Charlene Trudeau

Parrish Ashbourne wrote: Looking at the new categories for Structures, I like the idea of more categories, but I think they could be done with less layer, many of the new categories add a layer for just 2 choices, there is room just to list them all at one time in many cases. The main list of categories is one that doesn't have a lot of room to play with but there are a few changes there that I think would help. Move "Everything Else" in to the "Miscellaneous " category. The category for "XstreetXL" can go soon to make more room. Combine Mainland and Private Islands in to a single land Category Land Mainland Parcel sales Mainland Rentals Island Transfers Full Island Rentals Homestead Rentals Island Parcel Residential Rentals Island Parcel Commercial Rentals That should make room to move Structures out of building component, and may be change the name to Finished Structures Finished Structures Commercial/Office Buildings Commercial/Bars & Restaurants Residential/Single Family Houses Residential/Multi Family Buildings Off Sim Builds Multi-purpose Structures Other Structures Photography Studios (102) Castles ( 3475) Lighthouses (394) Bridges/Docks/Walkways Gazebo (4465) For residential houses I think that foot print size might be better then family size to split the category. Thought I'd throw this out there to get the ball rolling, just some quick ideas I had, I'm sure there's room for improvement. Without a doubt the best layering of Land I can imagine. The current structure of looking under 'private islands' for land when that term for estate land is hopelessly out of date has to be confusing for new residents. 'Land' is what they are going to instinctively look for and I would suggest using 'estate' or 'private estate' instead of 'island'. Many of us sell continental style land parcels that have little bearing to an 'island' and the term is terribly misleading. I otherwise strongly advocate the Land as the top category level for both mainland and estate. For 'Finished Structures', I would suggest 'Buildings' or maybe 'Buildings - Finished'. I realize sub-categories might include things like a bridge that might or might not be considered a building, hence your choice of words, but 'Finished Structures' isn't the first thing I'd be looking for down the side, but buildings would be.... and I'd probably look in Home and Garden for small bridges as to me that would be a garden accessory not a building. I might even go so far as to say Furniture & Home Accessories as an upper category with Landscaping & Garden as another. The Home & Garden category is HUGE.

I try really hard not to rabble rouse or trash SL, the viewer or Linden Labs, but every now and then something happens I just can't live with and I'm forced to express my dissatisfaction. Today, after installing the latest of the daily snowstorm viewers, I encountered unacceptable behavior forcing me to uninstall and reinstall to an earlier viewer of this dev viewer. Ok, I expect problems in the dev viewer, I really do. So uninstalling and reinstalling was NOT a problem. However, I watched in horror as the program proceeded to delete my chat logs as part of the uninstall. All my chat logs. All my chat logs carefully copied from hard drive to hard drive over YEARS so that I always looked like I knew who I was talking to, what we'd discussed last and could continue on like they were the only focus of my SL universe. And now I'm here, carefully restoring from my last system backup and will have to suffer the Alzheimer's short term memory loss with all the current people that I should be right on top of. I'll look stupid, I'll feel stupid and I have to believe this is improper behavior for any program to delete associated files that were asked to be saved. This would be like uninstalling photoshop and having every image file on my hard drive wiped. Needless to say, I am NOT happy. I'm not the only one not happy. Please see: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-280 If you agree this is unacceptable behavior please vote and watch this JIRA for action. 'Minor' priority my...... . Sincerely, Charlene Trudeau Owner, SkyBeam Estates

As a long time rider in SL, I much prefer the wearable horses to 'vehicle' horses. They don't invoke the same physics hit. I'm partial to Branagh's Barn horses but don't know if she has a vendor such as you'd like to see. I do know some of the other wearable horses that are NOT breedable stuff do have vendors as I have, in the past, had at least two different such demo vendors on my own regions.

"One problem I guess is people may have to declare their incomes for tax if they have a Premium account........................." If they are cashing out income in the US, they should be declaring the income regardless of premium or non-premium. I'm sure many don't. I have since day one as the last thing I want is some future headache with the IRS over a few grand a year and a lot less than that in terms of tax dollars owed. To the best of my knowledge, there is no more or less reporting to the IRS by LL or anyone else based on the premium status. In general, those that qualify for concierge status via private islands simply don't pay premium because they pay enough in other payments to qualify for support. I pay premium because I always have, not because I need it. It gives me the ability to see things that develop like Linden Homes, which as a non-premium I would have had to have the experience related to me via third party. Once experienced, I knew it was a zero threat to private estate residency levels, and possibly a great way to teach people that private estate is awesome by comparison. LOL. Third party experience is never as good as first hand knowledge... Which brings us back to third party support.... nuff said. Charlene Trudeau, SkyBeam Estates

:"I've worked in support for many years and you guys are doing it all wrong lately, with a niche product like you have, you need inhouse support, I don't care how appealing the finance manager sells third party support, it is not suitable for a platform like this." Third party support simply won't work for SL. If you don't live and breathe SL daily, you just can't assist with many of the problems. For concierge level residents, our Live Chat options should also be escalated directly to someone with concierge level knowledge. I can't begin to tell you how frustrated I get when I am dealing with someone with far less experience with SL than I have (Aug 2005) and who cannot understand what I am telling them when I know someone like Dee Linden or Charlene Linden (or any of the concierge level Lindens who we lost with the overseas shutdowns... a decision I *do* understand, even if I miss them terribly). Outsourcing tech support for Dell lost me as a client also, for the same reasons. I worked as a sys admin for 12 years. Calling some shmo in India with a book he follows to troubleshoot things was horrible. I"d have already done the first 20 troubleshooting steps and still be forced to go through them one by one until we exhausted his repertoire and I could get bumped up the line to someone who could get beyond the basics and either find a solution or do what I knew would happen to begin with: replace part x, y or z. One would think that if SL is trying to follow the *successes* of other tech outfits, they would have studied and learned from how horrible a failure many if not most outsourcing of customer support has been, and figured out how to make a cost effective, well-structured support system. Need 'Ontyne's'? Make sure the people most likely to ask 'how do I attach my shoes' go to them. But make sure the folks who need a higher level of support can get to it and reach people who know SL. Really know it. Charlene Trudeau, SkyBeam Estates

"And while not a *direct* renter of of land from Linden I do pay a lot of USD a month to private region owners. (And storeowners when I shop)" I hope your estate owner is as responsive to assisting you directly as they should be. I consider it, right or wrong, to be part of my job to take over for LL on customer service to the extent that I can, even filing tickets on behalf of my customers, or being a go-between on live chat, when needed to resolve issues. They won't always help through a third party, but I at least try to intervene whenever the regular system fails a basic level member. In the end, what we really pay for when we are premium *is* the support. The stipend and 512m2 of land is mostly irrelevant. Perhaps LL should consider a new support only membership fee, that is less per month and does not include a stipend or land allowance. Charlene Trudeau, SkyBeam Estates