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!* =)

call me silly, but i have been cleaning up our regions in Reaction Grid this week. it will just all be wiped out on the fourth with probably one command and anyone would see my time as wasted

maybe it’s a spiritual thing (do avatars have spirits?) or an ener-getic thing or just a bonkers thing?

to me it is about treating my things with respect. i can’t just leave my work behind, it is important to me. even though i have an identical copy of all 16 sims on our new private SimHost grid

even the terrain! i had to return it to a more neutral state just to pay homage to my past effort (see, i am bonkers)

fortunately, it does not matter very much if anyone else thinks this is crazy

it’s part of who i am and in a weird way a part of my creativity and persistence. sure, in the few hours i have spent doing this, i could have spent adding to its identical copy on our new grid

or could i?

see, for me it’s part of the same story, the same narrative - my story. if i did not do this, it would affect my new builds. crazy as that sounds

Reaction Grid has been very good to me. i learned so much about OpenSim and am thankful to the Reaction Grid Team. especially Chris and Felix. their caring and attention was evident even as avatars. i am not sure i even met Chris as an avatar, although i did make her a strawberry daiquiri in a coconut shell (ener’s version of a Linden bear). i met Felix and he is a really neat person (good luck in your studies Felix!) =)

cleaning up the sims is like the last paragraph in this chapter. there is still a sentence or two (hint: Dream Walker, get your stuff or it’ll be poofed and same for the Learning Path Nikki – you don’t need to grab it if you don’t want to, just giving you another day or two in case you do)

so as our Reaction Grid estate disappears into the virtual ethers i look forward to it’s continued growth with SimHost

namas te Reaction Grid =)

With Second Life’s Teen Grid closing in December, where does that leave the educational use of virtual worlds?

Adult education can carry on but K-12 may need to change. Certainly those working with students under 16 will need an alternative. Those working with students 16 and older may also want an alternative rather than be tossed into the main grid.

Over the last year, the trend seems to be social use for Second Life and education/business use for OpenSim-based virtual worlds.

Closing the Teen Grid is a clear indicator that education is not a priority for Linden Lab.

One alternative is to abandon virtual worlds entirely. Some educators will do this from lack of time, resources, and/or out of frustration.

Creating a good inworld presence takes a very real commitment. It can also require access to good content.

Not everyone is like our Ener Hax and just makes the commitment to create anything needed. Ener has also developed deep relationships with talented people who contribute to our work in Enclave Harbour*.

Many educators have relied on content available within Second Life which may not be available in OpenSim. Even with equivalent material, such as teaching tools available outside of Second Life, some of these may require reconfiguration and, taken as a whole, moving may simply be too daunting. Some educators will inevitably step away from virtual worlds.

However, many educators will stick with what virtual worlds can do and put in the effort to move. Ener Hax has written many articles on how to move plus the trials and tribulations of moving from Second Life to an OpenSim-based environment.

OpenSim alternatives include (1) installing OpenSim on your own server, (2) contracting a third party to install it for you, (3) having an OpenSim hosting provider create a private grid as a stand alone or hypergrid-enabled grid, or (4) joining an existing grid.

1) Installing OpenSim on your own server gives you the greatest control and the least expense. This assumes that you can do the install or have the IT support to get this done.

Installing OpenSim is within the reach of many and numerous articles are out there on doing this (Hypergrid Business has a current guide which may help you decide if this is a viable option).

Your own installation means you can completely secure your world behind your firewalls. For school districts this seems like a great option.

2) A third party can install OpenSim on your server or on website hosting servers that are suited to running OpenSim. Cari.net is a website hosting company that is heavily used by the OpenSim community. They have dedicated servers allowing root access that run OpenSim very well.

We looked into this and contacted Justin Clark-Casey about installing OpenSim for us on our own box. Justin is one of the core OpenSim developers and is available for hire as are others in the OpenSim community.

3) Another alternative is to use an OpenSim hosting provider. Hypergrid Business maintains an up-to-date hosting directory. Compare not only costs but hardware specs as well.

