Persephone Emerald

The The Advanced Bonewits’ Cult Danger Evaluation Frame is a good guide for distiguishing a cult. Since people in SL can't really have this much control over others, I don't think we need to worry about cults in here. http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html

Welcome back to SL. All of the old teen continent & some regions in the rest of SL are open to you. Good luck finding more than a couple interesting G-rated regions next to each other, though You can buy things on SL Marketplace, even for free, if you have trouble finding them in-world. If you want free or low-priced skins, try Miss Murder. I've got a list for good freebie shopping, with some places in Generqal regions I can send you in-world too. What the teens need is a good Hunt through General regions. I wonder who would sponser that?

This is a link to a list of viewers not created by Linden Labs, but officially supported by them. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory Any version of a Linden Lab viewer using their open source Viewer 1 code is refered to as V1. Any version of a Linden Lab viewer using their open source Viewer 2 code is refered to as V2. The next version of the Linden Lab viewer will use a new code set & will be called Viewer 3 or V3, but it's not the official viewer yet. http://www.examiner.com/second-life-in-national/coming-changes-second-life Third Party viewers are based on the open source code of official Linden Lab viewers, but are tweeked in various ways to meet the needs of different users. In general, the more popular a viewer is, the more people like using it, so that's a pretty good indicator of which viewers are good to use. Everyone's has different tastes & needs, though, so it's a good idea to try out a few different viewers to see which you like best.

If you have 2 (or more) avatars, it can be fun to have both of them on SL at the same time, but it really lags both of them. I generally only use that feature for taking pictures of them together of for having them all hit the same Midnight Madness boards or Lucky Chairs.

Belkin makes a nice little cooler for around $30. The last one I bought is grey & has screws in back so you can take it apart & clean out any pet fur or dust that collects inside. I've gone though several coolers & this one is the best so far. (Edit to add link) http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/690428-REG/Belkin_F5L025_F5L025_Laptop_Cooling_Pad.html

II think our whole society needs to be little more considerate of other people. One way to do this is for employers to tell their employees "thank-you" once in a while. I had a boyfriend who worked at a small military contractor job. His bosses make it a habit of sending a Thank-you email to everyone who was involved in a project when it was done. It costs nothing to say thank-you, but it makes people feel appreciated & boosts their moral. And Thank-You, Perrie, for starting this thread.

Assuming that I'm not limited in what I could do, the first thing I'd do in reinstate last names for new residents. Then I'd set all the freebies on SL Marketplace to their own area & put the Q&A section of the Forums on the same page as the rest of the forums. Then I'd start the ball rollling to make all the newbie areas more user-friendly & fun, to help learn how to enjoy SL better, like having games that teach new residents how to do stuff & then having a freebie place like Free Dove, right at the end of the learning trail.

When I was new, I found a quiet little patio area behind a shop where I could dress. Sandboxes work too, but you have to rez a house or dressing room & be sure the autoreturn time is long enough so your dressing house doesn't go poof before you're done. You can also dress under water sometimes for a bit of privacy. I did that too. You can put on a new outfit first & then take off what's left of the old one, but when you try on skins & shapes, you really need privacy to see how you look naked. Check the map or mini map then to make sure there aren't other people nearby who could peep on you (if you care). Personally, I've developed the attitude that I don't care if people peep, as long as they're descrete & don't say anything to me. I hate it when I'm dressing & someone pops in or says "nice boobs" or something like that. That's just rude.

"Let down your guard a little... don't assume everyone has it out for you because, honestly, no one cares all that much what you have between your legs. It's what's between your ears and in your heart that counts and that's something you can't just tell people about... you have to show them. When you build up your defenses so high that no one can get in, there's no chance in hell they will ever see the beauty of who you really are. You'll never get where you want to be if you're not willing to take a chance... I sincerely hope you find a way to do that for yourself. I wish you the best of luck ...Dres" Awesome post, Dres. :smileyhappy:

This is one of the classic newbie problems, so you're not alone. I suggest dragging your folders for individual clothing outfits into your Clothing Folder too, if they aren't there already. Try to keep your Inventory as neat & orderly as possbile, because having alot of stuff & not being able to find it easily is one of the big problems people end up having in SL. Welcome to SL! We have much more than just cookies.

Try downloading & using one of the Third Party Viewers that uses alpha layers. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory The Phoenix viewer is very popular & stable. It uses modified Viewer 1 code & can use single alpha layers (not layered layers). The Firestorm Viewer uses Viewer 2 code, uses alpha layers, allows you to modify your user interface, but is in Beta & still a bit crashy.

Here are some sites to try if you want an old-fashoned last name. I can't verify if they work, but it's worth a try. http://registration.scilands.org.uk/ http://www.uelconnect.org.uk/secondlife/register4sl.php http://www.virtually-linked.com/secondlife/registration.php http://sl.nmc.org/create.php

Hunts can be a really good way to meet people, but the Twisted Hunt is one of the absolute hardest hunts in SL. If you like a good challange, go for it. But if it makes you feel too frustrated, try looking in search for some easier ones.

