Kobuk Farshore

LOL Ceka! I'll enter mine if Charolotte submits hers. Charolotte Caxton wrote: Cool, I save all mine in case that shot I was trying to take crashes me. I was not trying to take this one : Her viewer out-strips mine in its creativity, I think.

I'm not sure if I can take credit for my viewer's random artsy streak, but thank you so much, Marigold. :} I think I would be muffling laughter if a log-out screenshot was SL's Flickr pic of the day...

Have you ever tried attending classes at Builder's Brewery, Pammymy? I know they're not one-on-one lessons, but they have some really good stuff for beginners and more experienced builders alike. You can drop in to any class, and attend the same class over again as many times as you wish. When I was first learning, the teachers there were incredibly helpful and some would stay long after class was finished until every student had had their questions answered (or we'd go completely off-track and learn soemthing else!) Also, if I ever got lost it was easy enough to IM someone sitting next to me and ask for help.

Haha. I think I was logging after a hug, but it's equally possible that I was crashing due to over-exposure to windlight.

You make even the simple act of logging off look hot, Ceka. :smileyvery-happy: My last screen is actually kinda pretty, if you ignore the fact my friend and I look like we're one person with three legs...

Snowgazing.

Is there a noticable performance leap between the i7 9xx and the 2nd gen i7s though?

She was debating either. Ceka Cianci wrote: as much work as it looks like in getting a desktop together i may just go and get the ASUS or MSI ..i seen where i can hook up 3 monitors to the MSI..so if i want to use my monitor or get a couple more.i can do that.. plus still have mobility of taking my system where i want to go..

Leliel, please start mass-producing laptops, then.

Okay, I'm glad I'm not the only one who looks up laptop reviews on YouTube. That MSI does look really sweet-- I think the only thing that impressed me more about this Sager NP7282 is that for the same base-model price it has an i7 3.2GHz -3.46GHz processor. (nevermind, I realized why!) I don't think the Sager can take triple external monitors like the MSI though, and I'm completely curious to see you post a photo of your laptop set up like that! ETA: The MSI is looking like the better computer. :}

Ceka: I totally agree, technology reviews more than a year old should be relegated to some dark dusty 20th page of Google searches, lol. As for desktop vs laptop, I think gaming laptops are really just "slightly more portable desktop alternatives" and I doubt I'll be carrying my brick around much other than to get on a plane. A 27" monitor will be something else I need to buy. :} Leyna: :smileyvery-happy: No worries, I'm the same way with telling people how wonderful Macs are. I don't think I'd heard of XoticPC before but they do have impressive reviews, so I'm really glad you posted. Decent customer service is also a huge plus since I live in northern Alaska and don't have the option of finding a walk-in place to build my computer. I was fairly anxious about that with Alienware.

Leyna, thank you so much for posting this! I think you just helped me find my laptop. :} The Sager NP7282 looks amazing and is actually cheaper with better specs than the Alienware I was looking at. Plus, I was reading some iffy reviews about Dell customer service, and that it was taking 6 weeks for people to get their machines. Yay!

We're looking for the same thing, Ceka, except I want it in laptop form. :smileyhappy: I would get an Asus or Battalion if I could customize one online better, but so far Alienware has most powerful choice of componants I want with the least hassle. I'd love to hear what you decide on!

:smileyembarrassed: Thank you both for the lovely comments. I do see SL as sort of the world we all wished for as kids; with the ability to morph from being mermaids to astronauts at whim while in the middle of a shopping mall, without anyone batting an eyelash. Everyone needs more fairytales. :}

Did you used to be able to see shadows before you installed the new viewer, Garey? Also, just in case you're using a Mac: a lot of Macs with ATI cards (and even some NVidia) won't show shadows in SL. :smileysad:

Lovely snug-winter pictures, Valerie. You look pretty cosy falling asleep in that fluffy sweater. :}

I especially love the first picture you posted, Jo; the light in his eyes is sort of haunting. I'm not the greatest Photoshopper, but I attempted a faded-photograph look recently. My faun avi looking a bit sulky at doing menial labour. :smileywink: This was taken at Carriage Trade sims while we were practicing for an RP coronation parade. I'm one of the black guard unicorns. :}