It turned out to be $100 a month less expensive for us to go with a hosting company than running our own box.

How is that possible? SimHost‘s owners include one of the core developers of OpenSim and an admin of OSGrid and they work closely with Cari.net who helps support the OpenSim initiative.

Going with a hosted solution frees you up to do education. You don’t need to know any of the technical aspects and this is similar to being in Second Life.

While I would like to have the technical know how, I would rather focus on our endeavors. For us, virtual worlds are simply a means to deliver science education content, much like a photograph in a textbook. I do appreciate the expertise that our host has because it allows both of us to concentrate on creating immersive 3D educational activities.

Being hosted offers additional options to consider. Similar to a self-installed version, you can be a private grid with your own registration page, you can be firewalled, or you can be part of an existing grid such as OSGrid or ScienceSim. As a private grid you also have the option to be hypergrid-enabled which would allow you and/or visitors to travel to other hypergrid-enabled regions.

4) Joining an existing grid has benefits and some hosting providers run their own grids, such as Reaction Grid. Reaction Grid has a business and education specific grid which is safe for use by students and allows teachers to network. We were with Reaction Grid for 10 months and they are an excellent option.

It seems that private grids, where you can turn hypergridding on and off, are becoming the preferred choice by both educators and business. OSGrid is somewhat analogous to the internet. You can hop around regions (about 5,000) and hypergrid to private grids. The advantage with OSGrid and a private grid is that you could use OSGrid for your avatar account rather than create accounts for each private grid you visit.

There are many things to consider but there are also many choices. Those choices are growing rapidly.

If you have been thinking of trying OpenSim or are being forced to find an alternative, do your homework, study the offerings, and take the plunge. It certainly can be rough but once done, it is well worth it.

*- Enclave Harbour is a joint venture enjoying the talents of Dream Walker, Nickola Martynov, Micheil Merlin, Ener Hax, and David Miller. Its goal is to serve as a virtual field trip “world” to explore environmental science for middle school students from public, virtual, private, and home schools. To date there are 50 workbook activities developed with additional ones in the works. Expected launch is summer of 2011.

serious builder

Enclave Harbour is hosted by SimHost and runs on a dedicated 64-bit server with 8 gigabytes of RAM, 4 CPU cores, 500 megabyte hard drive, 100 Mbps dedicated port, and 32.4 terrabytes of monthly bandwidth. Our server has been heavily customised beyond the standard install to give us options such as the ability to have 4 GB RAM per sim and additional web interfaces.

This is reposted from David’s blog at subQuark.com.

just a small update – we have been promoting Reaction Grid for 10 months now and think of ourselves as pretty connected

well spank me and call me honey!

in reading Maria’s OpenSim stats, we (i) saw that Reaction Grid had gone down like 85 sims and no longer was selling individual sims =(

RG’s service is outstanding and fast! so it made me a bit sad to see them pull out of that offering. for many teachers, they can swing $25 a month to explore how OpenSim will work for them (last year in the US, an average of $363 was spent out-of-pocket by teachers on behalf of providing better education to their students)

then i found Maria’s article from last week about this: ReactionGrid discontinues $25 region hosting. it’s a shame because they certainly provided us with a great introduction to OpenSim. if it had not been for their gracious patience, my transition would have been much harder. if you remember some of my posts from 8 and 10 months ago, i was having a tough time adjusting to many things. overall, OpenSim works very closely to how Second Life does but still with enough differences that for someone like me with only Second Life experience, it was cause for tears (yes, i really did cry, but i cry at some TV commercials, i am really sappy) =)

but after reading her article, it makes more sense and she points out other options if you are looking for a single sim. Reaction Grid still provides a kick butt alternative to sl in the form of four sims for $75 which is way less than even the education discount in Second Life is for one sim. if you are a teacher seriously wondering if OpenSim is right for you, then splitting this with a teacher or two is well worth it

