I apologize in advance if anyone’s posted the links below already.

Hate some (or all) of Viewer 2.x?  You’re not alone.

But…  there are some fixes/tweaks available, none of which are difficult!

Here are some links,  should you want more info. Use at your own risk! I’ve done the “StarLight” tweak and find it improves things a bit for me. I’ve not tried the others listed on the wiki page.

• http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_2_Tweaks
• http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_Skins/StarLight_for_2.1_Beta (works fine for me)
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/felineslade/4393320025/

If you LIKE 2.x, or don’t want to hear what I dislike about it… stop reading now.

Like Ener, I’m not a fan of Viewer 2.0 or 2.1.  It’s too dark (even for my Goth blood), and most of the changes and re-wording of old terms (“Local Chat” is now “Nearby”, for example) seem nutso. The pop-up sliding menu dance… awful. The whole sidebar/slide left thing drives me nuts. And the non-transparent widows and changes to chat/IM windows suck. There’s a lot more that I hate. So do many, many others. Granted, some peeps (esp. some noobs I’ve talked to) seem to think that 2.x is just fine. Hmmmm.

Don’t get me wrong. I like NEW. I like EXCITING.  Take me to the mall or an amusement park if you don’t believe me!

I do not, however, like waking up one day to find out that the names of everyday things have been changed, or that my usual direct route to the local S&M shop requires 3 detours, or that someone has posted flyers all over my car’s windshield, obscuring half my view.  It’s like waking up in an alternate universe… one with poorer design than the previous one.  Oh, I was kidding up there… I meant Krispy Kreme shop, not S&M shop ;p

I’ve tried 2.0 and 2.1 for extended periods of time.  It really sucks that so much screen “real estate” gets obscured by the (non-transparent) sidebar and huge menus. It sucks that some of my old keyboard shortcuts are gone, or that I have to go through 3 levels of menus to do what I used to do in 2 clicks. It sucks that basic communication is more difficult (to me), unless I rearrange the default options.

Don’t rename things and make me have to stop and re-learn keystrokes and shortcuts and menus I’ve used hundreds (or thousands) of times. Is that a violation of good rule of design?  “Don’t alienate your existing user base by making changes… unless the change is either necessary, useful, or both.”

In other words, change what needs to change; do not change things that worked quite nicely. Gee, you could at least offer an option to revert to the older menus, like new versions of word-processing apps often do.

Okay, okay, some of those annoyances can be fixed. Kind of.  And the “notification” area in the bottom right is welcome (and long overdue), replacing tons of dialog popups when you first login.  The teleport history is nice as well. And thank goodness I can set the top bar to actually show my (Sim & vector) location… seems pretty dumb to me to not have it there as the default. There is more than one way to accomplish some of the old tasks (hmmm, I’m neutral on that one).

I know, I know, it’s all been said before.  I don’t DESPISE 2.x, but I am not feeling any ♥.  I’ll use it. Someday.  IF I have to.  But so far, it just gives me a headache. One day, after a few more versions, I may actually like it. But for now, it kinda does less.. with more.  *Giggle*

Feel free to post your loves and hates of 2.x. Or just google it and read what others say. Hmmm, you’re probably wishing I’d taken that route!

*sigh*  I miss the pie wheel already. I have a feeling his time in the virtual universe is limited.

By the way… I mostly use Snowglobe. It has some unique stuff not in the old 1.2x viewers. And it doesn’t make me learn to brush my teeth with my non-dominant hand (I can do it.. but I dribble a bit). Oh… and I can also use SnowGlobe as an OpenSim viewer (for Reaction Grid and so forth).

i guess it could be construed that i was promoting an in-world currency system with my post about one of our scripters’ work. and i guess some people will think i work for Reaction Grid because i blab so much about it

i don’t work for Reaction Grid, we get nothing for talking about it, and i talk about it because i think it works very well. besides, PayPal is not in-world currency, but that is another matter. i was trying to expand people’s thinking by talking about micropayments in OpenSim, give props to my brilliant scripter, using an trustworthy site like PayPal, and blah, blah, blah – tangential note for DreamWalker: don’t actually implement your vendor system – go innovate on something else atm (!)

i blog about a lot of stuff virtual world wise and most is specific to OpenSim and Second Life. last night’s post about harnessing waste water power does not mean that Second Life, OpenSim, or Reaction Grid endorse that as a possible “green” solution. i just found it fascinating =)

this blog is purely the ramblings of an avatar. heck, i am not even real – i am facebook certified fake!

but i like Reaction Grid and will talk about it (although i will do so with less fervor and try to be more generic). here is the biggest reason that anyone can see why i think Reaction Grid is the best for us – i spend gobs of hours making stuff for subQuark in it. i don’t sell anything i make, in fact, i give it away for free. why?

because OpenSim needs content and i am altruistic in some things (like being a certified firefighter and paramedic for a volunteer department in Texas for two years)

i had three teachers in the other night and they loved all the stuff i have made. not because they are great builds (they are okay imo, but certainly not amazing) but because there were there to explore!