I'm not that tech-savvy so anything I say may be completely incorrect, but if you're still having issues after you've made sure you're ATI 9200 driver is the most current, there was a post on the NVidia forums where someone upgrading their machine to Windows 7 couldn't install Radeon drivers. You have an NForce3 chipset and apparently that isn't officially supported under Windows 7. Hopefully someone cleverer here than I can help you get SL working again, Solerossa. It's frustrating not to be able to get inworld, but good luck! :}

Nalates Urriah wrote: If you want to get into the gory details of what to look for in a new computer or to upgrade: How To get a Faster Second Life. Or win the lottery and ignore all the details. My goal is to one day be rich and clever. :} This is a brilliant article, Natales; some well-written info for those of us not so tech-minded. Also, this made me flinch and laugh at once: "The interesting calculation would be to divide the cost of the hardware by the FPS rate to see how much each FPS costs."

I'm not a PC person, but a couple of people in this thread suggested I maybe steer clear of ATI cards, which the laptop you linked to has. If you do end up getting this machine I'd be interested to hear the outcome though.

I still feel like I missed out completely on my SL youth. I'm very much a "Let's click it and see what happens!" sort of n00b rather than a studious, "Yes I'd love to read all these tutorial boxes," kind, so the first thing I clicked was Search. I TPed to the Lesbian Teahouse and met an elegant, gorgeous woman there who whisked me away and gave me a makeover. Hooray! She probably spent 3k on me (Bax boots?!) but I had no idea that SL money translated to real. I thought it was all just virtual, like how I used to use the money cheat in Sims to get billions of simoleons and buy the uber-ultra kitchen appliances. :smileyvery-happy: She gave me about 1k inventory of trans clothes she didn't wear anymore (not freebies), and took me out to buy jewelry and fun HUDS. Within a week she was teaching me basic building, how to sail, and all these tricky strange things I had no real concept of, like how to find chat-loggers. I wasn't the most focused student since all I really wanted to do was go explore on my own, but at the same time it was all pretty interesting... and did I mention she was hot? :} She asked me to partner her on about my 8th day in SL, and again-- I wasn't taking things very seriously (still thinking Sims, lol) so I said sure. I also let a friend turn me into a vampire the same day just for fun, and it led to my divorce. :smileywink: Crash-course in SL if ever there was one!

Pussycat Catnap wrote: There's no good way to put this and I don't mean to offend, but - you're not a target with a blond caucasian avatar, assuming your forum pic is a match for your inworld look. So you might not ever see it. And even observing it happening to others is not the same as seeing it happen to onseself or family. I understand, but one of my two partners in SL is latino both RL and in SL. We also happen to both be female, so of course I'm aware of prejudice in both worlds. I do, however, experience much less of it in SL than in RL. There are idiots in SL who will harass people for anything-- call me optimistic or undramatic, but I'd rather just TP away, AR them, get any witnesses to AR them, and get on with what I come to SL for, which is to have fun.

Emil Praga wrote: anyway be sure it is a GTX and not a GT or GTS, its a big difference, GTX brand is the Top of Nividia cards Something else I didn't know, thanks Emil. My Macbook Pro has a GT 330M, so maybe it's a wonder I can run SL on it at all. :}

Wow, Asus are certainly cheaper than Alienware. But having just scoured Newegg and about eight other reseller sites listed on Asus's website, I don't see any of their 17" laptops with higher specs than a 2.2Ghz or 560 NVidia. I realize having a 2.5 i7 with 580 graphics card may not show a massive boost in performance, but... dammit, I like being able to choose what goes into my machine. We do already have two 27" Apple cinema displays at my house, so I'm sure I can find a home for a PC monitor-- though it may get the odd glare of disapproval. :} Cooling pad, check. Dual graphics cards... possibly not worth the price-jump for what I'll be using the laptop for then. You're a wealth of knowledge, WS, thanks!

This saddens me to hear, because I've always found the majority of SLers to be entirely accepting of diversity. The very nature of a virtual world is that we can be anything we choose, so why someone would grief another avatar for the ethnicity/gender/species they happen to have their pixels arranged as that morning baffles me. I agree with Ceka though, just tell your friends to send Abuse Reports as soon as a situation like this occurs, and go on your way.