Torley Linden

I also know if you do get an offline IM->email, there's a line at the bottom that says: To stop receiving these emails, log in to Second Life and uncheck "Send IM to Email" in the General tab of the Preferences window or visit: with a link to click. But, (1) that's the wrong UI instructions (maybe it should simply point to the web) and (2) link doesn't appear to work if you're not logged in, with no visible indication of that. @Hitomi And yes, thanks for being helpful! @Nika Is there already a bug on http://jira.secondlife.com that matches your problem? I don't know enough about that myself, but at least other Residents experiencing the same thing would have a focused place to experiment. @Bryon Longer-term, I'd hope that IMs and other inworld communication (like notecards) can be unified with someone's existing inbox. Many people complain of having too many places to check (consider all the social sites out there that have their own "IM" system).

^ TIMELESS, I TELL YOU!

Do you want to have Second Life instant messages forwarded to your email address when you're not logged in? Or do you get many IMs and find them spammy? Whatever your choice, you can toggle offline instant messages (IMs) ^ As that help page explains, you can do it from Account > Contact Information in your secondlife.com Dashboard, which is handy if you're somewhere you can't login to Second Life, or would rather not bother logging in. (I love convenience, don't you?) While you're at it, you can also change your email address on the same page.

This is beloved cultural discussion. @Gooden "1000 meter smog layer?" Picture please? @Ariu Oh, weird! Funny things randomly appear on Here region sometimes. If my own region was trying to cage me, that'd be cause for concern. @Seven Start with "Quality and speed" = Ultra, click Advanced to show all options. Crank more things up as desired, some people may care more about "Draw distance" than "Objects" detail. Further settings can be increased beyond these sliders via Advanced menu > Debug Settings. Three things that cumulatively make a BIG difference are "Water reflections" OFF, "Avatar impostors" ON, and "Draw Distance" LOW (like 64 m). @Dil I've been wanting those damn foot shadows gone since 2005! I have proof! http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/AlbumView.aspx?id=286 Opsrey (yes, the same one above) also once distributed FootShadow B-Gon. @Erica AW YEAH THANX AWESOMELY

No matter how much changes here, some things are still around. Among them, classic clouds. Do you turn classic clouds on or off (or switch depending on context), and why? Also relevant: if you didn't know you could turn them off — maybe you're a new Resident — you should try and decide for yourself! After my last post on skyboxes, classic clouds is a natural followup topic: the ground, water, and clouds are so much of what you see in Second Life, so changing their appearance (or entirely removing them from view) can have a massive effect on your inworld experience. Think about the real-world and how even hearing rain results in, uh, a certain urge. I show you how classic clouds affect performance here: And there's... More on the "Classic clouds" help page

These comments are why I love being here! There are great tips here I'll link to from the wiki help page. @Digital Thanks! I believe in showing actual examples to inspire Residents' creativity. As credited in the guide, the skybox is made by Trin Trevelion, it can be bought on the Marketplace. @Ceera That's a good thought to mark the boundaries. Like using chalk on grass, only, well, more Second Lifey. @Argent Maybe this calls for a statistical distribution of skybox heights. @Inhandra Thanx! @ninjafoo The things I've found doing that are rather surprising. @Ghosty Yeah, that's current "expected behavior". @Adeon and @Seth That's exactly what I was going for — I was playing with prototype global illumination lately and... things are getting closer. I still crash out a lot, tho. @Ponsonby I wish more people would make meaningful meddles to wiki pages. So THANK YOU for sharing your enthusiasm and personal experiences. @Irene That's another good mention to crossover to the Limits page. I swear, every Second Life Resident should have that Limits page close by, it inevitably gets referred to soner or later.

Ah, skyboxes, a special part of Second Life culture alongside other product types like animation overrides and terrain extenders. Not only can our avatars defy gravity, our buildings can, too. That's right, you can rez (create) something in the air and it'll just stick there. Somewhat self-explanatory skyboxes have been with us since near the beginning of Second Life, and if you're new, you're bound to run across them sooner or later, even if you don't realize it (by checking your height coordinate). But what do you need to know, and how are skyboxes relevant to you? And hey, how do you get up there, anyway? Whether you're looking to make your castle in the clouds or purely want to explore that extravagant third dimension, there's more help in... The Guide o' Skyboxes As always, let me know what's missing from this guide that could make it awesomer, or go ahead and edit the wiki help page ( ). Your suggestions will help spread cultural knowledge that future generations of Residents shall benefit from!

@Crap I didn't play the first of either of those, but now am curious to check 'em out! On a related design note, I read Gamasutra obsessively. @Cybin Thanks! Of course, part of the problem is since Second Life doesn't do "sharding/instancing", this has led to orientation crowding in the past. And single-player games don't need to worry about that at all. And the Viewer would need better hooks to "read" what your avatar is actually doing. Nonetheless, they're inspiring ideas — if we can come up with more scalable ways, like integrating the web better with 3D. I've missed "Until after now..."! @Irene Why? No particular reason against that. But, I think it's tricky if you're watching a video of what you need to do inworld... yet you're on a webpage. There's a conceptual disconnect, but the gap is getting smaller. As I've advocated for why so many Residents have found my video tutorials useful AFTER being inworld for awhile, more should get a lovely first impression upfront, too. Suggestions like yours DO help.

