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

ctrl shift 1

but speed is only half of it, well i don’t know if that is right, but just as important as speed is ping!

ping is how fast the round trip of a packet is. what’s a packet? err, i’m not sure but it’s data. when my avatar moves on my screen and bumps into something (what a klutz!) that data goes from me to the server back to me. that round trip time and “cleanliness” of that signal is really critical. when you are on a sim with a lot going on, you may lose some packets (you can see this with your stats – ctrl shift 1)

it’s not a big deal to lose some packets and pretty normal in laggy situations (that’s what lag is)

you can only do so much about ping time. buying faster and better quality broadband can certainly help but how can you measure the quality part? well with PingTest!

if you can get true fiber optic broadband that can give you a clean signal. even with the fastest speed you can have ping issues and vice versa

the next time you look at changing your isp, maybe run both SpeedTest and PingTest at other people’s homes that have different providers. time of day affects this as does traffic, so testing is best done on the same days at around the same time

what else can be done to help your ping?

server location! for things like Second Life and hosted OpenSpace, you can’t really control where the server is that you are hitting but if you install your own OpenSim (or have a third party do it) then you can control where the server is

the closer to you, the better (generally)

if you are a school or university, then your district’s server would be ideal. you could even install OpenSim on a very modestly priced box in your classroom or department (under $500 or maybe less, i don’t know that side of this very well but know of someone that set up OpenSim on a laptop and used a router to allow workshop peeps to hit his grid)

if you are having someone install OpenSim on a professional host, then having a host in your country might be ideal

so if you are in Australia, someone like SimHost would serve you well because they have servers in Australia (and Houston Texas too)

it may not seem like a big deal but the image below gives you a rough idea of how that ping time gets longer and longer the further away you get. you can see that for me, it would make a ten fold difference between something 100 miles away and a zillion miles away in the land down under (plus all my prims would be upside down i think) =p

and in that Oz example, other things are also affected – like VoIP – so if voice is critical, there’s yet another reason to know about this!

ping – something else to consider for doing your own grid or in choosing an internet provider

my ocd self always gets the better of me. i obsess over small things like shadows. in Second Life i really loved Straylight trees and i wish i could buy some for OpenSim from Kris. i also loved Corn furniture. both creators are truly talented

made by Ikea Hax =p

both creators also include shadows with their products and i always thought that added a lot of realism. even a simple chair looks better with a shadow

naturally, when i started making trees (lol, one tree) and furniture i added shadows

but since real (native) shadows are possible and actually add very little overhead with Imprudence (now with spell checking!), i am revisiting my use of shadows. my video card is no beast by any means, it’s a two year old Nvidia 9600GT with a gig of onboard memory and it is slightly overclocked. the rest of my machine is three pluse years old . . .

turning on shadows in Imprudence adds so much realism, it almost messes with you (it’s really weird to build with shadows turned on). personally, i think making shadows mainstream would have a larger impact than mesh imports because everyone would see them right away (i think mesh imports should become a reality too even though i am very happy building with regular prims and think there are benefits to that)

i did a “time lapse” shadow post sometime back and a tree test two weeks back (prim versus sculptie trunk) and now have mashed the two together in my head to create something new to obsess about!

for trees, i *think* i have decided to go without shadows. most people don’t place shadows with their trees (they are a pain to place unless your ground is uber flat)

for furniture, well i suppose i will dump the shadows too . . . nothing else in-world has them and, eventually, shadows will be the norm in viewers . . . =)

what are your thoughts on shadows?

do you include them in your builds?

do you think shadows might become mainstream in a year?

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 lounges, but none were built just for me. that was fine, i stayed busy enough and never had time to hang out in any of them regularly anyway

i’m not sure what i am going to do with my home. i know i need to build furniture! all i have is office chairs and that is hardly homelike. i also need to make a stove and fridge plus a bedroom and bathroom. i’ll make everything with normal prims, no sculpties

sculpties intimidate me, i don’t know why. i can build in blender and do boolean intersections, subdivide meshes, path a camera, set motion blur, and all that baloney but i have never even tried to make a sculptie

i think it’s also a snobby thing in my head. i kind of feel like i should be able to make what i need to do with what i have in-world

i also think it’s important to show that many things can be built with normal prims – both because they are pretty easy to work with and highly accessible. as i focus more on education, i think of new students (and teachers) that come in-world and that building with normal prims is a great start =)

if you had to teach someone new about Second Life or OpenSim, you’d stay busy enough without tossing sculpties into the mix. i have seen students get the hang of it and be building in 15 minutes, i like that aspect of normal prims very much. nothing is there to stop them from learning blender but i figure it is better to let them get going with building and worry about this stuff later on

maybe one day i’ll do sculpties and knowing me, i’ll get all ocd over them! =p

in a volcanic caldera (actually it's too small so it's really a crater) =)

the entry is curved to prevent Qi (C'hi) from running out too quickly

wanna be a smartie pants? or maybe need some virtual world research info you won’t find in Google?

