Ayana Auer

Hi, yes there is. There are many settings available in the Second Life® Viewer's Preferences window and changing them may impact your Resident experience. Click the link to learn more about preference settings for the Second Life viewer. CLICK HERE CLICK HERE to download the Second Life Quickstart Guide! For others wondering how to get to the Preferences window: To open the Preferences window, press Ctrl+P on your keyboard after logging in, or select Edit > Preferences from the menus at the top of the Second Life window. If you have more questions about a particular setting, feel free to come back here and ask

Body Parts (Hair, eyes, skin and body shape) are a special type of inventory item that define some aspect of how your avatar looks. You can create them while editing your Appearance, or buy them from another Resident. You can use a Body Part to change your appearance simply by dragging it from your inventory onto your avatar, or double-clicking it in your Inventory.

Land that is owned by a valid account is not abandoned even if it appears to be unused. If you are able to find the Resident's name in Search, there is a good chance that the land is not abandoned. Please bear in mind that many Residents have annual accounts and it may take many months for the account status to change even if they have chosen to leave or use another account. Land will not be reclaimed simply due to inactivity. To abandon your land: Right-click on the land you own and select About Land. The About Land window opens. In the General tab of the About Land window, click Abandon Land. When land is abandoned: Ownership of abandoned land reverts immediately to Governor Linden and changes its name to "Abandoned Land", at which point it enters a queue for processing. The Land Team processes abandoned land by cleaning it of objects and generally making it ready to sell. They then decide whether it should be sold at auction, made into protected land, or sold to a neighboring Resident. The KB article about this topic is here.https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=4570

Second Life® account names are created by inventing a first name, and selecting a last name from a list. These names cycle in and out of usages as residents choose them. This creates a good variety of in-world names, gives residents some identity through the rarity of their last name, and most importantly, allows residents to use common first names (there's always a good chance you can be "Dave" Someone), thus avoiding the awkward names on some other services (like "dave298374") that can remove some of the individuality of the world. There are some special circumstances where you might be able to get a custom or vanity name. Read more about that HERE.

Your Home location can be a center point of your Second Life experience. You can choose to always log in at your Home location. You can always teleport straight to your Home location by opening the World menu and selecting Teleport Home. Most of all, if you happen to wander (or intentionally march) into a damage-enabled area and are killed, death instantly teleports you back to your Home location (thankfully, none the worse for the experience). To set Home, go to the World menu and select Set Home To Here. There are three types of land you can set Home to: 1) Land you own. 2) Land owned by a group you belong to. You may have to activate the group to set Home there. The land must be deeded to the group, not just "set" to the group. 3) Mainland Infohubs.

No, they cannot check your friends account or give you the account information. That would violate the terms of the Privacy Policy. However, here are some links you or your friend might find useful: Befrienders maintains an extensive list of suicide-prevention hotlines organized by country. Befrienders is itself a worldwide volunteer-based organization that, in its own words, works to "provide help to those in need of emotional support, in order to reduce the number of people who die by suicide, and enable people to explore their feelings in an anonymous, confidential and non-judgmental environment." RE: the second question: Maybe they could notify your friends if you died. Linden Lab can only act on instructions that are part of a legally-recognized document such as a valid will. You would have to specify in your will that you want this action performed, and they would need a copy of the will and whatever other verifying documents they deem necessary.

The active group you belong to determines the title in front of your avatar's name. While you can belong to a maximum of 25 groups at any one time, you can only have one group active at a time. Which group you have active can influence certain events in world, such as whether you can enter group-restricted land, or whether a scripted object recognizes you as a group member. Often, you may want to change active groups in order to change the title that appears in front of your name, just over your avatar's head. How to change your active group Select Edit > Groups from the menus at the top of the Second Life window. Click on the name of the group you wish to make active. You'll be using the title that group has given you. Click the Activate button. When the group name changes to bold, click Close. Alternately, if you don't want a title right now, click none, click Activate, then click Close. Of course, if your groups don't have a title you like, you can ask the group founder or an officer to change the group titles. How to change your role title within a group Each group role within a group can have its own unique title. If your belong to more than one role in the same group, you can switch your active title within the group: Select Edit > Groups from the menus at the top of the Second Life window. Click the name of your active group. Click the Info button. Near the bottom right of the Group Information window is a dropdown box called My Active Title. Click the box to select your active title from your available titles in that group. Click OK to close the Group Information Window.

