Month: July 2011

Popular SL news during July 2011

Posted on by Daniel Voyager

It’s been a very busy month for SL news I think. This is the July 2011 edition of popular Second Life news with links and dates below in case you have missed anything…
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InWorldz Joint Venture announcement

Posted on by Daniel Voyager

Apparently InWorldz has now partnered with CariNet for hosting/technology. Here is the press release that was published today on the official Inworldz news page. The InWorldz Founders have been replying to comments on this thread on the InWorldz Forums if you’re interested in knowing more.

InWorldz, LLC and CariNet Inc. To Power Virtual World Technology and Hosting Through Joint Venture

Venture to focus on quality of service, scalability, and core software to
promote growth and technical innovation

Contact: Beth Reischl                                                    

Tel. (630) 504-8449
Email: press@inworldz.com

NY and SAN DIEGO, CA , July 30, 2011 – InWorldz, LLC a leading provider of virtual world services and CariNet Inc. a quality-oriented provider of dedicated servers, server clusters, and cloud computing announce plans to form a joint venture to build a redundant 3D virtual world grid capable of high performance and fast growth.

The venture builds around the original vision of the InWorldz founders. Known to their customers mainly by their pseudonyms, Elenia Llewellyn (real name Beth Reischl), Legion Hienrichs (real name John Arnolde), and Tranquillity Dexler (real name David Daeschler) have supported the continuing vision that everyone should be able to experience virtual world technologies and services in a way that enhances their lives and their own vision. Since it’s inception in February of 2009, InWorldz, LLC has listened to customer feedback and demand to provide it’s residents with the software, hardware, and tools they need to create dramatic simulations ranging from vast and mystical oceans, to artistic  depictions of real world cities. Building on a strong customer community and a solid technical background, the InWorldz grid has grown to over 800 customer owned regions on word of mouth alone.

CariNet Inc. has been a hosting leader since 1997, offering a wide variety of hosting options including dedicated servers, server clusters, public and private cloud offerings as well as server virtualization hypervisors. CariNet Inc. builds, owns and operates all of their datacenters and are capable of handling customers and demands of any size. CariNet Inc. currently services 7500+ customers around the globe.

CariNet Inc. provides a strong background and expertise in all things hosting. The CariNet team consists of a dedicated group of individuals willing to go the extra mile to make sure they have a quality product their customers can rely on. From power, to network, to hardware and software, CariNet Inc. has created a strong backbone for any business to tether their dreams to and let them run.

Enablement is the shared theme that has brought CariNet Inc. and InWorldz, LLC together. The joint venture will provide InWorldz with access to the latest in hardware and software technology available to support efficiency and scalability. Powered by this venture, InWorldz will have access to systems and expertise that will increase the effectiveness of their business processes, free up development resources, and increase profitability. The joint venture will provide both companies with the opportunity to continue to explore the growing virtual world market and provide the services and support that enable the individual as well as organizations who will use virtual world technologies in the future.

  • Should LL and other grids should be concerned now ?
  • What do you think about the Joint Venture?

Top 10 airports in Second Life 2011

Posted on by Daniel Voyager

(picture of  Hollywood Airport runway above)

I love flying around Second Life from airport to airport regularly and here are my top favourite airport destinations. These are really good places to fly planes and explore the grid from the sky.

