Kidd Krasner

Mayalily wrote: Peggy Paperdoll wrote: How many people who use routers lock those routers down. Meaning blocking any device from accessing the router and gaining access to the Internet (called "piggybacking on someone elses connection")? If you have a router and it's less than about 8 years old, it's also wireless.....even if you are connected via an Ethernet cable. Any Joe walking down the street with a cell phone/smart phone capable of Internet connections wirelessly can see in a matter of a few seconds if someone has a router not locked down........now he knows where you are and that he can gain access to the Internet using your access (your router). If that person is one of those a$$ holes that everyone wants banned from SL he's free to do as he pleases................and you suffer the consequences (not him.......he's scott free). AT&T has a new password modem/router wireless deal where hackers and/or neighbors can't do this any longer, and I'm sure other companies do as well, though would prefer not to say on the internet which one I use. However, for people with old modem/routers, just call your ISP and ask if you can get one of their new boxes that use a password which keeps the neighbor's children from trying to access your wireless. ETA: If someone comes to your house to visit and is on a laptop, just give them your password and then they can use their laptop in your home. Wireless routers have had passwords for years. I can't imagine any ISP furnishing one without password ability, though perhaps the newest one makes it easier to set up, or even makes the password mandatory. I've only ever used third-party routers, but even the cheap ones have had WPA since the early days. In fact, the better ones these days automatically have a regular and a guest account, so you needn't give your guests permanent or full access.

I should have mentioned clearing the cache as one of the first things I did. However, I'll go ahead and try a manual, full deletion of the cache.

This is a new one for me. There are two sims that I frequent but can't teleport directly between them. I can teleport if I go via an intermediate sim. So that should rule out access list problems, maturity levels, scripted attachments, etc. I've tried with another alt, same problem. That should rule out ghosting problems. I've downloaded FireStorm for the first time, so no previous settings in the Firestorm AppData directory (and it doesn't seem to use the SecondLife AppData directory the way Phoenix does). Same problem. So it's not some setting (unless there are shared settings between them that I don't know about), and it's not RLV, since I didn't turn that on in FireStorm. I've tried turning off Norton Firewall (which I've had one for several years with no problem), rebooting, and trying again - no change. So it doesn't seem to be a firewall problem. I've tried from two different networks (it's a laptop), though both Comcast. Same problem. I've had other people try on different computers/network. They don't see this problem. The only clues I have are: From sim A to sim B, I get "Could not teleport. Sorry but the system was unable ... Please try again in a few minutes." However, from B to A, I almost always get "Problem encountered processing your teleport request.... You may need to log back in... check the Tech Support FAQ." I can't get the map textures to show for sim B from any sim (including sim B itself).From sim A, I can't get the green dots on the map to update for sim B. It will just show the green dots from the most recent time I mapped sim B from someplace else. From sim B, I get the map textures and updated green dots for sim A with no problem.Both sims seem to be running the same server version.Any suggestions?

And, as luck would have it, here's an article about a teacher fired for "friending" students. I think there's more to the story than indicated, but still it suggests that focusing all your social connectivity and communications via Facebook isn't such a good idea.

Deltango Vale wrote: Facebook is for people who like cassette tape recorders and 35mm film cameras - the kind of people who think privacy is closing the loo door to take a pee. While I agree with your conclusion, I'd say the exact opposite for the first part.Facebook is for people who, while standing in line at the drug store, tweet that they're picking up their "pills", then just as they're about to pay, they answer the phone and tell their bf/gf "No, not tonight, my parents will be home. How about the back of your car?"

A number of these can't fairly be attributed to SL: Bling, Click on it, Log Out, Rez, and probably Mute. I see Av much more than Avi. I don't believe SL can lay general claim to avatar or its variations, but perhaps in the specific context of an avatar that routinely changes shape and clothes, it could. My vote is for Lag and Zindra. Lag may not have originated with SL, but it does bring it to new heights.