Your Second Life account is stored on Linden Lab servers. This includes your inworld inventory, the Friends you've made, and certain preferences -- such as your IM-to-email setting. This means that as long as a computer meets the System Requirements, you should be able to download the latest Second Life viewer, free of charge, and log in from another location. Some settings, such as your chat logs and most preferences, are stored locally, which means if you're on a different computer and haven't ported your settings (such as on a USB flash drive) with you, you'll be using the settings local to that computer, not your "home" one. Remember to exercise proper precautions to protect your account, and don't give out your password; share your account at your own risk!

Yes. There are three forms of disclosure that violate the Second Life Terms of Service. Violation of the disclosure policy will result in a warning, ban, or suspension from Second Life. The three types of disclosure that are not allowed in Second Life are: Disclosure: First Life This form of disclosure is defined as sharing personal information about a fellow Resident -- including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, and real-world location -– beyond what is provided by in their First Life page of their Resident profile. Disclosure of something that no reasonable person would believe ("Daniel Linden is from Mars") isn't a violation. Disclosure: Remote Monitoring Remotely monitoring inworld conversations without the knowledge or consent of all parties involved is a violation of the Terms of Service. If you feel recording a conversation is necessary, we recommend that you post a clearly visible sign in the recording location so that all Residents who enter can see it. Please note: the abuse team will need to determine if sufficient information was provided to the Residents who are being recorded. We recommend that you proceed with caution, provide documentation on your efforts to inform all parties they are being monitored, and find a secure area before recording begins. Disclosure: Second Life Sharing or posting a conversation inworld or in the Second Life Forums without consent of all involved Residents is a violation of the Terms of Service. Please note: this does not include posting of chat to MySpace, or external websites; those things might be illegal in real life, but those laws must be enforced by the proper real life enforcement agencies. "Conversation" means text that originally came from Second Life chat or Second Life instant messages. If it's totally unattributed, then it isn't considered disclosure. Additionally, Residents are not punished for sharing or posting a comment such as "Bob Resident said, 'You're the greatest!'"

Every parcel of land in Second Life can support a limited number of primitive objects, or "prims". The number of prims a parcel supports is directly related to its size; larger parcels are capable of supporting more prims. Under certain conditions, it is possible to increase the number of supported objects on a parcel: Simulator primitive usageIf you own more than one parcel in a Region, the prim allowance of those parcels becomes a unified pool. For instance: If you own one parcel that supports 117 prims, and another parcel in the same Region that supports 33 prims, you have a total allowance of 150 prims on your land in that Region. If you wanted to, you could place all 150 prims on the parcel that initially only supported 33! Tip: If you did put all 150 prims on the smaller parcel, you would not be allowed to place any on the larger parcel (including trees and plants!) It is wise to distribute your total allowance carefully. Note: This technique only works within a single Region; if you own parcels in more than one Region, you will not be able to share prim resources between them. Object Bonus (Private Regions only)If you are the owner or Estate Manager of a Private Region, you can set a global Object Bonus for all parcels in the Region. You may want to do this if you plan on building heavily in small parcels while leaving large areas of your Region empty. To change your Region's Object Bonus: Select World > Region/Estate from the top menu bar. Make sure you are on the Region tab of the Region/Estate window. Set an Object Bonus multiplier, and click Apply. Example: One regular region holds 15,000 prims. If you divide it into two equal parcels, each parcel will show it can hold 7,500. If you set the object bonus to 2.0, each parcel will show it can hold 15,000 prims. The region will not be able to hold 30,000 prims! In order for one of the parcels to actually hold 15,000, one parcel must be kept empty. The bonus for the other parcel is the prims not being used on the empty parcel. Caution: A Region can only support 15,000 prims and an Open Space can hold 3,750 prims. (an Object Bonus setting of 1.0) The Object Bonus setting does not increase the total number of prims the Region supports; if the total number of prim in the region exceeds 15,000, no new objects will be allowed to rez, regardless of a local parcel's limits. More:Paraphrased from the inworld information button for Object Bonus: The Object Bonus is a multiplier for primitives allowed on any given parcel, and may have a value between 1.0 and 10.0. Set at 1.0, each 512m2 parcel is allowed 117 objects. Set at 2.0, each 512m2 parcel is allowed 234, or twice as many, and so on. The max number of prim allowed per region remains 15,000 no matter what the Object Bonus is. Once set, be aware that lowering the Object Bonus may cause objects to be returned or deleted. The default setting for Object Bonus is 1.0.

