Microsoft OS X and Apple Windows?

Linden Lab releases it’s own ‘after-market’ viewer, which I find funny, especially since I had just run the gambit on after-market viewers for Second Life Grid in my most previous post. Now in addition to the “official” Second Life viewer from Linden Lab (LL), said company releases another viewer in parallel to it.

Yes, I mean in parallel. This isn’t like MS Windows “Home” versus “Professional” or “Final Cut Express” versus “Final Cut Pro” where there is a ‘lesser’ and ‘greater’ of the exact same thing, but rather a completely different thing that accomplishes the same tasks. Think Microsoft Windows versus Apple OS X. Both are Operating systems upon which is the main user-facing interface for interacting with a computer. Both accomplish the same thing: managing the computer resources itself and allowing other productivity or entertainment applications to operate on top of it.

It’s the same with a “Grid Viewer”: they accomplish the same thing by providing a means to access a Second Life Grid and handle all the grid-level work. Like Operating Systems (OS), there are many Grid Viewers; MS Windows, Apple OS X, (many variations of) Linux; Unix; Xenix (yes, it’s still used) and so on. Also there are many iterations of grid viewers including the “official” Linden Lab viewer, Nicholaz (defunct), SL Cool, Gemini, Emerald, Meerkat, Imprudence… the list goes on.

Slop Cleans-up Good

If you go through the history of Common Sensible, you’ll see I was rather vicious toward the ‘idiots’ and whiners and detractors of practically all things “Linden” (and likewise toward Linden regarding the alphabet letters “S” and “L” and ‘copyright’.) What fond memories of how ridiculous those idiots really did sound as I went backward a year, digging into the old Second Life blog to find the original announcement for the “Showcase” search function, posted by Jeska Linden (for the purpose of linking to it from here.)

A quick scan through the talk-backs made me laugh as hard now as I did back then. Well, I’ve ‘chilled’ a bit since then. However, there still are a lot of people that let nonsense or paranoid “it might happen” scenarios get the better of them. They become spastic and shrill over nothing. The Ursula continent and “Adult Rating” thing comes to mind.

As for all you detractors of the idea of a “Showcase” replacing the “Popular Places” in SL search: have you tried it, yet? I know, I know, it’s about all those other wonderful destinations that won’t make the Showcase. But in truth, must I have to sift through mountains of free sex playgrounds and horrible slow-rez builds to have to find one awesome place? That was the case in the “popular places” listing.

Thank goodness for Luc Aubret’s new Te.leport.me HUD! That thing is a Godsend – if it’s used by the wearers appropriately and when it gains good population, it also can act as a good way to find the best of Second life.

Second Life: Torley Tules

Torley sez:
“And since I’m Resident Enlightenment Manager, guess who’s job it is to spread the word, so that you’re Enlightened and aware of this awesomeness?” 

Okay, I don’t care. Still going to refer to him as our wantermelonie, fun-loving, I-want-what-you’re-smokin’-funguy. And, he’s popped-up a new blog entry that is not related to tutorials, but rather some highly-useful, kick@$$ tools to help you deal with Second Life in a lot more funner way.

Absolutely awesome tools that you might want to take a gander at, even if you’re an SL oldbie: A great Second Life cheat-sheet. You know, one of those reference sheets that provides a quick reference to keyboard shortcuts like you see that come with high-end, over-priced software like Adobe Photoshop.

Also, some highly useful Avatar UV Mapping information, for all you clothing and skin creators out there. A very nice learn-it-as-easily-as-possible resource.

And, for all you YouTube.com fanatics, a way to pop youtube.com videos onto your parcel of land, though Torley had covered this in a video tutorial a while ago. It’s great little refresher.

So, pop over to the SL blog (link above) and take a look at the entry. These are definite bookmark destinations.

Getting Started is Half the Battle

Top-Secret Torley Picture

We all know this. All those to-do things that need to get done. Whether it is a pet project, a mundane task or even a dreaded chore.

Getting started is the hardest part of the task.

Though once we get things going, we end-up ‘on a roll’ and it gets done. The same is true when it comes to learning. Anything.

The first task is to jump-in and get started.

This is can be a difficult duty as time is crunched for most of us. Life (both First and Second) simply moves too fast. It’s a matter of taking the time to crack-open the book, or wiki web page or notecard for that matter and take the time to read.

Chat Logs in Second Life: for Voice?

Unfortunately, there are those who, if they don’t like something, would rather have it entirely removed and not available for anyone, even if it’s no bother to them for simply not using it or ignoring it. A classic examples of this can easily be found in the archives of the Second Life blog.

When voicing capabilities were announced, introduced and at practically any other time voice was mentioned in the blog, the “voice haters’ would come crawling out of the woodwork ranting and making laughable claims, such as how “voice in SL is a failure” and “no one used voice” and “99% of all SL users hate it, remove it!”