Survey: How do you use OpenSim?

Dana P. asked a scripting question to which i had no clue how to answer (if it isn’t an omega rotation or simple sit, then i am clueless!) =p

his question was how to open an HTML page in a browser from clicking an object in a Sim-on-a-Stick build. specifically, how to open a page on your machine, not one from the internet

he found out how to do it and posted how he did it and that’s another reason the VW community is awesome – people sharing what they learn =)

his solution started my little cogs to turning - this could be handy for projects where you may not want a user to get online but do want to present more detailed information, questions, activities, or whatever that may best be done in a browser

for example, our science project of Enclave Harbour could be deployed as a pre-loaded SoaS package that a student installs on their PC. then we could use Dana’s approach to launch additional info pages that were included with the Enclave-Harbour-on-a-Stick build

a specific example would be the reverse osmosis tubes in our desalination plant – there could be a “more info” icon on them that would allow a student to click and be sent to a custom HTML page or even a PDF that we create and distribute only with the stick (and thus keep fully self-contained for students)

here’s what i did:

default
{
touch_start(integer total_number)
{
llLoadURL(llDetectedKey(0), "Learn More", "http://127.0.0.1:9100/wifi/mypages/mytest.html");
}
}

the wifi folder is already defined in SoaS so i simply added a content folder for my test page. now a user could click an in-world object and launch a browser to access stick-specific files without needing an internet connection

thanks Dana! this is something to think about and certainly can add value =)

click for full size

could be anything that a browser can open

two summers back Tranq helped me get my PC squared away so that it would properly run Imprudence 1.4 – he went way above and beyond and spent hours walking me through configurations. it’s the kind of knowledge that i can always use going forward and a sign of how good a teacher Tranq is (apart from his crazy mad tech skillz) =)

well, Tranq does it again – he amazes me with his utter passion for all things virtual world. he placed some of my builds in a new fangled HTML5/canvas dealio that lets you look at those objects online. my day job has firewalls that prevent me from hitting virtual worlds (thus my use of SoaS) but these i can hit

what a cool way to show your work via an everyday browser!

you can spin and zoom in on objects and even the textures are visible. one thing i need to check is if the skid steer model i sent him included its tire treads, which aren’t a texture but a viewer bumpiness thing

i’m not sure if these links will be perpetual so i also did a YouTube of how they work

http://dreamshare.inworldz.com/?package=d616fb8f-9e57-416d-b299-64704ef6eac6
http://dreamshare.inworldz.com/?package=f1dff296-a482-4a21-a718-f1453d0bde8e
http://dreamshare.inworldz.com/?package=159ce01b-ef53-4415-ac6c-2f8b915533a2
http://dreamshare.inworldz.com/?package=00c12d5f-fabe-407a-a0e6-c840f7a9259c

this is a cool tool and certainly an awesome way to show off your work (i’d love to put this on my portfolio as resume items and how cool would that be for merchants and websites!)

thanks Tranq! you are def the man! learn more at InWorldz =)

direct YouTube link

that’s not a lot by Second Life standards but it is still an average of 13 minutes per day that someone is spending in a Kitely world. considering that there is nothing scripted, i think that’s a decent amount of time. my great hope of awesome scripted NPRs were dashed with the abrupt loss of the talented Ohn Lang – no one knows where she went and that’s a downside to virtual worlds, you often never learn why someone isn’t around anymore – but that could be an entire separate post and it is something most of us have personal experience with

Hax Nuit has been one of the most satisfying things i have ever built – it was done quickly over a relatively short period of time. the “modular” concept started november 19th and the final build went up on december 13th. so that’s about 24 days and probably about 60 active building hours (includes making textures)

since that time, there have been a handful of people who have spent more than 20 minutes at one time in it, meaning they either explored it extensively or logged in and went and ate lunch in the real world! =p

a few have spent over an hour in it! but . . . no one has ever let me know if they found all of the hidden treasure items and i’m wondering if those items should actually be shown on maps?

in today’s world of a zillion free games and apps, an old-fashioned concept of solving mazes and searching for hidden loot is pretty antiquated and boring. heck, i play goofy tablet games at night while watching TV that don’t involve much thinking or patience on my part, so i understand that few people would take the time to look for “hidden” items. i think i have answered my own question of mapping the actual items out – people inclined to use a map can and those not wanting too won’t

i’ll set aside some time to create a definitive set of maps and put them in one place (the building mazes can be seen here and the underground labyrinth is here)

meanwhile, the images below provide the clues to find the Golden Cat Statue – “the” big treasure” item  )

street level clue

building floor clue

ah ha! but how to walk there?