Open a notecard you own or create a new notecard. Make sure the item you wish to attach is fully permissive. The next owner permissions must allow copy, modify, and transfer. Drag the item from your Inventory window onto the notecard window. You can drop in any kind of inventory item, excluding calling cards. The item appears as a hyperlink in the notecard. You've done it! If Second Life does not allow you to drop the item into your notecard, make sure to check the permissions on the object. If applicable, also check the permissions on any inventory items contained inside the object. A notecard will only accept fully permissive attachments, so it is not a good idea to attach anything you do not want other people to copy.

Gestures allow your avatar to perform a variety of animations, sounds, or other actions automatically as you chat. You can trigger gestures with pre-defined function keys, or make them automatically play when you say a specific word or phrase in conversation. If you don't know how to perform a gesture you already have, you can easily find out. View your Inventory and open the Gestures folder. Right-click the appropriate gesture and choose Open. Look at the entry for Trigger. The gesture plays whenever it encounters this text in chat. Or, look at the Shortcut Key. You can press this key (or key combination) any time in or out of chat to perform this gesture. A note on gesture performance Second Life currently performs the first gesture it finds in chat. If you place a later gesture in the same chat line, it is not read as a gesture. You can often use this to your advantage; for example, if you're trying to tell someone how to bow: You type: Just type /bow You say: Just type <avatar bows> You type: /bow Just type /bow You say: Just type /bow <avatar bows>

Combat regions are regions or parcels of land where the owner has disabled the safe setting. This setting is found in the Options tab of the About Land window. Whenever you enter one of these parcels, a heart indicator will appear in your top menu bar, along with a percent meter indicating your current health: You can take damage from scripted objects that have been set to do damage, or by hitting something at extremely high speed, including falling! Don't worry, though- If your health reaches 0%, you'll be teleported safely to your home location. Linden Lab has public combat sandboxes on both the Main Grid and Teen Grid. Click the Map button and search for "combat". Teens may search for one of the regions below: Teen Grid No Mans Land Concord Lexington Main Grid Combat (sandbox) Rausch Combat (sandbox) - Blue Team's HQ Combat (sandbox) - Red Team's HQ

There are several ways you can transfer objects from your Inventory to another Resident. Residents do not need to be on your friends list; however, the object does need to have transfer permissions. Profile You can send items to any Resident in Second Life®. They don't have to be on your Friends list, but it does make it easier. You can access someone's profile several ways: Right-click on someone in front of you and choose Profile Use the Search window's People tab to look up their name Once a profile is open, find the Give item field that says "Drop inventory item here" at the bottom of the Profile window. Click-and-drag an item from your Inventory to their profile. The cursor changes to an arrow with a plus. Let go of the mouse button when you're ready. You can also do this with a Resident who's not online, in which case it says "User not online - inventory has been saved." Resident-to-Resident If you're within view of the other Resident, drag the object from your Inventory onto the avatar or the avatar's name tag. Caution: Using this method of object transfer could result in you dropping the object on the wrong avatar, especially in crowded areas. This method always leaves potential to drag your object and miss the intended avatar, putting your object into inworld content IM Beginning with Second Life viewer version 1.21, it is possible to transfer inventory using an IM window. Drag the object from inventory into the open IM chat bar. When attempting to drag a folder to IM chat, a "NO" symbol appears. It is possible to drag single items to IM chat.This option is not available for group chat.Received Inventory Options By default, your inventory window will open when you accept an object being sent to you. You can turn this feature off by going to Edit> Preferences > Popups tab. Uncheck Automatically show newly accepted objects in inventory. Options for Offers of notecards, textures and landmarks can also be found on the Preferences Popups tab: Automatically accept Automatically view after accepting. How many items can I send to someone at once? Currently you may send a maximum of 42 objects at once. This number includes sub-folders and excludes IM window transfer.

