TwilightMyth

Hi, I am new to Second Life. I have a few questions or issues that I seem to be experiencing. In the tutorial, at the shopping part of the tutorial I keep getting an error that says Equipment Malfunction Please Try Again Later. I signed up for Premium, and I thought I read that I'd be given $1,000 LS for joining but my LS balance is 0. I built a house as part of the Premium membership - Is there a quicker way to travel to my house in the viewer program? Right now I get there by clicking the link from the website, haven't figured out how to travel there in the viewer yet. Also how do houses work in Second Life? - In IMVU "houses" were like private chat rooms that every user had. In Second Life I see I can open the door and walk outside, and I see I have neighbors and I can look in their windows and see their furniture and pets, and I assume I could walk in their house too although I did not try that. Could people also just walk into my house? And is it like the public chat areas where if you are nearby outside the house you can chat with and hear other chats going on around you from within the houses? I see some places have groups - how do I create my own group? How do the breedable pets and gachas work? I'm most excited about this feature I think. Also it seems that we can resell items we no longer want or need - therefore could we sell our pets' offspring? What are the best freeware tools for creating meshes or textures for Second Life? I think that covers my questions for now. Thanks in advance for any help!