Residents asking if the Second Life Viewer is compatible with Windows 7 is a very hot! question in the forums. The answer is YES, the Second Life Viewer is supported on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7. Long story short: the current System Requirements page is confusing because it says "Windows 7 (32-bit only)". That refers to the Viewer being a 32-bit executable, not that "Second Life only works with 32-bit Windows 7". A SysReq update is pending, but since this is often a time-sensitive question that affects the next operating system and computer you choose (and what a pain it is to change that once you've installed), I've chopped the slop and put up a wiki help page (which can be updated in seconds) to clarify this, with more details. Special thanks to Q and Esbee Linden for confirmation. Bookmark and share with your friends: Windows 7 compatibility help page Move lively context found in this forum thread which you can comment on, thanks to Irene Muni for encouraging more visibility.

There's so much to learn in Second Life that it can totally, understandably be overwhelming at first! Instead of "drinking the ocean" all at once, it helps to KNOW THE BASICS quickly, so you can feel more confident to carry on learning at your own pace. You know what they say: we were all new at one time, and one thing leads to another. That's why we've added a special "LEARN THE BASICS - Get started with Second Life" part to our sidebar, elegantly brought to you by Experience Design (aka , lol) at Linden Lab! Click the Second Life eye-in-hand logo, then scroll down. As shown here: Indeed, embracing the rich diversity of learning styles we have here, I've also done a video to show you the same steps. Whether you're a new Resident (friendly greetings to you!) or a veteran who wants to (1) help a friend or (2) get re-acquainted with skillz, this resource is available! Extending help If you know of more "Learn more" links that'd be handy to include on the wiki help pages as shown in the first video above, feel free to add them ( ) to these pages:Walking & Flying Chatting & Adding a friend Appearance Inventory Totally gratuitous header Sidenote which at first glance seems unrelated but actually is quite relevant: I'm currently addicted to Mass Effect 2, and in playing the demo (it's free on Steam), I was wowed at how integral, immersive, and hands-on their basics tutorial is. After a cinematic intro, they bring throw you into the tense heat of battle, and I've long been fascinated with how stressful experiences (both positive and negative, even simulated ones) become imprinted on your mind. Later on, ME2 shows advanced combat training video tutorials, which taught me how to execute biotics on several targets simultaneously. My point here is: have you been wowed by any introductory tutorials out there, from games to webapps to kitchen products? I believe education should be vivid and passionate (not eyes-bleed-boring as is the case with so much "technical documentation", blah), and always like learning what's possible outside of SL, then applying it inworld. SO — please share what you enjoy.

I'm glad Suella asked Brodesky and me. Shortly thereafter, I corrected the date to "2010-09-20", since accurate ratings are on our current to-do list (not a future one, heh). Anyway, yeah, keep referring to the Marketplace Sellers' FAQ for updates.

@Vick That's entirely appreciated, THANKS! @Ghosty Yup! And some laptops have more usable arrow keys than others. Of course, when given desk space, some laptop users prefer to plug in a USB mouse. @Alisha Yeah, like @Nekololi if you open "menu_viewer.xml" in the Viewer's skins > default > xui > en (or another language) folder, look at all the places where it says "shortcut=" and change those. It's still true in Viewer 2. Oh, be sure to (1) BACKUP FIRST and (2) watch out for conflicts with other shortcuts. If you have problems finding that file, I recommend http://www.voidtools.com/ Also, there external macro programs like QuicKeys (Mac, Windows version is kind of behind) or PhraseExpress (Windows) that can trigger menu items. The Second Life Viewer uses a non-OS-specific windowing system, though, so that may still be unreliable (it was for me before). @Aquarius That's a key one (ha) that definitely should be included. Thank you. I used to use arrow keys to navigate more, now I use WASD because arrow keys make my left hand cross over to my right side too much. UPDATE: added "Mouse-steering, run, and arrow key movement options" video to the "Different ways" help page.

Saving a couple seconds to do a task in Second Life may not seem like much — until you multiply that by dozens, hundreds, even thousands of times. Minor disruptions to workflow make for severe pain, I know! I've noticed many of the more effective paths have been stumbled across or discovered by experimentation, and while I heart serendipity, it tends to take too long to get consistent results, leaving people going: " AUGH! I wish I knew that earlier!" I've been creating various "utility help pages" covering repetitive steps — I do the work so you don't have to — and my latest one, fittingly enough, addresses "Different ways to do the same thing" as this featured video shows: A new Resident looking to see if there's an easier way to do basic essentials like moving your avatar An advanced Resi making sure you have the bases covered In a situation that requires adaptation, like running the Second Life Viewer on different platforms (there's a link to PC and Mac shortcut key differences, too) Simply curious about what your options are, so you can make the best choice for your personal preferences These types of questions come up so often in our forums and elsewhere, and if you spot a hot omission, go ahead and let me know in the comments, or add it to the wiki help page directly (login to wiki.secondlife.com and click the edit tab on the page — I , too). Here's the jumbo link so ya can't miss it:Different ways to do the same thing

@Darien That's totally astute, I agree. Jive's "lightbox" can work for some things but also has the irritating quirk of doing what you described. My expected behavior is that if the image is already shown full-size, that it wouldn't let me click on it! I fixed the first (panoramic) image since that comes from my Flickr stream — the full-size is EPIC so click on that! — and the others are screengrabs from the video, whose YouTube widget thankfully has a full-screen button.