"also..beware of people calling themselves normal..those are the crazy ones." ^ I love this. I won't say that all people who call themselves normal are crazy, but in my experience they tend to be rather boring & not much fun to be around. I've been in SL for 2 and a half years & have a wide range of friends in here. I don't think a single one of them has ever describe themselves as "normal", though. They are creative, open-minded, playful people, which in my RL experience is actually a pretty rare find.

I found a recent blog post on Viewer 3: http://jayrcelasecondlifetechnologist.blogspot.com/2011/08/secondlife-viewer3-errrrrr-development.html

@ Ceera, This free pack includes an alpha layer that only hides the sole of the feet. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Lindaline-shoemasks/2367149 (Edit to Add link) There are also other uses for invisiprims besides in clothing. For instance, they can be used to put a window into a solid wall, though unfortuately the wall becomes like an alpha texture in the process.

It is true that you get the bonus for every alt that goes premium, but I'm pretty sure you only get it once for each account.

Be sure to Copy anything you want to modify before you modify it, os if you mess it up,you can still go back to the original version.

When you go Premium, you get $L 300/ week, either a free Linden house or 512m of tier that you can apply to land you buy, & $L 1000 after you've been Premium for 45 days. If you choose to pay annually, the package deal almost pays for itself. The only serious drawback is that if you don't pay your fees on time, LL can & will lock you out of your account until you pay up.

If a parcel goes to auction another bidder may out bid you. I think $1/ m is a perfectly reasonble price for land you really want. Be sure to buy as part of a group, so you can get 10% more land & prims without paying more tier.

If you have a PayPal account set up to pay Linden Labs, you can go right to your account page & pay the money you owe from there. Then figure out why you were being charged fees (if you don't know why already). Are you paying tier or to have land "Show in Search"? Do you share group land with someone who hasn't been paying their share? Once you set up automatic payments for any SL service (or if you're set to pay group liabities), LL will keep charging you even if you don't have money in your account. First you get a negative ballance, then they suspend your account, & if you still don't pay they can terminate your account, including eveything your avatar owns in their inventory. You can go back in with a new avatar, but you can't get back your inventory once it's been deleted.

" I guess if you don't have social skills in RL, I can't expect you to have them in SL! LOL " ^ This is the real problem. Noobishness in a newbie is to be expected & can be corrected with a little kindness & patience. But some people just lack good social skills no matter where they are. Maybe the predominance of the internet, social media & texting is part of the problem. They're so used to texting & tweeting everyone all the time. They probably don't see it as a small invasion of other people's lives. Few people seem to learn proper social niceties, spelling, punctuation, grammar. They don't seem to understand that intruding on another person's time requires an "Excuse me", "Hello", "Can you help me?" or "Are you busy?" first. They don't seem to understand that punctuation, good spelling & grammar serve a purpose to help the person understand you better. HELLO, people. Punctuation is not just decoration for your sentence, that you can dispense with when you're too lazy to put it out. I have one SL & Facebook friend who's sweet, but clueless about such things. She says hello to me in IM or Facebook chat whenever she sees I'm on, doesn't bother to ask if I'm busy, wants to chat about inane details of her life, says brb in the middle of a conversation & then disappears for a hour or longer. I finally had to block her from seeing when I'm on SL, because I don't want to unfriend her, but I don't come to SL to listen to her inane blather the whole time either.

Ok. I don't have the same problem with most of my inventory items. So, just do what you can when you put on an outfit & only if you see black prims. I have a quad wolf from TWI, some ethric serpents & an Asian-style dragon from Grendal's children. I was able to delete some invisiprims from these & replace them with an invisible body alpha from the Library. I recently bought an octopus mer tail with a lower leg alpha layer, so I copied that to some of my other mer tails. Of course, that doesn't work if the mer skin is part of the leg,

Unless the invisiprim is attached to a no-mod prim I don't see what the problem is in replacing them with alpha layers. I found free full perm foot apha layers on SL Marketplace. I then put the term "invisi" into my Inventory search & deleted all my invisiprims. Then I copied the appropriate sized alpha layers into my folders for items that needed them. If you're inventory isn't organized well enough to do that last step easily, you can put on the appropriate alpha layer when you put on your shoes or avatar, then copy & paste it into the folder. You can replace invisiprims with alpha layers as needed, rather than doing it all at once. I like the fact that 1 alpha layer is only 1 inventory item, while pairs of invisprims for shoes are 2 inventory items, so exchanging alpha layres for invisiprims is an easy way to reduce inventory. (Edit to add) Maybe try searching the Marketplace for alpha layers? Here's what I found : https://marketplace.secondlife.com/products/search?search%5Blayout%5D=gallery&search%5Bcategory_id%5D=8&search%5Bsort%5D=price_asc&search%5Bper_page%5D=12&search%5Bkeywords%5D=alpha+layers&search%5Bprice_low%5D=&search%5Bprice_high%5D=&search%5Bprim_count_low%5D=&search%5Bprim_count_high%5D=&search%5Bcopy_permission%5D=0&search%5Bmodify_permission%5D=0&search%5Btransfer_permission%5D=0

I bet you couldn't list these either: