Mole Day 2012 in Second Life

On 2nd February 2012 marks the 3rd annual Mole Day in Second Life to celebrate the hard work that all Moles do on the grid. Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) main focus is on improvements to the Linden Mainland and well known SL communities like Bay City.

There will be a special concert and party on Mole Day this year. Choo Choo Chicks will be performing LIVE from 6pm SLT in the Bay City Fairgrounds in North Channel. All welcome to attend! 🙂

• VISIT: http://slurl.com/secondlife/North%20Channel/128/128/24/.

Mole Day 2012 Poster

Should be a great event and this means it’s the season to hunt Moles on the grid. 😀

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New Mesh 2012 metrics from Charlar Linden

During today’s Content Creation/Mesh Import User Group meeting Charlar Linden released some new Mesh metrics which was really interesting. This user group meeting takes place every Monday at 12pm SLT at Borrowdale on AGNI.

From the meeting transcript…

• [12:41] Charlar Linden: relating to viewers supporting mesh…
• [12:41] Charlar Linden: 70% of residents
• [12:47] Charlar Linden: Recently our total uploaded items surpassed our previous high, back in August. It’s been on an upward trend since the beginning of December.
• [12:47] Charlar Linden: on a daily basis
• [12:47] Charlar Linden: 28% of regions have mesh on them.

From 16% in December 2011 to 28% in January 2012 it shows that the Mesh adoption rate is on the rise which encouraging and interesting. I guess more and more are switching to mesh capable viewers and uploading mesh items.

Mesh adoption on the grid so far this month…

• 22% – 10th January 2012
• 25%– 17th January 2012
• 28% – 30th January 2012

Yay. Hopefully the this Mesh adoption trend will go up higher in 2012 & 2013+.

New Zen Viewer added to Third Party Viewer list

It seems like the Zen Viewer has been officially been added to the Third Party Viewer Directory this week. I have not heard of this viewer until now and it excites me when new viewers come along for Second Life. You can download this viewer either on Zena Juran download page or via the SL wiki page. Zen Viewer is only for Windows!

The Zen Viewer is a v3 viewer based on the viewer-development Snowstorm. It contains all the latest shines and fixes plus a consolidation of unique features specific to content creation. Includes the original Pie Menu!

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory/Zen

Impressive features included in the Zen Viewer…

• Mesh Upload.
• Qarl’s Rigged Mesh Deformer – Alpha.
• The Original Pie Menu.
• Enhanced Build Tools.
• Toggle Notifications Top/Bottom Screen.
• Clientside Animation Overrider (AO).
• Clientside Particles Editor.
• Local Sculpt and Texture Browsing.
• Temp Sculpt and Texture Uploads.
• Save and Load Scripts Locally.
• Qarl’s Align Tool.
• Fetch Inventory at Login.
• Resized View/Cam Controls Floater.
• Separate UserData and Cache Folders.
• Draw Distance Slider in Status Bar.
• TP Destination Beacon Disable.
• Copy UUID on Right-click.
• Texture Refresh.
• Derender.
• Pos. & Rot. Spinners for Attachments Enabled.
• Copy/Paste Object Params.
• Copy/Paste Texture Params.
• Zoom Min. Distance Disable.
• Inventory Hovertips Disable.
• Area Object Search.
• Sound Explorer.
• Move Orphaned System Folders for Deletion.
• Adjustable Region Restart Timer.
• UI Skinning.
• Full Screen Toggle.
• Invisiprim Support in Deferred Rendering.

Also performance enhancements have been added in the Zen Viewer…

• Kirsten’s OpenJPEG Library.
• NickyD’s HACD Mesh Decomposition.
• Large Address Aware.
• Graded Shadows Support.

If you have tried this viewer then feel free to share your experiences via comments below. I will be using this viewer during the next few weeks and will be sharing my experience soon.  Thanks! 🙂

New episode of Flufee on a Meshion 2012

The year 2012, shrouded in mystery…will all things end? Who will be saved and can we take a few prims with us? Will Qarl finish his deformer project before the rapture and does it even matter? These are indeed profound questions indeed. Too heady for a simple mesh creature to answer, so Flufee encounters a very special guest this episode – similarly cuddly yet infinitely more resourceful…..

 

Lexie Linden joins Google+

Good news this week is that Lexie Linden has joined Google+ and it will be interesting to see if Lexie will share anything with the SL community in the near future. Yay! 🙂

Welcome Lexie to Google+!

Lexie Linden Google+ profile

Other Linden accounts on Google+ you may be interested in..

• Second Life
• Oskar Linden
• Rhett Linden
• Yoz Linden
• Matthew Linden
• Char Linden
• Simon Linden
• BK Linden

Greeter Islands go silent

The past few weeks or so I have noticed that the two Greeter Islands on the grid have been empty recently and that teleport access no longer works. I first noticed that Linden Lab added these new Greeter islands back in November 2011 and I was rather impressed by it all. The Linden Helpers were very friendly and polite with new residents arriving into Second Life. I did like the idea of Lindens helping new residents but it would be nice if resident volunteers could help out too.

See snapshots here.

Another thing I noticed this week is that it’s no longer listed on the Second Life Destination Guide anywhere it seems. The Linden Helpers FAQ page on the Knowledge Base seems to be offline. On the bottom toolbar there is a How To button which used to show Get Live Help but it no longer shows on SL viewer 3.2.7.