try Google Scholar!

it searches published articles like you would see coming from universities and also legal opinions. some stuff is free, some you pay to access, but there are tons of things on Second Life and OpenSim - stuff like:

• Coming of age in Second Life: An anthropologist explores the virtually human (it’s an entire free book in Google Books)
• Multidisciplinary experiential education in Second Life: A global approach
• Building an interactive science museum in Second Life
• Development and evaluation of a virtual campus on Second Life: The case of SecondDMI
• How to Compete in the Metaverse: The Business Models in Second Life
• Using Second Life to enhance classroom management practice in teacher education
• Licensing Considerations for OpenSim-Based Virtual Worlds (journal of Virtual Worlds Research)
• Collaborative Learning in OpenSim by Utilizing SLoodle
• Learning with Web Tools, Simulations, and Other Technologies in Science Classrooms
• Serious playground: using Second Life to engage high school students in urban planning
• Marc Bragg v. Linden Lab and Philip Rosedale
• Just Age Playing Around? How Second Life Aids and Abets Child Pornography
• EBay’s Second Life: When Should Virtual Earnings Bear Real Taxes? (Yale Law Journal)
• Help-My Intellectual Property is Trapped: Second Life, Conflicting Ownership Claims and the Problem of Access

and one “must read”:
Networked Collaborative Group Cheerleading Technology: Virtual Cheerleader Experience

yay team =p

i am not sure what has been going on the last two weeks but i have not spent much time building in-world. i guess life got in the way – that and setting up the new grid. even though i am doing very little as far as the grid goes, just some time here and there dealing with smaller issues. you know how it goes – lots of plans and good intentions . . .

it was nice to plug away on two things today – redoing the wind turbine nacelles (no joke – the housing behind the blades is called a nacelle just like in Star Trek) and messing with the cargo zeppelin

both are environmental science things with the wind turbines being a reality and the cargo airship being something that might be here in 10 years! one airship company is starting the planning stage for this. the thought is that for some things it is okay to have slower transport – like delivering containers of produce in Europe. if an airship could cruise at 50 miles per hour (maybe more – i think they were shooting for 78) it could be effective

the solar powered aspect is also fairly realistic. i suppose you need decent weather though =)

the cargo zep was outfitted with 6 electric turbine-like engines today (not same as wind turbines, this could get confusing) plus two bow thrusters like a ship would have. i’ll actually sit down and calculate if my small engines could work by looking at total load (14 containers at 7 tonnes each = a lot of force and buoyancy needed! it better be super sunny out!) =p

hmmm, sounds like a heinous math/physics/my-head-hurts exercise for students to me! =D

they look kind of small once mounted ="

wind turbine nacelle

someone asked how the breakdown was on Second Life sims. using the numbers from Grid Survey for september 4th you get the chart below

Tyche Shepherd goes even further with server type and percentage by largest estate owners here with 1,594 regions owned by Anshe!

in OpenSim, some objects will remember their script and thus their script can be deleted (does that actually help performance? or is it still the same whether the script is in it or not?)

assuming it does help, i delete omega and sit scripts BUT . . .

since i have such a hard time setting my x,y, and z up in sit scripts, i copy the script i am going to delete into a notecard and place that in the object

because i decided to make all the furniture i use and wanted to be able to give/sell/let steal/whatever my chairs to others, putting in the script as a notecard helps me ensure that regardless of how they get the item (as a direct purchase, an exported XML, or as an IAR file) that they will be able to use it as i had built it. if you have your own server you can access, getting items as an IAR file (inventory archive file) is a great way to share things (something our James of SimHost does with me that works very well) =)

it helps me a lot because i fuss with these simplest scripts a lot initially. even the simple Omega script in these wind turbines. because i want them to appear “more natural” they all differ slightly so that they don’t all turn in unison (very OCD, i know) =)

actually, my avatar is afraid of heights (makes my shoulders tense)

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 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