the tablet market is something we recognize as an important one and it is also the market that mainstream is driving towards

i read two articles and was blown away by the numbers and how quickly the computer market is shifting

By the end of this year, Android will be in more devices than the next four competitors combined (Windows, iOS, Mac OS, and BlackBerry). Before the end of this decade, Android will be in nearly as many devices as all other operating systems combined. David Nagel (link to his article)

that quote is a bit speculative when it mentions where we will be at the end of this decade but the forecast for the end of this year, a mere 8 months away, is probably spot on

adding to Android becoming the most prolific operating system is the decline in the PC market. the graph below shows that better than i could explain and another article by David Nagel talks about it in detail

so what can you and I do about helping OpenSim become a reality on tablets?

well, if you have an Android tablet now, spend $2.95 at the Google Play store and buy Lumiya (updates are free and it does mesh!). the more it succeeds, the higher the chance it continues to improve and maybe even spark competitors. Lumiya is being worked on continually by Alina Lyvette and the latest update has added the ability to create objects and take them into your inventory

any loss, or negative growth, is a bad thing for most companies, especially in the US where even Apple gets tons of gloom and doom media coverage if their earnings fall short!

last year i looked at those private sim numbers as a measure of Second Life’s health and an indicator of the mainstream’s view of virtual worlds. there will always be a market for high-end stuff even as cheaper stuff becomes available (there is always someone who will buy a Bentley, despite their being zillions of far cheaper cars available)

certainly we have seen a shift making some of the SL private sim loss a wash with some people migrating over to OpenSim options such as InWorldz, Kitely, New World Studio, and even Sim-on-a-Stick (18k downloads in two years)

with every post last year about the SL loss, there were people stating that some of that was from expiring non-profit/ed discounts and that the rate of loss should level out a bit

it looks as if that leveling out is happening in 2013

there is still a net loss but it looks to be under six sims per day as an average for this year. a loss is still bad, but the difference between eight a day and six is 25% in the right direction

personally, i don’t think SL will ever see positive growth again and LL doesn’t seem to care much about that (not in any discernible external ways), but maybe SL will get to an equilibrium at some point where the grid stays a certain size

data from Tyche Shepherd’s GridSurvey.com

i placed him on top of my work PC so that my back is covered (next to a Lego Ninjago samurai) and figured he (or she) would serve as an emergency USB drive. i thought it was probably a novelty item with a tiny capacity but i plugged it in today and it’s 16 gig!

dang, that means it’s perfect for many instances of Sim-on-a-Stick (like i really need another stick with several SoaSs!) =p

it’s not a USB3.0 or any “serious” brand name (or maybe it is since being a ninja means keeping a low profile) but what a perfect one to test SoaS on to see how a run-of-the-mill USB drive might work

ideally, improvements in OpenSim mean that it should require less overhead to run and be more efficient overall – so i loaded the latest SoaS (0.7.5 – 9 region version) and gave it a whirl – and it ran as well as my schmancy 32 gig 3.0 Corsair 32 gig Survivor! =)

go, ninja, go!

SoaSoaB – Sim-on-a-Stick-on-a-Banana Coffs Harbour edition

recently, she lectured at Southern Cross University about her virtual world technology platform of Sim-on-a-Stick and, as a true superstar educator, she had four students present their experiences with SoaS. nothing speaks louder about how effective a technology is than to have students express their experience

their lecture was also broadcast to two other campuses – this is phenomenal way to share the educational benefits of OpenSim when it is placed first in the hands of a passionate teacher and then into the hands of students

read her post about it: CHPS students speak at Southern Cross University

hats off to Ms Booth and Teira, Sharlah, Wakjira, and Luke for sharing their positive experiences and helping others see what a great tool OpenSim can be  =)

anyway . . . the title of this blog post states that Kitely is a replacement for Second Life, which is quite a statement!

for many people, like me and subQuark, Kitely has been an outstanding replacement for Second Life and better in many ways (like letting kids in-world, backing up your work, megaregions, sustainable cloud architecture, social media access control, plus incredible value)

sheesh, it seems that i write a lot about Kitely (well i actually do) and i can assure you that they don’t pay me or even give me any discount on their services (already uber affordable as it is!). i just ramble on and on about them because they are such a great fit for our endeavors

i was really glad to see someone with lots of authority also say they see Kitely as a good replacement for Second Life

check it out: Virtual Worlds – Kitely is a Keen Replacement For Second Life

Instructors Needed for Kitely Plaza Volunteer Initiative

making a commitment to teach others is a great way to become an expert in a specific area. when i was in Second Life, i truly enjoyed spending a few hours a week being an SL Mentor. Linden Lab did not give you anything for it except the formal Mentor tag. you had to attend a few meetings, agree to a code of ethics, and shadow a mentor and voila, you were a Mentor. at that time i was paying LL almost $3000 a month in tiers plus spending who knows how much on piddly stuff and being a Mentor was its own reward (it did stroke the ego too)

if you like meeting people, like to share your skills, and like Kitely, maybe their instructor programme is right for you?