OpenSim lacks the content that Second Life has and that is a big reason that OpenSim lags in growth. but in time, people like me and many others will create the things needed. i like making office stuff like chairs, water coolers, and so on because those are the things i used to buy in Second Life and took for granted (i wish i could make a decent tree though) =\

i don’t spend hours making stuff because i am a lonely homebody with nothing to do. i work fulltime, do freelance work, have a family, spend hours a week discussing stuff with subQuark (and he blabs way more than i do!), and would love to get to bed before 2 AM! i also don’t make stuff to sell - so why the heck would i make anything?

i believe that what subQuark is working on, virtual field trips for kids to learn environmental science, is a noble cause. i am so frigging sappy that i believe his work could possible impact future decision makers. i also believe that a use of OpenSim like that showcases how good it is for education. Reaction Grid is for educators and i think that is really neat grid to do this type of work on

okay, where was i? oh yeah, why do i go on and on and on about OpenSim?

i think it is a fabulous creative outlet and a better alternative for some uses. you may have remembered me saying the city of Edmonton should do something besides SL. i have had a conversation with the city’s CIO about this and, in fact, one of the lead developers for their projects is in Reaction Grid

one of the blog’s commentators makes very good points, or at least points that really cause me to reflect. he commended us on getting that mention in the Top 10 Blog. we were also the fifth fastest growing WordPress last year and are in the top 2.6 to 3.1% off all global web traffic! not too bad for a fakey person

and he pointed out that OpenSim needs more blogs like this one (that made me smile like a monkey). i don’t know of many other blogs that evangelise about OpenSim (in our sidebar we list some blogs that do)

why does OpenSim need any loud mouths like me?

well, they don’t!

i like to share what i find and i like being honest and i wear my heart on my sleeve (little and cold as it is) =p

i think that information like this might help others tap into what i think is a good thing. right now i think Reaction Grid is a good thing but that’s just my two cents and only my opinion

i also think that being able to blog and tweet makes for a better world. not that my posts and chirps mean anything, but blogging and tweeting in general helps improve the world

look at Iran last year. i personally think that Twitter helped stop a lot of potential violence

so i blog from my heart, i blog my thoughts, i blog the way i see it (distorted as it is from real life challenges, traumas, and all the other crap we all have)

i don’t blog for Second Life, OpenSim, Reaction Grid, or even subQuark – i blog because i want to share the joy i find in it

what do you find joy in? let the world know! no one has to read anyone’s blogs, let them decide what to read, what you blog about might be exactly what someone else needs right at that moment (kinda like a paramedic)

namas te =)

btw, i don’t endorse anything, i don’t even run ads on the blog (well, i do endorse subQuark, he’s family)

go ahead and drop me, i have a hard head

last week i mentioned that lots of old in-world stuff had been returned to me from Second Life (mainly from the sims sold last february and also from my dumpy little Linden home)

i downgraded my membership back when Linden Lab fired a third of its work force and had to hassle with Live Chat to be able to downgrade (the website would not allow me to select “basic” and kept giving me an error)

once downgraded and once i had taken out any remaining Linden $, i removed my billing info =)

naturally, i thought everything was fine. i have not logged into SL for 5 months now

but just when i think SL can’t be any more douchie toward me . . .

This email is notification that we were unable to bill your Second Life account on July 28, 2010.

If we are unable to collect the amount due within seven (7) days, your account will be suspended pending payment for an additional thirty (30) days. During that time, you will not be able to log in to Second Life. Failure to resolve this billing issue by the end of the probation period may result in the cancellation of your account.

i think this is billing for land holdings from the Linden home which should have been removed from me when my account was downgraded but probably show as “peak land holdings”. seems like simple app logic in their billing software would go “has Linden home as part of premium membership = yes” and “account downgraded to basic – remove Linden home and land”

if LL wants to cancel me, go for it – like Lalo Telling wrote in this excellent post:  ”. . . or Ener Hax’s dissolution of her holdings last winter. After a while, it just stops making sense to keep paying for the privilege of being shat upon.”

amen Lalo!

lol, i’m not sure what this means but it was fun to see us get listed on The Top 10 Blog as one of the day’s top twitter trio and they wrote a nice thing about us:

And now, as they say, for something completely different. Tweets about adventures in virtual worlds from Ener Hax and her interesting blog i live in science land I can’t claim to understand all of it but I find it fascinating.

to which i answered that it’s okay, i don’t understand very much either!