Reaction grid is focusing on their Jibe offering which allows for browser-based plugin access to incredibly rich virtual world settings (i blogged on this here with the pic below). this option should catch on in the business world more than OpenSim because it is more “serious” looking, plus the obvious ease-of-use from being browser-based

for us, OpenSim is still the answer because of the ease of building in-world. we’ve been teachers and we know that you teach out of love for getting through to kids and not out of love of money! grading papers and prepping lesson plans goes into many a night for teachers and it’s hard to fit in time to learn something new

Unity 3D (the browser dealio) requires modelling skills in a program such as Blender 3D.  i used to do blender a lot (i still dabble in it for presentations) and it is a hard program to learn. it takes months to become proficient at it and i would say that it is 100 times harder than building with prims in-world. before anyone feels the need to correct me on this, i have been doing blender since 2004, right after it became open source and i am very familiar with Suzanne and i have output work via render farms with as many as 24 computers (plus i can read Dutch) =p

teachers don’t have the time and energy to do this (there are exceptions of course). but OpenSim is quite accessible and in an hour, i can (and have as a former SL Mentor) have a n00b up and running building a house

screenshot from Unity 3D gallery

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).

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!

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 =)

ever have lots of “stuff” that you are moving but is a pain to set back up? like all your furnishings in your home? artwork, landscaping, and so on?

not sure if viewer 2.h0 does this

in Second Life, you can group things together and take them into your inventory as a coalesced object. select all your items and “Take”. unfortunately, this does not work in OpenSim, they come in as separate objects (boo)

the resulting object will have an icon like the image (i am not sure what that is in the viewer 2.bl0w). if you need to place them precisely, like paintings on walls, consider rezzing a new prim first and placing it somewhere easy to line up (like in a doorway). then select all the items and select the placement prim last so that it is the root. if you name that placement prim, it will be easier to find in your inventory

for some things, it may make sense to just link them all together. i had a group of trees i needed to move and i rezzed out a placement prim and set it on easy to remember coordinates (like 20, 20, 20). because this was in OpenSim, it did not matter how far apart the trees were as long as they were all on the same sim. i linked them, drug them over into the adjoining sim, did my work, drug them back into the sim, and then simply used the edit panel and entered in the coordinates and presto! the trees went back to where they were originally

i like tips that make life, both virtual and real, a bit easier and i hope this is helpful =)

such a moving experience

artwork linked - exported from SL & imported into Reaction Grid

as you may know, my move from Second Life to OpenSim was more than just going to another world. it was also a shift in what i am doing in virtual worlds

that’s an important consideration if you are also looking for additional worlds, or an alternative, to Second Life. with the ability to export your creations, it makes sense to get a foothold in up-and-coming virtual worlds, especially if you enjoy selling your creations. content in OpenSim worlds tripled in the last year and growth is increasing. several factors at work include OpenSim getting less buggy, it can be much less expensive, more freedom in terms of service, less wacky policies, more hosted options available, et cetera

in Second Life, i started out doing projects for a few companies, schools, and small groups. soon it seemed that owning a sim made sense with what i was paying out in tiers to a private estate owner. then my OCD self kicked in and the iliveisl estate was born and grandiose plans of having 52 sims in “phase 1″.  so i was firmly in the estate biz and loved it. i loved all the people i met, seeing what they did with their land (i am so weird that i would never set foot on anyone’s land unless i was invited). in second life, it was all about selling land and being of service to my residents

but now in Reaction Grid‘s OpenSim world i am strictly a builder. my best friends from sl came over with me and i am really fortunate to have a few really great friends that are like rl family to me. maybe better than family because i can trust them so much o_O

it’s quite different doing just building than doing land sales. most of the time i am all alone which i like for building. Dream Walker is awesome to work with because we can work for hours and never say anything to each other. it may sound weird, but there is a lot of respect between us, and i draw a certain amount of confidence from her, even in silence (ener <– low self-esteem, blah, blah, blah)

that is one reason OpenSim works so well for me, i am not expecting a very social experience and i am not doing any shopping. there are many sims in the OSGrid that do have substantial shopping (119 listings) and you can see those listed at Hyperica if so inclined

