and show prims is a handy one for building. now that more people are getting into OpenSim and have their own sims (or even grids) this type of easy tip applies to more and more people

but it’s not only good for building. ever been in a really heavily built sim and are having a hard time locating a person?

if you hide all prims then they will be easier to see! they won’t have their prim hair, but it’s a handy way to find someone

now that we moved to our super duper new SimHost private grid (with 5 times the resources *zomg*) i took the chance to move some sims around

that’s a great thing with OpenSim – your OAR files. since they have the entire sim in them, you can rearrange them as you see fit! i decided to move our scripters over to the western side of the grid (“estate” i suppose in Second Life terms). James simply uploaded their OAR files in those spots and presto!

it means a bit of terraforming for me but i love it and use this hiding and showing dealio a lot =)

there are other things you can show and hide also, like the sky and Linden plants. in the Imprudence viewer these are under Advanced > Rendering > Types (to see the advanced menu do CTRL ALT D)

normal look

CTRL ALT SHIFT 7

CTRL ALT SHIFT 9

doing both

lots of neat tools to make creating more creative =)