Linden Helper Islands & Greeter Islands Map (25th January 2012)

Greeter Island Visitors group info…

Welcome to Greeter Island.

Linden Lab is beta testing a new help program to assist new users get started with the basics in Second Life.

Live Help from 10am to 6pm PST everyday

Need assistance? Ask the group.

I hope that this beta program by Linden Lab has not failed because that would be very disappointing news. I hope that this is some sort of Linden break that will resume soon. If anything new develops then I will blog about it in the near future hopefully.

Visiting The 1920s Berlin Project

Today I went to visit The 1920s Berlin Project in Second Life where I found myself in the middle of a recreation of 1920s Berlin virtually which I thought was rather interesting. First I arrived at the welcome area spot, surrounded by shops and loads of must have freebies in the centre of the square. It’s a really nice destination and really worth exploring the historical city if you have not visited before in Second Life. 🙂

TELEPORT HERE

Travel back in time to this big city during an amazing era. Wander down Unter den Linden, explore the dirty old back streets, see a movie at the cinema, visit the museum, enjoy cabaret, dance the Charleston in a small Tanzlokal or at the gay Eldorado club in this role-play sim with a 1920s dress code (freebies provided).

Central area of The 1920s Berlin Project. Check out the 1920s Berlin Project events calendar full of great events via Google Calendar.

Donation Thermometer showing 59% progress at the moment. Still some way of reaching the goal of L$110, 001.

I went over to the train station which was towards the west of the square to visit Berlin. Before I got on the train I changed my avatar into a Swank’s Drab Suit avatar. I then explored Berlin for many hours which I enjoyed a lot. 🙂

Enter the station and use the train to visit 1920s Berlin 

Map of The 1920s Berlin Project

More of my SL snapshots of The 1920s Berlin Project adventures can be found here.

One year on since the grid merger

It’s been one year since Linden Lab merged the Teen Grid and Main Grid together officially. Since then there hasn’t been any major news about teens on the grid and it seems things have gone silent. In August 2011 I published a blog post called Top 20 old teen grid historical places to visit which I think was a good useful guide to share with everyone.

Check out Teens in Second Life SL wiki page.

In 2011 the former Teen Grid mainland became empty in terms of land and region traffic. My guess is that teens lost interest and went somewhere else on the web. I don’t think anyone has noticed a huge difference on the grid since last year but have you noticed any difference since the merger ?.

As for 2012 I hope that teens active in Second Life today will join the popular educational/teen related organisations and abandoned parcels will be rebuilt on. 🙂

Cartoonimals closing down in Second Life

It’s been announced that the much loved Cartoonimals destination in Second Life will be closing down in about a month’s time. This is really sad news to report about another closure in Second Life and sims are shutting down at alarming rates it seems.

The last open day for Cartoonimals is 14th February 2012. If you have not visited Cartoonimals yet then I highly suggest that you should because the whole region is full of great looking animal products.  This is your last chance to visit Cartoonimals before the sim gets closed down!

TELEPORT HERE

The reason that Cartoonimals is closing down is due to real life projects that have been taking up Duggy’s time and attention. Duggy Bing is a Second Life creator and owner of this memorable sim called Cartoonimals. Duggy started in Second Life in 2007 and during the past few years he released many amazing products which was an big attraction for many residents in Second Life. Cartoonimals appeared on Treet.TV on 27th January 2009 which can be watched here at http://treet.tv/shows/shopping/episodes/shop-cartoonimals.

The good news is Cartoonimals products will still be available on the SL Marketplace after the sim closure next month. Duggy released this notecard below about the situation.

Hello wonderful friends and customers!

I’m dropping you a note to let you know that I’ll be closing Cartoonimals in about a month. Real life projects have been taking increasing chunks of my attention and I simply haven’t had time to devote to creating new products and attending to marketing (never was too good at that). It was a terrific couple of years and a very rewarding experience. Not a single customer issue that could not be easily resolved….in SL that’s saying something! I want to especially thank those of you who helped with ideas, scripting, building and support.

I’ll continue to offer my stuff on Marketplace, as well as through affiliates. I will be inworld at least once a week to assist customers and replace missing items. As always satisfaction guaranteed.

So again, thanks so much. If I ever find a Third Life I hope you are all there!!!!

—Duggy

p.s. I’m selling my sim…full sim, 15,000 prim….please tell anyone who may be interested to IM me
p.p.s. Anyone who would like a Cartoonimals vendor set can pick them up at the TP point in my shop

Another significant loss to the SL community in 2012. 😦

Press Pass Media Group in Second Life turns 2 years old

The Press Pass Media Group in Second Life turns 2 years old this month. I have always liked reading the group posts posted by Press Pass on a daily basis about the latest news/events happening across the grid. The group currently has 313 members and that number is growing every month. IM Carmichael Caudron to join the group if you are interested in knowing more.

presspass turns 2 years old this month!
Wednesday,18 Jan 2012 10:06:23 GMT

woot since this group was founded in january 2010,makes it 2 years to the day today, and our network is still growing with valuable press members like yourself,ty so much for taking part of press pass network!

Team

Check out the Press Pass News blog which covers daily updated SL notices by members of the Press Pass Media group. The blog gets about 2,180 monthly page views and my blog is listed in the blogroll section. Yay! 🙂

Press Pass Media Group general information.

Happy 2nd Birthday Press Pass! 😀