The issue Impossible is released!

Read online: http://issuu.com/uncover/docs/impossible

Issue #6, 2009 The notion of impossibility within Second Life is mostly defined by the limits of possibilities in what we call “Real Life”. To some, it is the impossible in their own life: having social or professional activities, a physical outlook or a lifestyle that we feel is out of reach. To others, “impossible” in Second Life is about more complex possibilities, perceived as totally impossible: being a faun, a dragon, living on another planet or travelling in time. When we chose impossible as a new theme to our issue of Uncover, we had in mind rather metaphysical impossibilities, images and stories of the improbable, of the things that solely exist in our minds, creativity, dreams.

What is real?

Considering Second Life, we tend to call REAL our normal lives as human beings that have to eat, sleep and go to the toilet. I think it is a mistake to think that physical world defines what is real and what is not.

Each time when you login into SL, you spend your REAL time there.

Each time you laugh staring at your screen while having fun with your virtual friends, you laugh in REAL.
Each time you get upset because of something in SL, you get upset in REAL.
Your physical body reacts on what you see and hear in SL.

What do you keep apart when you say I keep RL and SL apart? Your identity. In RL you are so "many" years old, having a job, hating your boss and probably afraid to tell him/het the truth, because he/she may fire you. In SL... you are a star, slebrity, going from party to party, enjoying compliments on your looks. You are your own boss and decide yourself how and when you'll spend your REAL time in this virtual world. You may suddenly be a cat, a tiny, switch gender, be a part of a role play. Here you are who you always wanted to be, so aren't you more real in SL than RL?

For www.sluncover.com

You've read it in Uncover: Explore by Maryna Wind (pp.134-139)

Do you remember your first teleport?
I do...
It was my third day in SL. I was still walking around help island, bothering mentors with questions and making friends. It was peaceful, friendly and even a nude griefer at the local sandbox couldn’t spoil that. My friends and I knew every inch of the island from the northern sim border to the southern, from west to east. It felt safe. Everything was cozy and we talked about the Mainland as if it were a legend, another dimension, an afterlife. We decided that we wanted to stay on help island as long as possible, because we knew there would be no turning back once we left.
Suddenly, though...Black Screen... Teleporting scroll line... Some-thing happened (well, not something, it was a SL glitch) and all new residents from help island appeared at the place in the middle of nowhere! We had been driven out of paradise... shocked, disori-ented, lost children not knowing what to do or where to go.
“Where are we?” Overcome with childish curiosty.. “Let’s explore”! We went flying around a big forest, waterfalls, mountains and lakes. It was really amazing. At that time, the viewer didn’t register your teleports and I was too distracted by events to create a landmark. I was never able to find that place again. And I am still searching...
Since then, I’ve made thousands of teleports, none have been as exciting as that first one, but there are still many places in SL that amaze me. Each day I discover new places and it seems like the longest journey ever. At times I have to be fast, as many places disappear in a split second.
Most of the time we are busy, but if you decide to ‘take a day off’ and enjoy the spirit of exploration again, please, consider my helpful tips:

“In-world” possibilities:
*First of all, you can use the built-in search (ctrl/cmd+F). I like the Showcase tab, which is also available on the official SL website. Showcase is the Fashion, Music and Arts Guide to SL. Residents submit their locations to Linden Lab and, if the business/location meets certain criteria, they are included in Showcase. The places you’ll find there are well known and you may also have seen pictures of them on Flickr, as well as in many SL magazines. For me, Show-case listings are only a starting point. If you would like to discover a real jewel, you need to dig deeper.
* Ask your friends. We often take for granted what we know, so your friends might not even be aware that you’ve never heard of their favourite “OMG!” place.
* Inspect people and objects, use profile picks to find more unusual places. How do you inspect an object? Right Click>More>More>Inspect and you see information about the crea-tor and owner of the object. Then, using resident profile picks, you might find a great new place.
*For fashion finds and some fun, I use the FashCon HUD. Use the Tour Bus option and every five minutes you’ll get a landmark to a shop owned by a designer in the Fashion Consolidated Group. Sometimes five minutes may seem too long, but other times you may want to stop the tour to enjoy a really good look around. You can obtain the FashCon HUD from any shop with a FashCon kiosk.

How to make a SLURL in-world:
*Open the map (ctrl+M) and click copy to clipboard. You may also use this option when inspecting a landmark (right click -About Landmark from the inventory). Instead of clicking Teleport, click Show on Map and when it shows a destination then click copy to clipboard. Now you can paste the SLURL to a notecard, email or wherever.

“Out of world” possibilities:
*You may browse some Flickr groups:
SL Tourist Board (SLURL in descriptions) http://www.flickr.com/groups/sl_touristboard/
Favorite SL places http://www.flickr.com/groups/835535@N25/
*You may visit some websites:
SL Buzz: snapshots with slurls http://snapshots.slbuzz.com/
BlogHUD: snapshots and blogging with slurls http://bloghud.com/
Snapzilla: snapshots with slurls http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/
By sending an in-world postcard (snapshot) to the email of a website, it automatically sends a slurl with the picture. Easy isn’t it?