Just out of curiosity, do you have SL IMs from that account set to forward to email? If so, I would assume you'd never deliberately reply via email to such an IM, but we all make mistakes. I believe SL doesn't include your email when it forwards such a reply, but it's been a couple of years since I've done that. It seems more likely that the address and info were stolen, rather than being deliberately sold (or given). In theory, they could be stolen from anywhere in the chain. Certainly a security breach on LL's systems is a possibility, as is one on your server, your mail client, and anywhere in between. I accept that you know how to secure your mail server, I'm sure LL will say the same thing, and between, you, LL, and RSA, I would have bet on RSA (a world-renown security company) being the most secure - but they've been hacked. SL's servers are presumably a much bigger target than yours, but I wouldn't bet anything anymore on where the leak might be.

Storm Clarence wrote: Now that the Lithium software, with the help of some kudos from friends, promoted me to Advisor status, I find that I still can not effectively communicate without proper emoticons aka smilies. Sure you can, as you proved with this post.

Canis Baxton wrote: All it takes is for thier parents to see what they have done, check the chat logs on his computer and you WILL be arrested as a sex offender. The incident will also be splashed all over the newspapers and TVs that you have seduced a child and are now charged with a crime. Seeing as how I've yet to see any such incident splashed all over the newspapers, should I conclude that no parents have ever learned about their teens engaging in such conversations? Come to think of it, I'm sure there are plenty more examples of teens engaged in sexual chat with adults on various other, more popular services, newsgroups, forums, etc. Yet somehow, the only cases I read about are where the adult both knew the other person was underage and tried to set up a meeting or otherwise tried to create some inappropriate RL activity (like sending pictures). Yes, underage kids trying to get into sexual conversations are a problem, but let's not overstate the risks to the rest of us.

NavanaxSacratus wrote: And that's the crux of MY problem. During the account setup process there was no warning that the account name was what was really going to serve as the name that most people saw and used to refer to or address a person. I thought the display name would serve that purpose only to slowly discover how wrong I was. This is really no different from the previous problem of people using names like Joe1234 because Joe was already taken, and then discovering that they were stuck with a foolishly nerdish name with no way to change it. Because of all the existing scripted objects in SL, along with the older viewers still in use, it will take a long time before display names will totally serve that purpose. But eventually it will - for all purposes where you don't need a unique account name.

Little Ming wrote: A number of examples, the shoppers, clubbers, role-players, and designers could all benefit from deeper integration and communication methods with other social networks. Other than designers, you haven't given any way that the others would benefit from such integration. Designers (and club owners, landlords, etc.) could benefit from the advertising potential of such networks. But for the others, I have yet to see any benefits identified for such integration. The ability to use SLurls already exists, and works from any web site. Various blogs and other web sites already meet my needs for shopping, etc. Even if I used one of the social networking sites (and there is one that I do use - but for business), I haven't seen any other types of integration that would provide that sort of value. ...I've been around SL for over 5 years now, I assure you that part of my statement was not out of ignorance. Perhaps you are not familiar with the ability to link sim locations outside of SL as web URLs that can be directly loaded into the client for easier teleportation? The idea would be to help share store locations, clubs, interesting sights. Much like the linden labs integration of the grid map on this very website. The feature I'm speaking of would allow direct sharing from within the client itself to other social networks such as facebook, and save an extra step, and extra software running for those users with lower-end systems. Kind of like how youtube has a share link I think that you're omitting the motivations and contexts here. I can imagine someone motivated by advertising wanting the ability to post something on some other site from within SL. But no third-party interface, including SL, can be expected to support all the features of all the other sites. So, other than being able to provide a parameterized link to a web site (something that's probably scriptable already), what would make that better? But for someone not motivated by advertising, there are already mechanisms within SL for sharing such info: group notices, group IM, or friend-conference IM. Granted, all of these need improvements, including better persistence for group notices, but no outside site can compete with the relevance and focus provided by these. The reason why YouTube needs a share link is precisely because it isn't essentially a social interaction site, notwithstanding the ability to comment on individual videos or create groups. But SL is a social interaction site already, so integrating with other sites is, at best, redundant. Perhaps that's why LL is doing things like putting profiles on the web. The benefit to ordinary users isn't going to be integrating with those third party networks; it's going to be implementing their useful features within SL.

Void Singer wrote: I think you are heavily discounting the value of visual identity.... for instance, my own badge icon doesn't leave my name as the most readable (I've been meaning to update it actually), but the image is the same one I've used in two prvious incarnations of these forums... it's recognizable in a sort of instaneous way that my text name never will be. you could say that my preference is identifying ME within the forum, over identifying my NAME in a forum... it's a bit like brand recognition, and consistency is key to that... this way people can attach a value to that easily recognizable image not to say that I don't sympathize... I do. it can be overdone... for instance the tendency to over hype visual information by locking it into videos, where you can't easily skip over content that is irrelevant to you (whereas in text you have a fair overview and can skip the "noise"). but for building a consistent identity? picture trumps text pretty much every time. Not only can it be overdone, but for many people, it simply doesn't work that way. Hence one of the first things I did with the new forums was to disable the images entirely. First, most images like the visual distinctiveness to be memorable. You've seen one SL picture, you've seen them all (almost). Most of them can be pigeonholed into face|3/4|scene, male|female|couple, left|right|center, and a main color. I'll admit to being far more text oriented than picture oriented, which may put me in the minority, but I'm sure I'm not alone. Second, the pictures and names are out of band from the text. I won't claim to know how focus and periphery work for other people, but I know how it works for me: When I read the text, the picture and name are both out of my focus, and I simply don't make any connection; they're just blurs. With a bunch of short posts, so that multiple pictures appear on the screen, I'm not sure I could even identify, after the fact, which picture belongs to which post. When I'm reading, I'm focused on the text, trying hard to filter the visual distraction of the pictures. (My ADD is triggered visually far more than the audible distractions that most people expect.) If I'm looking at the picture, I have no clue as to what the post is about. It takes concerted effort for me to associate either a name or a picture with a post - so I just don't do it. Third, I simply don't want the information. With rare exception, usually on extended discussions, I don't need to know the author of a post to understand, interpret, or evaluate it. Indeed, in spite of my preferences, there are contributors whose names and reputations are burned into me, often in negative ways, and if happen to notice their name on a post, I have to remind myself to read it fairly.

Not only is the web site more reliable, it also lets you place limit orders, which get you better rates.

Bunky Snowbear wrote: Ahh, but how do I know they are private if they have no barriers? Surely if people were concerned about trespassers, they would install security. How do you know they're public if they have no signs, advertisements, classifieds, etc? There are plenty of places in SL that are actually worth seeking out and visiting, because of interesting or exceptional design, theme, etc. Merely walking through one parcel at a time seems a most inefficient way to go about things.

I've read through this thread, but probably haven't caught up on all the related threads since the switch. But it occurs to me that thread titles are a major annoyance with spam, even if you never read the contents of a spam thread. Therefore, with respect to titles of new threads only: Prohibit special characters other than hyphen (the minus sign), period, comma, colon, apostrophe, double quotes, and question mark. This would allow accented characters and others needed for foreign languages, but prohibit wing dings, stars, other fancy glyphs, and most especially, the dollar sign and other currency symbols. Prohibit more than one special character in a row, other than ... (ellipses) or -- (double hyphen to represent a dash).. Prohibit more than three consecutive capital letters (ignoring spaces and punctuation), and more than one capital letter within a word (to allow names such as McDougal). Prohibit more than three letters in a row that are separated only by spaces or punctuation. This boils down to not allowing the titles to be used as visual attention-getters. The forums aren't intended for advertising (other than some of the commerce-related ones), and with those, the attention-getting titles quickly drown each other out.

I picked mine on the My Settings > Preferences > Preference Options page, where I unchecked "View signatures in posts." That's partly because too many of them are either advertising or self-indulgences, partly becasue it's annoying seeing the same thing repeated multiple times, but mostly because 100% of all signatures disrupt reading the forum posts -- which, after all, is the reason for being here. Imagine, for a moment, going to a party or an office meeting where everytime someone made a remark, they finished their statement with a personal signature.

Cerise Sorbet wrote: Kidd Krasner wrote: I'm trying to understand the criteria for each of the new forums. Why is the Blue Goo thread here and not in the Feedback forum? These tools are really not feedback to LL, and none of the other categories fit, so Off Topic it was. Freedom from the points system was a factor too. I understand where you're coming from. From my perspective, while the tools may not be direct feedback, anything of the sort "I wish the style was like this and not like that" should be taken as feedback by LL, whether or not it was directed to them. On the other hand, as I reread the thread, I realize that the majority of posts are really support questions for Blue Goo, with only a minority being suggestions for improving the style. So I must admit that your judgment for which forum was correct.