heck, it’s a real people skill and something worthy of being placed on a resume too! it’s easy to dismiss virtual worlds as real skillz because it is a form of recreation for many of us, but it’s no different than many other computer-related endeavors

the other nifty thing at Kitely was the implementation of Transfer Stations two weeks back (some additional changes were also sneaked in at that time). transfer stations let a group hangout together while waiting for their world to start. for example, say a couple of students separated by geography were going to Enclave Harbour (like a home schooling group), rather than wait the 90 seconds or so for Enclave Harbour’s 16 regions to load up, they’d be at a transfer station where they could say hello to each other and plan their outing

Kitely continues to improve their already great offering and their personal passion for making OpenSim better is something i value (i also love the environmental aspect of cloud-based services)

i wish Sim-on-a-Stick worked for the Mac but it doesn’t – well not directly. powers users like Dot Macchi and DreamWalker run it on Macs without any issue but they are technical whizzes (imo)

many educators use Macs, so native use SoaS would be nice. maybe i’ll get it working, i just got a schmancy iMac at work today (lol, what’s up with that magic mouse?!? you can  pinch zoom on it, scroll, and swipe and it doesn’t even have separate buttons or a scroll wheel!) =p

and then there are all the iPads in use – a browser-based viewer would be awesome for that (since browser access has been a hot OpenSim topic lately)

but here’s what lead to the title, a bunch of recent statistics (all from 2013). like most statistics, you can twist them around. the following are about playing games and my simpleton theory is that the more that people play games, the less creative they are. in other words, if you are playing games, you are not creating new things (yah, i never denied being a snob) =)

• iOS users play gaming apps an average of 743 minutes/month, compared to 484 for Android
• iOS users play gaming apps an average of 151 times/month, compared to 95 for Android
• 86% of iOS users play gaming apps, compared to 76% for Android
• the average iOS owner uses 29 apps, compared to 18 for Android
• 44% of iOS users have purchased apps, compared to 23% for Android
• iOS account for 51% of US app spending, compared to 36% for Android
• iPhones account for 48.1% of US smartphone sales, compared to 46.7% for Android
• Android account for 69.7% of worldwide smartphones, compared to 20.9% for iOS

i am biased since i have a Google Nexus 7 =p

and on to some other numbers that are just fun from Mark Morford’s latest column

• 6% of Americans believe in unicorns
• 36% believe in UFOs
• 24% believe dinosaurs and man hung out together
• 18% still believe the sun revolves around the Earth
• nearly 30% believe cloud computing involves… actual clouds
• 45%t of Americans believe in angels

have a great thursday and don’t let this ruffle your apples! =)

i learned about it from Maria at Hypergrid Business

PixieViewer puts OpenSim in browser

i checked it out (using Chrome) and it worked quickly and smoothly (seems smoother than the Kataspace viewer was and possibly more robust)

creating an account was fast and there are some items you can explore in the demo world

comment on the developer’s blog and show your support! =)

no pink hair? that’s okay because this is via a browser! =)

i get my numbers from Tyche Shepherd’s awesome Grid Survey and her posts on SLUniverse

in the last year i have mainly looked at the average daily loss of private sims which is around 7.4 per day for 2013 (it was 8 per day for 2012). a year is a decent time frame for looking at the growth of a corporation, but how have private sims done since the media frenzy days of Second Life?

at its peak there were 26,605 private sims in 2008 and, as of yesterday, there are 20,505 private sims. a net loss of 6,100

if we assume a constant ratio of 54% full to 45% homesteads (this has changed over time though) that would mean that in november of 2008, LL was making $5.4 million a month versus today’s $4.1 million. a drop of $1.3 million a month (that’s like 6000 poutines a day!) o_O

however, from a virtual world perspective, i love the design for their new office campus! it totally looks like something you’d easily build in OpenSim. it’s inspired by the iPod wheel and has a neat looking courtyard space (that looks huge!)