You cannot mute group IMs yet, but it's an extremely popular feature request that might be added in the future. However, there is a workaround; while it's not the most convenient, it may help: Select Edit > Preferences > Communications and deselect the Include IM in Chat History checkbox. Then, on your toolbar with your chat bar open (click Chat at the bottom of the Second Life window if it isn't), click History to show the Chat History window. Note that this won't stop the group tabs in your IM window from flashing when new messages are received; it just hides all IMs, individual or group, from showing in your Chat History.

This can be true! Here is some basic information. Incompatible, outdated, or corrupted graphics drivers are responsible for many crash scenarios on systems meeting the System Requirements. First, ensure you know who makes your graphics card. The Second Life viewer only works with GeForce graphics cards (made by Nvidia), Radeon graphics cards (made by ATI), and the Intel 945 chipset. If you have any other graphics card, Second Life may not run. You will need to buy and install a video card that works with Second Life. Warning: Please make sure to closely follow the manufacturer's instructions, which may involve uninstalling and wiping traces of the previous version before installing the new version. This is sometimes referred to as a "clean install". I have an nVidia Geforce 2 or higher! nVidia-equipped computers can install the latest GeForce and TNT2 graphics driver package at nVidia's website. I have an ATI Radeon 8500 or higher! ATI-equipped desktop computers can install the latest Catalyst graphics driver package at ATI's website. I have an Intel graphics card! The Intel 945 chipset works with Second Life; you can get the latest drivers at Intel's website.

It is not hard to find out! Try this: Click the Inventory button at the bottom of your screen if your inventory isn't already open. Click in the search bar near the top of the Inventory window and type in "(worn)". Everything you are wearing (body parts, clothing, and attachments) will show up in bold with "(worn)" next to its name. Select Edit > Detach object and look at the list. This will show all the attachment points on your avatar that have an object attached to them.

The Advanced menu contains more technical settings than the rest of the Second Life Viewer, which is why they're usually hidden. Some of them are useful, but none of them are essential in order to use any of Second Life's features. If you'd like to enable the Advanced menu, use the following procedure: On your keyboard, press Ctrl+Alt+D or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D. On a Mac, press Option+Control+D. The word Advanced appears next to the Help menu at the top of the Second Life window. Note: Most computers work with the standard Ctrl+Alt+D. Due to different keyboard layouts or other reasons, some don't. We mention Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D just in case. What is this menu for? The Advanced menu contains a lot of optional settings, most of which are meant to be used when debugging Second Life. A few of these settings, like Disable Camera Constraints, can be useful in everyday Second Life usage, but you usually won't need the Advanced menu unless you're trying to analyze Second Life's performance or fix something that's gone wrong. The menu commands in the Admin menu are restricted to Linden Lab employees only. Linden Lab employees (commonly called "The Lindens") all have the last name "Linden". You can view the Admin menu by enabling the option View Admin Options, but you will be unable to use any of the new buttons or menu options that appear.