SL Airport Map 2011

  1. Second Life International Airport – Gateway to Blake Sea & USS, Antilaghi
  2. Hollywood Airport – The most beautiful, best located, airport in SL aviation, at the crossroads of the 180 sims of the Blake Sea & the United Sailing Sims.
  3. Bay City Municipal Aeroport – Rez zone south of the hangar (about 158, 26,26) or at the west end of the runway. Consider joining the Bay City ATC group for the air-to-air and air-to-ground “radio” channel. Runway 9 is 250 m long, at 4.3 m
  4. Abbotts Aerodrome – SL’s most famous airport! Visit us for planes..helicopters, skydiving, free demos. Home of Terra..Aeronautics and ARMORD gear.
  5. Honah Lee Field – Welcome to Honah Lee Field the new go-to location for all Pilots in the Blake Sea region and beyond!
  6. New Horizons Airport – International Airport that has acces to a great number of sims including the blake sea and nautilus airport
  7. Nautilus Municipal Airport – Nautilus Municipal Airport is a light to medium capacity airport serving Nautilus and Corsica cross-continental pilots.  Excellent rest stop for expeditionary pilots and group grid flight enthusiasts. Open to public.
  8. Japan Airport – Battleship, aircraft carrier, cruiser, yacht, boat, fighter, jet, helicopter, car, sports car, sandbox
  9. Haskew Memorial Airport – Welcome to Haskew Memorial Airport. A place to fly your planes, helicopters, Jets, fighters, Military aircraft, and other flying machines. We welcome your visit, please feel free to look around the terminal building.  There is also a steel mill on sight.
  10. Talakin Airport – Fly to Nautilus City and Blake sea from here. Terra and Texaco aircraft fuel.

SL Aviation Summer Festival

More cool plane videos 
(picture of Second Life International Airport below)

SLCC 2011 & BURN2 2011 coming soon

Posted on by Daniel Voyager

There are two big Second Life events that will be happening very soon. I love both of these well known SL yearly events and I recommend you visit them. The first is Second Life Community Convention 2011, which is a yearly conference organised by Second Life residents. This year SLCC 2011 will be hosted in Oakland from 12th-14th August 2011. Hopefully there will be live streaming coverage from SLCC straight into the SLCC regions on the grid.

The second big event that will be happening in Second Life later this year is BURN2 2011, which is community supported event and will take place from 1st-9th October 2011. Organisation and preparation in now underway for the event.

SLCC 2011

Upcoming Schedule 
  • 7/31 – Presenters must be registered
  • 8/1 – Custom badges due
  • 8/5 – Social Events & Mixers due
  • 8/11 – Track Leaders & Volunteers arrive
  • 8/12 – 7th Annual SLCC begins!!

BURN2

I will blog more when we get nearer to these important dates. I’m really excited!

Space exploration places in Second Life 2011

Posted on by Daniel Voyager

Check out my top 15 favourite space exploration places in Second Life to visit during 2011. Landmarks in favourite order below…

  1. Spaceport Alpha – Rockets and spacecraft from the past, present and future.  Ride a rocket into space and explore the planets! SciLands member. Volunteer created & maintained, donation supported.
  2. Spaceport Bravo – Rockets and spacecraft from the past, present and future.
  3. NASA CoLab – A NASA-sponsored co-working area for employees and volunteers to work collaboratively in the SciLands.
  4. Avatrian Central – Take part in the final journey by visiting the space shuttle launch site in SL .
  5. Explorer Island – NASA JPL on Explorer Island – Home of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  Come see the history, explore space and technology.
  6. MoonWorld – A simulation of lunar geology field work conducted in Second Life.
  7. Mars Institute – The Mars Institute is a non-profit orgnization based in Canada and the US our motto is “To further the scientific study, exploration and public understanding of Mars.
  8. Space Studies Institute – Always under construction – pathfinder project by Space Studies Institute – ssi.org – space industry and settlement – in SciLands – you can fly here!  No weapons except to defend Earth  – point all rockets to space – photography and video by permission
  9. NASA eEducation – The hub of NASA eEducation Island – stop by for info and events related to NASA and NASA education.  NASA eEducation is located in the Scilands.
  10. Exploratorium – The Exploratorium museum in San Francisco, interactive science exhibits in Second Life. A member of Scilands.
  11. National Space Society – National Space Society in Second Life, a region in the SciLands.
  12. SpinSpace astronomical art Gallery – Enjoy Niven Ringworld, asteroid habitats, IlluX, Space  for Music Museum.
  13. NASA INSPIRE ISLAND – Space venue island.
  14. The SL Planetarium Dome – Ready to chill out on the Galilean Moons of Jupiter? Watch amazing pictures from space (courtesy NASA), do yoga, float and dance, romantic ballroom by the stars and planets, cuddle, relax and healing spots, ambient, psy, chillout music.
  15. EDAKent – The SEEDS project

Space regions map 2011 

Recent Space Shuttle videos from Second Life

The real launch was mirrored via a virtual launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Second Life.