if you can match your expectations and needs closely, then you will find the right virtual world supplement or alternative

for me, making environmental science builds is really rewarding. and so is the ability for kids to come see them

we have had a brother and siater building in our sandbox over the last week. he is 14 and she is close to him in age. i met their father last week who teaches hebrew and who was looking for an alternative to Second Life to teach in-world in an outreach capacity. he felt comfortable enough with Reaction Grid’s PG stance and in what i said (and in me) to allow his kids to come build

it is really awesome to see kids in OpenSim – they learn soooo quickly. i was trying to explain how to edit the position of a parrot to the girl and approaching it like i did in Second Life as a Mentor. pffft! by the time i rezzed an attached a box prim to my shoulder to explain it, she had already done it! i was expecting a few minutes!

i was so impressed with her that i gave her a copy of my prized parasol! (the one big thing that i cherish as a part of my virtual identity)

back to environmental science. it’s a great match for me because i have education in that and taught it at both secondary school and college levels. now i don’t have the experience that subQuark has with years at middle and high school level and then seven years at the college level, but we are on the same wavelength. so we feed off each other with ideas. i’ll come up with something that he may not have thought of and he will do the same (like his post on solar powered zeppelins) =)

so what are “we” building?

here is a list with mostly finished stuff in normal font and stuff yet to be built in italics. all these items are for virtual field trips that will go along with a workbook full of science trivia and exercises

Solar Energy

• solar farm – solar panels that update every five minutes to the sun’s position scripted by Dream Walker
• solar panels on the almost done cargo zeppelin
• home solar panels in Enerville
• solar cells on the city streetlights

Wind Energy

• offshore stationary wind turbines
• offshore floating wind turbines (in real life, this is only prototyped so far)
• mini home wind turbines in Enerville

Water Energy

• hydroelectric dam
• tidal power
• instream current turbines (submersed turbines harnessing river flow)
• potential energy versus kinetic energy

Geothermal Energy

• geothermal well in Enerville
• geothermal wells for city of Enclave Harbour

Conservation (these address the balance of human activity with conservation areas)

• coastal conservation areas
• forest conservation areas
• open water conservation areas
• enforcement (even discusses the origin of the paint gun)

Clean Water Awareness program

• municipal responsibilities with drinking water
• bottled water issues (bioplastic alternatives)
• bulk water (as in water coolers and pitchered water & real glasses for hotels & meetings, rather than individual bottles or paper cups)
• wastewater treatment facility
• ground water (city wells, personal wells, aquifers, artesian wells, desalination)

Hydrocarbon Energy

• oil platform (hot topic & also pointing out that we need oil for much more than petrol & diesel)

Nuclear Energy

• small nuclear plant (even has OSHA violations as a discussion point)

Transportation

• cars
• boats
• planes (trivia like contrails – condensation trails and their effect on climate because they increase albedo)
• light rail
• zeppelin =)

Architecture

• energy efficient homes (like capturing lower winter sun into masonry materials & shading in summer with deciduous plants)
• city skylines (how winds are generated by buildings plus affect of wind on tall buildings – our twin twoer is only one metre taller than the current world’s tallest building)
• noise pollution
• light pollution
• public spaces
• open architecture (embracing your climate with harmonious designs – working with nature, not in opposition)

Weather

• weather station with monitoring equipment
• land & sea breezes (how they transport airborne particulates)
• acid rain
• paleoclimatic studies (ice coring of a glacier to measure trapped gases via mass spectroscopy)
• ozone layer & greenhouse gases
• the water cycle (my fave thing)

lol, that’s all i can remember at the moment! i know i am missing some topics and this very different than being an estate manager

if you take your time and define what you like to do in virtual worlds, then explore the options (like in the OpenSim hosting directory) then you will find something that works great for you

heck, you might even install your own OpenSim and start your own world! in any case, have fun and live your virtual life to the fullest! namaste  =)