thank you Top 10 Blog! =)

zomg! yes, your number two could be a number one choice for easy energy! (ener <– never outgrew potty humour)

this is brilliant (yet slightly icky) o_O

harnessing the kinetic energy of flushing toilets in skyscrapers uses exactly the same concept as hydroelectric dams! (see this article)

potential energy of water is converted to kinetic energy as it moves from a higher position to a lower position. this is true for rivers, tides, waves (deep water ocean swells can be harnessed by special buoys), and even toilets!

i don’t care how serious a person you are, talking about harnessing power from flushes is fun and an easy way to grab a student’s attention! *yay for the inner child* =D

so guess what will be added to the observation deck of our tall building in Enclave Harbour? yep, a bathroom!

you can even figure out the energy of a flush!

our building is one metre taller than the current world’s tallest building (in Dubai) and let’s say our power generating toilet (PGT?) is at 900 metres above sea level and has a water conserving flush of one litre (one kilogram)

plugging that into the equation where potential energy (U) is equal to a mass (m) through a height (h) accelerated by gravity (g), or U = mhg, will give you

1 KG X 900 metres X 9.8 metres per second squared = 8,820 Joules!

okay, so what is this in something a normal person can understand?

well 8,820 Joules is 2,100 Calories of energy

think about how long you’d have to be on an elliptical to burn 2,100 Calories and that is the same energy as one flush!

who knew flushing a toilet could be so environmental?  =)

beats doing 4 hours on the elliptical!

a neat thing about OpenSim is that anyone can use it. many people setup their own grid (like Breen who has encouraged me to try again) and there are many grids from all sorts of groups, companies, and universities

all this variety leads to some lighthearted and fun events. Second Life used to have this “fun” vibe four years ago before it became so corporate. by that i don’t mean corporations but the success that Linden Lab has had and all the money that changes hands everyday has forced them to become more corporate as a business

have you ever worked at a place where people tell you “a few years ago we used to have barbecues every friday and a keg of beer” but now they have dress codes, sexual harassment training, and a general corporate vibe?

when companies are small they can get away with that. but as they grow they get scared of lawsuits, offending people, and no longer trust their employees as friends. that’s the case for some companies anyway and i think that happened to LL a little bit. i mean when you get big enough that the FCC investigates you and congress wonders how they can tax user transactions, then you are in a way different league than a handful of friends sharing a dream to make some money (and sharing some beer!)

but there are many OpenSim grids out there that are very small and can still have some silly fun. Reaction Grid does that by having movie nights and showing some really awful science fiction movies. the type of movies that MST3K used to do and that are so bad you just have to watch them (as you can tell, i love those)

when i fired up Hippo tonight, this was the login screen (below). any knock-off Godzilla movies are for sure great ones to watch! i have never even heard of this movie and how the RG Team found it, who knows!

but it looks like fun and is just an example of some of the open nature that many OpenSim grids have =)

often i get all laggy when anyone visits us in Enclave harbour. i chalked it up to OpenSim being alpha. who knows, it could be a number of factors – me, my broadband connection, the moon and the stars. i often crash and then have a hard time getting back to the sim i was in

but not tonite! i was on working on my diner and Micheil was doing his thing on his sim (it’s best to let the uber creative ones have lots of space) =)

anyway, Micheil IMs me and says we have visitors! first thing i do is get nervous and figure i’ll be crashing soon

but not this time! \o/

my new library scientist friend had brought two colleagues! there were 5 of us in Enclave Harbour and all was going well (i did lose my parasol somehow, but hey! it was great)

i showed them around a bit and they were very gracious

it was a neat experience because they were talking about all the activities they could do!  like writing stories and doing math!

i tend to look at everything from a earth science perspective. i never thought of incorporating math into anything at Enclave Harbour! that just shows how innovative these teachers are, they had me excited about math! that says a lot about them!

the math comments came at the rocket graveyard at a pile of 55 gallon drums – how cool that one avatar could excite me, a zillion miles away irl, about math! that has nothing to do with virtual worlds, that is 100% from a very gifted teacher! how awesome it must be to be a little kid in her class! (yes, i am a geek) =)

virtual worlds, in this case, were just a communication channel. thanks for getting me fired up about making stuff!

i did poop out and have to relog and then could not get to my target sim, but a quick second relog solved it

i was very pleased to have such great performance from our sims

maybe i build alone too often and the universe is trying to tell me something! =)

thank you visiting teachers for inspiring me to do more for science education in virtual worlds and maybe even getting subQuark to toss in some math – why not?

getting geeky about math in the junkyard!

After reading Ener’s post OpenSim – patience, patience, patience I thought I’d better check in on our star builder, cook, and bottle washer. I stay out of Ener’s way and rarely give advice on how to build. I put in support tickets and have seen the challenges Ener has at times. I frankly do not have the patience to keep at it like Ener does.