Start of the Atlantis spaceshuttle with Live sound from the Livestream

The space shuttle program has now ended in real life.


SL Forums “oddness” this morning

Posted on by Daniel Voyager

This morning the official Linden Lab SL Forums was not working correctly for many hours. When I clicked on Forums tab this screen appeared with message not found with a link saying return to my original page which was weird. Then after 5:32 AM there was a post about this “oddness” and Lexie Linden replied at 7:26 AM saying “I am following up on the forum oddness!”. Very strange!

Message Not Found

The message you are trying to access is not available.

Return to my original page

It seems things are back to normal again for the main homepage of the Forums but when trying to “View All” it doesn’t work. Hopefully Linden Lab will resolve this shortly if you are wondering about why it’s not working normally today.

SL web profiles launch & feedback

Posted on by Daniel Voyager

Linden Lab launched the new SL social web profiles yesterday and now everyone has them to check out. Your new SL web profile will show when you view your profile inworld, as the snapshot below shows. This will work if your using the latest viewer 2.8 and it’s worth checking to ensure the privacy settings are what you want them to be.

  • Feed – latest updates from friends
  • About – shows avatar info in a nice order
  • Picks – shows your favourite locations
  • Groups – shows your groups inworld your apart of
  • Notes – LL have added Notes again (the old viewer 1 notes tab)
On the left hand side you will see these tabs:
  • Home – view your SL timeline feed will be shown here
  • Profile – your sl web-based profile
  • Notifications – comments/recent activity will be shown here
  • Recommendations – friends with common interests will be shown here
  • Settings – edit your profile, privacy, notifications and friends here

Your profile can be edited easily which brings up the settings tab where many interesting options can be found. I like the new SL web profiles than previous ones and it’s a good step in the right direction. There is potential for more new features from Linden Lab in the near future. We will have to wait and see.

Things I love about the new profiles..

  • Facebook, Flickr, Plurk & Twitter integration (nice selection of social identities)
  • Interests section and Notes section is good to have
  • Inworld notifications when someone writes on your wall etc
  • More options and more control
  • Easier editing than before

Here is some recent feedback from the SL community about these new SL web-based profiles and a wishlist .

Positive feedback

  • I think they have some intriguing possibilities
  • I think they’ll be fun
  • I like it
  • So far it looks good. Better than last ones
  • Social profiles on SL look and work great

Negative/suggestions

  • The ‘About’ needs to be the default
  • Don’t see it as a place for chatty conversation though
  • I’m now disappointed that my viewer of choice (Firestorm) doesn’t use web profile
  • The home section doesn’t seem to update my shared posts
  • I’m receiving many friend requests
  • Would prefer ‘Like’ to ‘Love’
Mixed bag of feedback so far and i’m sure LL will be adding more new features/suggestions soon.

Mesh Testing Sandbox regions

Posted on by Daniel Voyager

Visit these new 12 Mesh Testing Sandbox regions provided by Linden Lab to test out Mesh on the main grid. More details about testing can be found here. “Join the group ‘Mesh Volunteers’ for access to this region. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!”. I’m using 2.8.1 (236285) viewer for this.

I’ve seen many mesh ducks and other interesting mesh objects in the mesh sandbox regions.

OMG a massive duck in the water.

Here is a nice snapshot of nice mesh starship.

Snapshot of a mesh horshoe.

Snapshot of mesh house on a tree.

These are exciting times for Mesh in Second Life! 😀