[How do you drive someone totally crazy?]

Ha, it's like googling for "recursion".

There are apt terms for driving people crazy, too... like "gaslighting".

[How can I hide my username from over my avatar?]

In light of questions like this, I'll ask Documentation Team, who takes care of the Knowledge Base, if they have plans to highlight the difference between Basic and Advanced modes on the front of the KB. Or if we can do that more prominently across all of community.secondlife.com, since it's relevant in these help forums too. Ever since we introduced Basic mode, it's been a a super-important thing for you new Residents to know upfront.

[Animation + Music = Awesome]

One way to quickly get examples of what Bree mentions is: go to a Welcome Area/Infohub like Ahern or Waterhead, and ask the (likely rowdy) regulars to give you some of their favorite free gestures. Many of them are adapted from memes where a crazy anim plays with a sound. Like this SL take on "Geddan":

[Could we please have a "View My Posts" button?]

I've been in a similar situation: I've bookmarked the link to my posts in my web browser. For quicker access, you can put it on your web brower's Bookmarks Bar (I mainly use Chrome) so it's always close at hand.

 

[Re: Questions About Snapsot Resolutions]

I'd recommend saving as PNG because it's lossless and relatively compact — stay away from BMP unless you have a special reason, it's an old format that eats up unnecessary disk space. As Rhonda pointed out, JPG has image degradation, so avoid that too. You can always convert PNG to JPG; some sites like Flickr can do it automatically. And PNG is also web-friendly.

As has been correctly and thoughtfully been pointed out, "High Resolution" is a defective feature riddled with subtle and annoying bugs that haven't been high-priority or straightforward enough to fix. Its functionality over time has been limited due to other changes. For example, High Resolution (4x what you see on the screen in the Viewer window) used to include antialiasing, but that caused problems with snapshotting water. So now the edges are fully jagged, even if you have antialiasing on.

Always, always check your first few snapshots in a session after taking them. Leave a window on your desktop (or app like Picasa) open showing pics in thumbnail mode so you can pop them open and be assured they're not turning out black.

[So I met this noob and...]

Haha, the spotlight cracked me up. As did the last picture, which shows what dramatic difference better lighting and shadows can make. Right now, I'm addicted to making things glow, or seeing things through glow. Dare I say it's ethereal-licious?

SL needs more exploding stuff — interactive objects are so much fun.

[Saving an outfit in V2]

Yeah, I really miss the option to save COPIES of items — it's useful for content creators and consumers alike to conveniently compile items in a single folder. As opposed to the really clunky workaround of finding the original of each item, then copying it into a folder. Which adds up to a lot of wasted time for reasonably elaborate outfits.

There've been many times when I wanted to clone an outfit to make an independent variation of it, and not having that in V2 pains me (and I've let our devs know).

 

[Joint names]

Stickied for easy reference.

[Looking For: Yulia Tymoshenko-esque hair]

Eloise, in the name of great pair I must persist! Hey, synchronous thought about Lamb — I had a similar idea.

I've had mixed results adding bangs before. Unless they use the same texture and prim positioning style, they can look too choppy — and I don't mean in a desired way.

[Re: Questions About Snapsot Resolutions]

Yay this way!

[Looking For: Yulia Tymoshenko-esque hair]

valerie, wow! Nice find... you sure are good at this. Thanks, it's a trip back to the quasi-Bradbury building for me! I see it! http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SAIKIN/74/84/701

UPDATE: I tried it on and it doesn't quite suit me as shown here. forehead is high and I prefer a touch of imminent, sweeping bangs. But the hair base they use is a neat tattoo trick (and I'm so glad we can Add multiple tattoos).

[Cool movie theaters showing legal movies? (public domain, machinima)]

@Keli That looks like a lot of snack! Thanks, I'll check out that drive-in.

@Jo Wow, you've even themed your profile badge. I like the corner angle of that first shot, complete with a zeppelin.

[What are your favorite things to do in Second Life?]

What are your favorite things to do in Second Life?

It's a simple, fun question, right?

Let's share so we can get to know each other and discover new activities... and for bonus points ;), give details! For example, if you enjoy roleplaying, where? And a lot of us like shopping, but there are different ways: I'm big on scrolling through the Marketplace's Featured Items carousel to see what random awesome comes up.

Here's my list of favorite things of what I do when I "play" SL, although it overlaps with work! Sometimes they gel, sometimes they clash! ("Grrr not another meeting, I'm not done dressing!") :o

I've compiled various Residents' posts of "favorite things" here, too.

[Looking For: Yulia Tymoshenko-esque hair]

Ohai! So, I've been experimenting with all kinds of coiffures... and I have yet to see a braid design like Yulia Tymoshenko's. Anyone know where can I find something like this? Thanx. ^_^

 

[Enhance your sky with Natural clouds]

Thanks Vincent for the heads-up! Mmm more cloudy goodness... the skies always had little fluffy clouds in 'em, and, uh... they were long... and clear and... there were lots of stars at night...

In related WindLight news... I need to set expectations that isn't ready yet, as Oz Linden said.

[Inaugural Month-of-Machinima event kicks off in May]

^ Thanks, Ciaran, knowing you find it helpful... helps us!