i’m not sure how practical of a design it is as far as humans moving through the space (seems like a long way to make a full circle inside – but great exercise!). maybe they have pneumatic tubes underground to shuttle people back and forth, or a zillion Segways, but i really like the look of it and their vision of a lot of grass and trees  =)

read more here and here (includes floor plans)

i did some 3D doodling this weekend (recovering from a mild cold and fever – bah!) and made a huge UFO that is basically a round platform to build on and it is set on an alien island

the ship is hollow and is not detailed but has a scripted top that goes up and down on a touch. there are two versions of it in the OAR – a hovering (or blasting off) version and a landed one. both could be used as building platforms for school projects . . .

the region can be visited at Kitely here for the next few weeks

all the world’s a stage =)

most of us probably use OpenSim from our homes where only one person has OpenSim open. i’ve never heard of LAN parties for OpenSim (sounds really geeky but also awesomely fun!) =D

seeing so many students actively working in OpenSim is pretty fun and it clearly works as a great educational tool for Kate Booth. it’s really nice to be thanked but the real hero is Ms. Booth!

she is the kind of educator that will find interesting, engaging, and effective tools for her students that allow them to express their creativity in meaningful ways

truth be told, the biggest win are the students – they “get it” and run with it like mad. and that means our future is brighter. when you see kids grasp technology and intrinsically excited to learn and express what they have learned, then they are unleashing their potential

Sim-on-a-Stick might be defined by so many megabytes on a USB drive, but in the hands of Ms. Booth’s students, there are no proverbial boxes to think outside of! her students are well beyond traditional learning constraints and no longer have the sky as a limit!

to Ms. Booth’s, and all, students: never stop being awesome and never stop pushing the limits!

read the post and watch the video - The longest maths lesson… =)

superstars!

the 0.7.5 release of OpenSim brings many good patches, new features, and performance enhancements (release notes)

the multi-region versions are set as megaregions and follow the numbering convention that Kitely uses. building on an SoaS multi-region version should mean that one single OAR can be directly deployed to Kitely

however, many people like standard 256 metre regions, even in a multi-region build. if this is the case for your work with a multi-region SoaS, then i’d suggest you make one small change before using it

go to \SoaS075\diva-r22043\bin\config-include\MyWorld.ini and edit the parameter for CombineContiguousRegions and change it from true to false

for individual 256 metre regions it should look like this:

[Startup]
; SmartThreadPool is reported to work well on Mono/Linux, but
; UnsafeQueueUserWorkItem has been benchmarked with better
; performance on .NET/Windows
async_call_method = UnsafeQueueUserWorkItem
; recommended: false for mono / true for Windows
use_async_when_possible = true
; SoaS defaults to a megaregion for multi-region versions
; change the following to false to have individual regions
CombineContiguousRegions = false

making this change before you start up SoaS for the first time will alleviate problems later on. you can change this parameter at any time, even after completing a build, but you may need to do some additional finagling. i have done this in the past and there are issues with everything turning phantom when switching back and forth for existing builds, but that can be remedied

enjoy SoaS 0.7.5! =)

ps – after 45 months of daily blogging, i’m shifting my OCD focus to other tasks. i’ll still blog, but not at the rate of 1.4 posts per day! sheesh! what a blabber mouth eh!?! =D

for those who can’t wait, here they are:

one region zip | one region installer | 4 region installer | 9 region installer | 16 region installer

multi-region versions are set as megaregions but can easily be changed – details tomorrow once the 0.7.5 site is launched =)

Diva has added a TOS page and the MyWorld.ini file needs to be manually edited to activate it

neither the group aspect nor the TOS part needs to be done to use SoaS unless you use Erik N’s network hack like Kate Booth does for some of her students’ projects. since SoaS is intended to be used as a single-user workspace, you don’t benefit from setting up groups or TOS

for the sake of being complete, i am adding both groups and TOS to the SoaS downloads just in case and also because SoaS operates on port 9100 and not the default port 9000

to add the TOS part, copy and paste the following to the very end of the MyWorld.ini file. change parameters if you need to, by default the TOS is not presented. also make certain that the quotes are pasted correctly – sometimes a copied HTML quotation mark is not the same character as a typed text file quotation mark

\SoaS075\diva-r22043\bin\config-include\MyWorld.ini

[TOSModule]
;; Not enabled by default. Enable it if you like by setting this to true
Enabled = false
;; Tell the users what this is about
Message = “Please read and agree to the Terms of Service”
;; Should local users be shown the TOS on first login?
ShowToLocalUsers = false
;; Should foreign users be shown the TOS on first HG login?
ShowToForeignUsers = true
;; Change the text on that page for your own TOS.
;; You’ll find it under /WifiPages/tos.html
TOS_URL = “http://127.0.0.1:9100/wifi/tos.html”

you can read Diva’s specifics for Groups and TOS for more details

direct YouTube link