phew! we’ve been on OpenSim 0.7.1 dev (that’s a pre-official release) for 16 months now and i’ve held off getting an update because we really did not need one and our grid ran smoothly so i figured why mess with it however, there are so many great fixes in 0.7.3.1 that it made sense to have [...]

i typically use the Imprudence viewer, probably 96% of the time. the other viewer i use in the 2.0 Second Life one. Imprudence runs very well and i rarely crash (not sure if that is viewer or sim related).  by rarely, i may get that logged out but can view IM messages once every 20 times [...]

When I spoke at conferences about using Second Life for eLearning, I discussed it as an animation tool and not as a learning environment. Multimedia developers creating eLearning for internal and/or external clients are always looking for fast and easy-to-use tools. I believe Second Life is very easy to use for creating video for use [...]

in Second Life it’s easy to find almost anything you want. i had several helicopters and really loved flying them. our one and only machinima from early 2007 has a great shot at the end with a helicopter flying out of the scene. it just worked out perfectly by dumb luck. and buying vehicles in [...]

this is one of the great benefits of being in OpenSim, especially if you have your own installation or a private grid – making full region backups! most OpenSim hosts create backups (so does Second Life, that’s what a rollback is) but if you can, you should make your own backups also. some grids make [...]

so we all know that internet speed is uber important for virtual worlds and i like using SpeedTest to see what mine is and to check up on my isp every now and then but speed is only half of it, well i don’t know if that is right, but just as important as speed [...]

yay! finally, after 4 years in virtual worlds, i get my own home! it’s like that saying about a cobbler’s kids having no shoes. while i have built several home-like places, none were just my home. the iliveisl estate inSL had several social places that were open to the public that were meant to be homes and [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

i have gotten a few comments, emails, and tweets wishing us well from people thinking we are no longer in-world what’s the matter with you? can’t you read my mind? lol – i guess i have not actually written a post saying what we are doing, just a few mentions within other posts (with all [...]

our new host, SimHost, has been highly communicative with both myself and subQuark. communication is good and trust is even better! James Stallings II is a sweetheart of a guy (i hope he does not embarrass easily) and not only answers my questions (inquiring minds want to know) but also takes the time to explain about the background of whatever [...]

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 [...]

i lamented last week about how one could measure the load of various objects. i would really like to know how “heavy” this texture is or how much overhead that sculpted prim is. short of creating a standalone test sim (actually a really good idea) i figured there must be some way to approximate how [...]

i heart Maria from Hypergrid Business. why? because when subQuark tossed out the idea of doing OpenSim i was bikkuri collar deep in Second Life estate woes. i’m not sure why my leather collar is called bikkuri (it was made by a Japanese lady in Second Life), i can’t find that on the web, but [...]

if you are coming from Second Life and actually did stuff in there (more than dancing and shopping) then you need groups. apart from having done the estate thing inSL where groups are not optional, i have done builds for corporate use and universities. nothing too major, but without groups, those would have been impossible [...]