On a related note, if anyone reading this owns or knows a cool machinima theater, we want to get you showcased on the Destination Guide. See this for details.

[Cool movie theaters showing legal movies? (public domain, machinima)]

Ohai! Since the Month of Machinima begins in May (mmm),  The Linden Lab Editorial Team (including me) is looking for cool movie theaters to check out inworld, and consider for inclusion in our Destination Guide... so other Residents can come and enjoy!

The one big thing to keep in mind is: LEGAL MOVIES ONLY like public domain or your own machinima — we don't want the MPAA bustin' down anyone's doors. :O So please share SLurls (what?), and/or if you prefer, submit directly to the DG.

UPDATE: For the current list, check out http://secondlife.com/destinations/media/

[Pennymade Second Life Promotional Screenshots]

Hey Penny, thanks for sharing. I like your use of depth-of-field and bloom/glow, both popular shader effects in games. Which games are you really enjoying right now? I'm going to be playing Mass Effect 2's Arrival after work! ME2 has some of the most gorgeous "spacey" atmospheres I've seen.

When I'm in SL, I also sometimes like to simulate a similar look 'n' feel — your Camera Control HUD has helped with that. Gamers expect certain concepts when they come inworld.

There are also some debug settings to minimize and control how glow looks, I think most begin with "RenderGlow"...

One suggestion I have about using the official "Second Life" logo is to not collide the eye-in-hand with the words.

[Is The Lithium Spell Checker On Drugs? Share The Gaffes.]

Good gosh. I've moved this thread to Community Feedback since it's decidedly ON-TOPIC for this.

No, we don't approve of our tools coming into work under the influence...

This is like the community.secondlife.com equivalent of http://damnyouautocorrect.com

[Inventory Management.]

I just did a blog post focusing on spring-cleaning your inventory, so you can focus on what matters.

[Sleeping (closing your avatars eyes)]

I hadn't tried this before. There was a HUD that I used a long time ago, but it broke and only kept my eyes shut for a few seconds — not long enough for a decent nap! Thanks for sharing this fresh tip.

[Demo hair or how to look ridiculous in public!]

On rare occasion, I've seen some offbeat likeminds assemble WHOLE AVATARS of demo stuff — not just hair with floating boxes but skins imprinted with DEMO DEMO DEMO DEMO. It's kinda punk! "Demo couture", shall we say?

[INTERESTS? In MY Web Profiles Tab? Early questions & answers...]

Perrie, thanks for pointing that out and with pictures (GREAT) — I soundly agree. Not to mention that the "old way" also loaded faster than waiting for each web page to refresh. I don't surf picks much anymore due to this. You're not alone in observing this awkwardness, and I'll be sure to bring this issue up (again) the next opportunity I have!

I note there are various websites that can smoothly pop up info (or lightbox it) without loading a new page. Even Google has a feature like that when mousing over search results.

[Why do they force updates on 2.5.x?]

 

---

Fmeh Tagore wrote:

My big complaint about this is that every time it updates, it writes over the exisiting floater_im_container.xml file, so I have to go in and edit it by hand to have tabs on the left every time.  Tabs on the bottom are practically unusable once you have more than 5 people in tabs--it's bad enough they don't give a "tabs on left" option to begin with, but to have to go in and change it every time they force an update sucks.  

---

Fmeh, while I don't know precisely why these latest updates have been mandatory (in the past, Linden Lab has enforced them to plug security holes), I'm in a similar situation: I have XML hacks to various Viewer files myself, such as modifying the postcards one to auto-insert email addresses for me. So I go a little AGRHRHRHHH every time my tweaks are replaced. Including that time I made the files read-only but that didn't work as expected.

There are a number of ways to approach this quicker: you create a custom installer with a tool like http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page that you'd run after you installed the Viewer. If that's too elaborate, you could keep a folder handy with shortcuts to the sub-folders within "SecondLife", and safe copies of the files you need to replace each time. Then, copy-and-paste them (or Ctrl-drag to copy, and replace). It's manual but saves time digging into those hierarchies, as I've felt after doing this since Viewer 1.2x.

Sidenote: I'm also a fan of vertical tabs, I advocated for them to be an easy option in SL during the days I chatted a lot inworld — I don't do so much anymore due to work, but  wish more web browsers supported verti-tabs off the bat. Here's an old article I wrote in another life.

[using profile pic from SL inventory]

Yeah, the current path is an odd, confusing roundabout and would benefit us to be integrated better — especially for all of you who are used to uploading textures to your Second Life inventory to use them. I've seen suggestions before to save textures to disk as .PNG (in addition to .TGA), which is a web-friendly format. I agree with this.

So relearning may be puzzling, but as Winter Ventura points out, makes more sense when you consider broad compatibility. Approach it from a fresh perspective and hopefully you'll get used to it? Let us know in the future.

In the meantime, what I suggest going forward: if you're uploading textures from your hard drive to SL, keep the local versions close at hand so you can upload them to your web profile, Marketplace, Flickr stream, and other web places you use. There are many times I've seen one image re-purposed across multiple sites.