How to make a slurl “out of world”:
*Go to http://slurl.com/build.php and build your own slurl.
Basically slurl includes: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ part +Region name + its X coordinate+ its Y coordinate+ its Z coordinate (use %20 instead of space in the Region name).

How to set up an SL identity

Strictly speaking, this identity would not be connected to SL anymore, but to metaverse.
1. First of all you need an e-mail to register on secondlife.com;
2. You have your SL account, congratulations!
3. If you sell lindens you may want to get them on your rl account, then you need a paypal account, e-mail as login;
4. If you sell SL goods, you probably need an XStreetSL.com account, here you need your SL name as login;
5. If you want to share your pics you may need Flickr.com account (Yahoo! service);
6. If you want to share you pics via BlogHud.com you need an account there too. Luckily here they ask your SL name as login, but first you need to buy a HUD;
7. If you want to blog, you may choose between Blogspot.com (Google service) and Wordpress.com;
8. If you want to socialize you may want to register on plurk.com . One account plus :)  and you may plurk to Twitter, Facebook and some other networks... oh and there is a HUD to plurk from in-world too;
9. If you want to socialize but prefer Twitter.com, that is also a possibility to expand your list with accounts;
10. Don't forget SL social networks such as Avatrait.com (art) and SecondLifeBloggers.ning.com based on Ning.com platform;
11. If you want to keep a bit of overview of all your accounts, you maybe need one extra account on MyBlogLog.com (Yahoo! service);
12. SLuniverse.com is also a comminuty platform with forum, pics, ads and more.
13. I am not finished....
....
36. Facebook.com
37. Google Talk
38. Yahoo Messanger
39. MSN
40. LinkedIn.com
....
67. issuu.com (publish platform)
68. calameo.com (publish platform)
...
98. YouTube.com
99. Last.fm
...
and on
and on

Tips:
* first choose your sl name
* make an email that mirrors the name
* register on secondlife.com
* try to keep your accounts consistent accross networks.
* too many blogs and posts to handle? check this tutorial email2blog

Questions:
a) which activity do you prefer? Doing business, to blog, sl photography, socialize, explore?
b) which platform seems better to you: yahoo or google?
c) Do you need all those accounts?

Tutorial: email2blog

1. How to post your picture on flickr using email2blog function?
Go to your account and choose Email (see pic.1). There are two emails, your upload email and you blog email.
If you send a picture to Your Flickr upload email it will appear on your photostream.

2. How to blog from flickr using email2blog function?
Go to your account and choose Extending flickr, edit Your blogs (see pic).
Now if you send an email to Your blog upload email, it will be automatically posted on your blog. However, if there is no picture attached, it won't work (you may read more about it here)

3. How to post on WordPress using email2blog function?
Basically, WordPress doesn't allow this. But using flickr blog upload email, you can still do this ;) (see pic.2)

4. How to post on Blogger using email2blog function?
Blogger allows this function and calls it Mail2Blogger.
Go to Settings-Email and set up your Email posting Address, choose if you want to publish posts immediately or as drafts. (see pic. 3)

That's pretty it.
So now if you congigured your email2blog function, you can create a mailing list and send your pictures and/or posts to all blogs you manage.

This post was published using email2blog function.
Posted to:
http://slmaryna.blogspot.com
http://slfashionfruit.blogpost.com

How to change your outfit very quick

*Tip: how to change your outfit very quick.
Go to your inventory (ctrl+I) and first wear underlayers of an outfit you want to wear (for example undershirt, underpants), then the rest (top, jacket, pants). This way you assure that you won't be nude.You may choose all system layers at once and right click Wear. It won't work on prims, those you have to attach each apart. Next, you have to be sure that all previous clothing is out. To take it off fast, you right click on a folder of the outfit you want to take off and click Take Off. This way all clothing and attachments are gone. That's why it is very handy to put each outfit in a separate folder. Don't forget to rebake (ctrl+alt+R) and you are ready.

*Extra tip (update July 17, 2009): When all parts of an outfit are in the same folder, you can right click and choose Add to outfit: this way you wear all system layers and attach all prims at once.

Advanced menu

In one of my posts I listed some nice features of advanced menu (ctrl+alt+shift+D). Here I continue talking about them.

*Debug settings...Choose and you'll see such a window


What can you do with it? A lot. I don't know all features, you may discover them for yourself. I tell you about one I was searching for a long time. I hate when my avi types in air, sometimes I use animation overrider to prevent this, but not every ao is so handy. To solve the problem forever, choose from a long list PlayTypingAnim and set it on FALSE. You're done. No typing in air anymore.



I also changed RotationStep from 1 to 5, it helps me rotate vendors faster. If you have discovered other helpful things, post it in comments.

Credits: Thanks hotmama Moonbean and Bearacb Darkstone for enlightening

*View admin options (Ctrl+Alt+V) You can't send a teleport to someone who is not on your friend list? Choose view admin options, reopen his/her profile. The teleport button is available now.