So I arranged to meet in-world and see what goes on. Ener often crashes when just one other person is on our little estate and sure enough, quirkiness ensued (see below).

Forget see-through outfits! How about a see-through Ener (not implying any shallow or transparent traits). :p

And me?

I have always thought of myself as somewhat balanced in my Yin and Yang, masculine and feminine energies, but a Ruth?

Yes for some reason, despite having created an avatar a few weeks back to appease Ener, I have now turned into a Ruth (see, that’s why I never spend time making an avatar).

I commend Ener for patience but also understand this is alpha software. In the grand scheme of things, this does not change my very positive outlook on OpenSim and Ener feels the same despite the whining (for Ener, it’s either blogging about that or the Queen or poutine! let’s stick to OpenSim . . . ). :)

I heartily recommend OpenSim and am very pleased with Reaction Grid as an alternative to Second Life. It fits our goals very well.

It was thrilling to see photos of Ener’s environmental science builds in a very nicely created presentation advocating the use of virtual worlds (and of Reaction Grid as a host) for schools and students.

Our goal is to create a workbook that guides students through 40-50 environmental science spots and to have in-world resources for educators.

But now that I have “Ruthed”,  I think my task of writing the workbook is far easier than Ener’s!

Thanks Ener for the diligence, talent, and passion and thanks Reaction Grid for providing an easy-to-use environment (at least we have control over these issues unlike in Second Life).

DreamWalker has been working on using existing functions within our OpenSim 0.6.9 sims to create an in-world vendor

i believe there is an OpenSim PayPal module but that would likely only be installed by individuals running a sim(s) in the OsGrid network or their own sim on their own box/server

that is different than what DreamWalker is working on. her system is completely built by her and she has a working in-world vendor that allows shop keepers and creators to place items to be either delivered to buyers after the customer has purchased it. that’s where the setback is atm (!)

the customer must pay first and then wait for the creator or shop owner to come in-world and set their item in DreamWalker’s vendor. her vendor can either deliver the item to the buyer once they log into the world or they can come to the vendor and pick up their item(s) by touching the vendor

now she is very close to having a true “buy it & get it” solution. you buy the object, it brings you to the PayPal page, you pay, and then it is delivered to you in-world right away

the only hurdle she has left to conquer is that the item keeps getting delivered to you every minute! oops! =p

now that suits me just fine if it is martinis or poutine!!!  =D

she is very close and i have a feeling it has to do with the Instant Payment Notification that PayPal pings back. it will ping for 24 hours or until it is answered as successfully completed

there is no doubt she will work that out soon =)

in OpenSim 0.7, it sounds like some of the functions she uses have been improved

PayPal micropayments are ideal for many in-world objects because it is designed for payments under $12 USD. the percentage taken is much less than normal PayPal. however, for some kooky reason, as a PayPal merchant (iliveisl is an official certified merchant btw) you have to have a separate micropayment PayPal account. it is very difficult to set up two PayPal accounts with the same email and bank (impossible i believe)

but as far as the buyer is concerned, it’s just another PayPal transaction

coming from the Second Life paradigm, i think of the privacy issue with PayPal. people like to buy with in-world currency because it protects their anonymity

but you can use any email for a non-verified PayPal account. i used my avatar for SL projects and that worked fine even in situations where the PayPal deposit limits were reached

personally, i like using PayPal because it is far more regulated than any in-world currency (from the LL TOS: “You acknowledge that Linden dollars are not real currency or any type of financial instrument and are not redeemable for any sum of money from Linden Lab at any time.)

PayPal is real money - Linden dollars or Inworldz money is not real (from the Inworldz TOS: “InWorldz currency named I’z is fictional . . .”)

once payment systems become as straightforward as any online retail experience, virtual worlds will see a growth spurt imo

one thing i have learned from being in OpenSim for 8 months now – patience

i reboot the server and restart the sims many times per week and clear my cache, but OpenSim is still alpha software and that’s what alpha means – not stable

while OpenSim is a great alternative to Second Life, it is not there yet and if you are patient, then it can be a rewarding experience. but don’t expect Second Life stability – not yet anyway

waiting for our server to come back online - the zen of ener (zener)

see this diner below? i have been working on it for a few days and yesterday the roof over the car parking was blue. it was still blue this afternoon when i came home for lunch and it was blue until 30 minutes ago

why isn’t it blue anymore? (ener gets blue sometimes though . . .)

i have no idea. i restarted the sims (several times), rebooted the server (a couple of times), cleared my cache, and even used two different viewers

so what’s the dealio?

i chalk it up to OpenSim being alpha. it does not seem that there is an answer for this, it’s just something i have come to accept. it’s no big deal, but it does take lots of patience

there was an entire ring of booths - someone must have needed them more than me =)