Hacking the Badges Much Room stylesheet to turn off all badges completely was the very first thing I did.

Suspiria Finucane wrote: Here's a little Marketing 101. Marketers don't shoot for your demographic; i.e. hard liner. They shoot for the fence sitters or those people who have yet to make a decision on a product or service. So your statement is incorrect for the majority of the people who happen to be fence sitters. If it's annoying to you use your options to turn it off. I really couldn't care less either way. And this is why so many people hate salespeople and marketeers - they don't care about other people unless they can make a sale, and they have no sense of propriety or etiquette.

As I stated recently in another thread, I'm pleased that the default color scheme here is legible. My recollection of the previous system is that I found it intolerable, not because it was too bright or harsh (a different problem), but because the contrast was so poor as to make it illegible. The current scheme, though much better, errs in the other direction by using #FFFFFF (pure white) as the background, which, though fine for me, is too bright for many users. A simple change to #F0F0F0 would be an improvement, though I'm sure there are plenty of suggestions on the web for off-white backgrounds that could be even nicer. However, although the main text passes all the tests on the color contrast analyzer that I use, the text in other places doesn't. Most notable are quotes, which fail both the color difference test and the AAA level of the luminosity test. Likewise, the text color in the editor fails both those tests (though with slightly different numbers). The latter is inexcusable, as unlike quotes, there's no motivation for using a lighter text in the editor. (Improving the presentation of quotes is a separate issue, as it's more than just contarst.) Color contrast isn't rocket science, and an awareness of both the guidelines and the various tools that are available should be a minimum requirement for any professional web style designer.

I'm trying to understand the criteria for each of the new forums. Why is the Blue Goo thread here and not in the Feedback forum?

I pretty much agree with all that Void wrote (ignoring the nits :smileyhappy: ), and especially agree with the concluding paragraph.

These answers don't do justice to the question. It's like asking why you need both an upright and a canister vacuum cleaner. Sure, they have different design priorities, but nobody buys both. You just pick the one that seems best. There's no technical reason the Answers section can't have an extended discussion - it certainly allows multiple responses to a question. There's no technical reason the Forums can't have a quick question and answer thread, or benefit from the same keyword search. There are some performance trade-offs, but it's not clear that it's worth the cost or confusion of both. The design differences are comparable to the differences between police cars and taxi cabs - cosmetic and bells and whistles. The real difference is in the way the content gets managed, which has nothing to do with the technology. The older versions of the forums didn't do a good job of meeting the quick beginner Q&A needs, largely because they were never well managed. They did perfectly well for the building and scripting forums. By creating a separate Answers section (either in the current or immediate predecessor versions), LL used the technological paint job to make it easier to manage the new section the way they should have managed the earlier forums to begin with.

Phil Deakins wrote: I don't see any reason to get rid of the ranks and their benefits. If all users could do all the same things, then some things would have to be disallowed to prevent some types of badness; i.e. if a first-time user could post porn or stuff like that, then the forums would be worse off, either because that stuff would appear or because the facility to post it would be disabled. The difference between a New Resident and a Resident prevents new people from doing that sort of thing. Putting restrictions on new users is a good idea for that reason. But that doesn't imply that their status needs to be public. As long as the system knows that Joe Newbie can't be trusted yet, we don't need to know that whether Joe Newbie is a Resident or New Resident.

I'm going to reraise a suggestion I made in one of the previous (but very long) threads, namely to change the terminology from "username" to "account name." The term "username" is vague and doesn't convey any special significance. The new Display Names and the existing avatar names can both be considered names of users. The term "Account name" makes it clear that the name is associated with a specific account, and there's a connotation of having official significance. Just look at how the word "account" is used in the base note and subsequent discussion here, and how it's used differently from the word "user" in this discussion. Indeed, the base note says "Usernames are unique to each account" , not that they're unique to each user. If they were called account names, then you wouldn't even need to point that out; it would be obvious.