@Vick You're welcome, more vidtuts will be coming to help with frequently asked questions as they arise in time — they always do. To stem future confusion, I'm going to update the wiki help pages to reflect the new specific name of our public JIRA = "Bug Tracker" because that's its primary focus. Although you can continue to create New Feature requests, the word "Issue" can be too vague and has had a lot of historical misunderstanding, since there are "support issues" meant to go to http://secondlife.com/support By itself, this renaming isn't a severe deal, but in time, I hope increasing education — including the ongoing awesomeness of Resis who regularly help out on the Bug Tracker — will continue to spread awareness. @Pentasis We do have various possibilities to tweak the layout; early on, I felt the new "Votes" and "Watchers" was kind of passive and didn't stand out enough. Definitely keep the feedback coming and we'll iterate.

Sample Jing Project video I posted just moments after the above post! See how quick it is? http://screencast.com/t/NWM4ODI1ZGUt

I'm regularly in the blogs.secondlife.com forums, not just helping where I have knowledge, but staying in touch with our culture and encouraging you HOW to share info easier. I keep seeing "OMG HELP ME!" questions where the original poster seems at a loss for how to describe something in words, and there's a big gap between what they saw and how they're struggling to explain it. Also consider language barriers: instead of trying to tell, simply SHOW! Well, that's where we need to go beyond words: whether techy terminology confuses you or you wanna be a more effective, vivid communicator, consider adding pictures and videos to your posts to make it clear what you mean! It takes a little bit of patience to get started, but hey, so did learning how to read, how to use a computer, and Second Life itself. I have faith in your smartosity! I've attached multimedia thousands of times, and have seen what a positive difference it makes to have this skill, whether you're asking or answering on SL Answers, reporting a bug, giving a product demo for the Marketplace, and so on! SUPER-USEFUL. I highly recommend watching this video tutorial, which shows how to take a snapshot in Second Life and put it into a forum post. It's terribly easy. For further details with tips and tools, see the "Visual communication" help page which you can add to. (Please do.) I'm continuing to be out and about in the forums, promoting these opportunities so you can help others help you. (Clichéd but true, hehe.) Feel free to ask in the comments if you have process/workflow questions about spicing up your text with pics and vids.

WindLight paths are shown on https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/WindLight_settings#Installation , those path work for other sky settings. I refer to it whenever I have a SL installation on a new environment. Feel free to update that page!

Thanks for linking to that "Login screen" page, Faubio — I need to make some minor updates. And yup, I hang out here. At present, the closest thing may be having a picture of your cool place in the Destinaton Guide. Some 3rd-party viewers feaure user-submitted login screens.

For a dork, pretty sharp of you to take a picture! At least you aren't doing violent gang signs, hehe. Did you also try the ol' teleport to another region? Especially into a parcel where scripted objects are disabled and tried walking along the ground? Objects can still animate you if you give them permission, even if they're attached. (And I wonder if your cat figured out something the rest of us haven't.)

Related, this is a useful page to keep close: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User_settings And if you guys didn't already know, in the Finder, you can use Go menu > Go to Folder, then paste in a path instead of having to graphically navigate through each folder.

Some have asked and since Ceera thoughtfully brought the crowded Appearance Editor up: I felt the same way and had a hard time practicing how to use it — or even WHY I'd use some of the new layout. I often do runthroughs of features before they're publicly released so I'm firsthand informed on how to teach Residents, where workarounds are helpful, and where it's too hard to explain things — which is often a substantial signifier that something's not usable. So, rest assured I've given my feedback to our Viewer 2 gurus along the same lines, and will continue to do so as I read Resident feedback.

Yeah, the "open a second Inventory window" is a kludge until we have a better way. More background and videos: https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/tnt/blog/2010/03/01/viewer-2-tip-giving-inventory-including-with-group-notices

^ Thanks Irene, that's one of the pages I LOVE seeing promoted. Until such time it becomes super-slick in the interface, people gotta know! I personally wish you MANY HAPPY UNBOXINGS, SLAM! OH, and if you're in Viewer 2, start watching this at 2:44. Basically same steps, stuff just moved:

@Becca I'm big on Macs, what Mac do you have? More recent ones have mice with right-click — a multi-button mouse is a huge convenience and a great investment. I use my Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 with both Mac and Windows versions of Second Life, and my wife likes her Magic Mouse on her Mac.