Changing your appearance in Second Life is quick, easy, and free. A wide variety of controls let you settle on exactly the look you had in mind. While the huge number of variables can be intimidating at first, most Residents quickly get the look they want. (Most continue to tweak their look for hours or even days afterward, but that's another topic entirely.) To change your look, right-click your avatar and choose Appearance. You can also select Appearance from the Edit menu. Note: The Appearance Editor is not available if your avatar has not fully loaded. When your avatar is not loaded, it appears as a particle cloud; this phenomenon was once called "being Ruthed", and you may see other Residents using the term. Settings within Appearance: Shape: This tab determines the overall form and shape of your avatar. This is also where you select Male or Female. Skin: This tab determines the color of your avatar's skin, skin details (such as wrinkles), makeup and any tattoos you may have. Hair: This tab not only changes the color and style of your hair, but eyebrows and facial hair as well. Eyes: This tab changes your eye color, and lets you select an image file for your eyes. Shirt, Pants, Shoes, Socks, Jacket, Gloves, Undershirt, Underpants, Skirt:These tabs allow you to take off or create new clothing pieces. You can set the overall dimensions and color of the clothing as well as apply a texture. Make Outfit: This button allows you to save any or all parts of your current appearance (body parts, clothing, and even attachments) in an outfit folder, which you can drag onto yourself to switch to the whole outfit. Save, Save As: These buttons save the changes you've made to the currently selected body part or clothing. Save As lets you pick a new name. Save All: This button saves all the body parts and clothing you have on. Revert: This button undoes all changes made to the current body part or clothing since it was last saved. Attachments You may also attach inworld objects to your avatar to change your appearance. Some people go so far as to fully cover themselves in objects, often changing their shapes into something completely inhuman.

Yes, there are a few ways you might like to try out! Hide your online status from everyone except your friends and groups In general, other Residents who don't know you shouldn't be able to see you online if they perform a search in the People tab of the Search window. To ensure that they can't see you online unless they're friends with you or in a group you belong to, select the Make my online status visible only to my Friends and Groups checkbox in the Communication tab of the Preferences window. Hide your online and map status from Friends By default, friends -- generally other Residents who know you -- are able to see you online, even if the Make my online status visible in Search checkbox in the Preferences window isn't selected. You can control your online visibility on a per-friend basis in the Friends subtab of the Communicate window's Contacts tab. Select a Resident's name from the list and deselect the Can see my online status checkbox to hide your online status from that Resident. You can hold Shift or Ctrl on your keyboard while clicking to select multiple Friends. If you'd like a friend to be able to see you online but not map-track you -- because it can be bothersome to be working on something then suddenly interrupted if they teleport onto your head! -- deselect the checkbox below that, Can find me on the world map. Go into Busy mode This is simply done by selecting World > Set Busy. You won't see the chat console or Instant Messages, and an auto-reply will be sent to those who IM you. This reply is customized in the Preferences window's Communication tab next to Busy Mode Response. Going into Busy mode in addition to showing yourself as offline can help you concentrate inworld by hiding chat, which you can get to later. Warning: While you're in Busy mode, inventory offers will also be rejected automatically. If you're buying something, or expecting to receive gifts from friends, you may want to make sure you're not in Busy mode. Hide on an Estate An Estate, also known as a private island or private region, can be configured for geographical privacy. This means that if you have access to an island that others don't, they won't be able to teleport in or see what's happening. They can still IM you, but it's up to you whether you reply. An Estate Owner or Manager sets privacy options from the Region/Estate window's Estate tab. If you own or manage an Estate, then you can adjust these settings yourself! Each of the options has a ? button to tell you more about what it does, but in short: Deselecting the Public Access checkbox restricts acccess to the Estate Owner, Manager(s), and people on the Allowed residents and Allowed groups lists. Live in a skybox A "skybox" is basically a home that's many hundreds of meters in the sky. They have this name because they traditionally look like boxes, although they can take many forms, like a floating castle. If you own a parcel of land, you can have a skybox. A manual way to get up is to: Rez a prim (right-click the ground and select Create). Right-click it and select Sit Here. Once seated, click the Object tab of the Tools window (you may need to click the More >> button to expand the tools). Set Position (meters) Z to 500, which is a typical skybox height. Residents aren't able to fly that high without a flight assist script, so it's a deterrent to the casual passerby. However, it's worth noting that more persistent Residents with such scripts will be able to get to you at that height. Make use of the Access and Ban tabs for parcels you own You can use the About Land window's Access and Ban tabs to control who can come in (select World > About Land to open the About Land window). The Access tab can be used to limit access to only specific groups or Residents, while the Ban tab enables you to specifically exclude individuals; using both tabs together, you should be able to get the right list of permitted Residents onto your parcel. Each tab sets access barriers at different heights around your parcel.