Peggy Paperdoll

Open your viewer (don't bother trying to log in). Under your preferences look on the "Advanced" tab (at least I think that's the tab) and where you would "Clear Cache" you'll see where the cache is located on your computer. Write or copy that complete path to the cache folder and close the viewer. Navigate to that folder on your computer and delete everything in it (just open the folder and "Select All" then hit the delete). Launch your viewer again and on the location box type in one of the Linden Lab maintained sims (Pooley, Aqua, Lime are three I can think of off the top of my head). Log in and you should be logged into a water sim with no scripts and very little builds (in fact, the last time I was as at Pooley I saw nothing in the way of builds). Once you land just take a few steps away from the landing point so others who are arriving don't land on your head. Open your inventory and your counter should have started......if not then just type a few letters in the search box to get it started. Then just stand there and wait for the inventory to load completely (it can take a while so be patient). You can tell with it's fully loaded by the counter saying "x number of items fetched" instead of "fetching x number of items". Once that's done you can TP back home or where ever you normally log in to. That should fix your problem. Something else to avoid future issues like this. Move the caches for any other viewers you use on that same computer.........also for any other account you use (alts). Depending on how many accounts you have and how many viewers you use you can have a few caches to move. For instance if you have two accounts (you and one alt) and two viewers you will need to move three caches......you can leave one cache at the default location.

Many laptops (and even a few desktops......but not many) require customized drivers that are designed for specific models of the laptop. The chipset manufacturers' driver will not work on those computers (most won't even install). The place to look for a driver is the computer manufacturer's site, not the chipset manufacturer's. If you install the wrong driver you have a whole new set of problems to deal with..........it can be a real mess to straighten out too.

" In another thread we estimated that SL could be sustained if everyone paid about $15 per month user fee, which was less than I had assumed. Of course, it's hard to know for sure because we don't know exactly what LL's operating expenses are. Would ppl leave SL if they had to pay to play? Prolly so .. but how many would leave is an empirical question. No one knows w/out trying it. If SL was run as a members-owned cooperative there'd be no inflated executive salaries to pay & no investor dividends, which would reduce costs. So what if sims disappeared? How many does any 1 person actually visit, anyway? SL is grossly overbuilt. If many of the deserted redundant sims disappeared it would lower expenses & be a good thing! If a user fee was instituted along w/ the elimination of the $L & private "ownership" of property ~which is merely a euphemism for renting server space~ then there'd be no more ppl playing for free "riding on the backs" of content creators who are nowadays the sole supporters of SL. What's funny is how these hyper-exploited content creators & tier payers are the most vocal supporters of the corporation that unfairly exploits them. That's what's called the "Stockholm Syndrome" aka "cohesion unto the oppressor." Jeanne" --------------------------------------------- And all that was written by a person who stated earlier that she hated capitalism. How can you intelligently hate anything if you don't understand or know what it is that you hate? It's quite obvious she does not understand capitalisim........as her ignorant fingers just demonstrated. Not a single thought espoused in that post that gave even a tiny clue that she knew what she was talking about. Now I understand a little better why she became so unhappy with her company when she made her "career" move. She doesn't know what she's doing. I guess that would cause anyone to be unhappy in a work evironment. Most people who get in over their heads do one of two things: Get educated to get their head above the water. Or move to another job that is better suited for them. A very poor choice is to just stick it out with the attitude "it's just a job".

I don't see any passive aggressiveness with her. What I see is someone who has mads choices in real life that turned out to be mistakes for them. She refuses to accept the responsibility that the choice was made by her and it was wrong for her (as mentioned in one of her posts about leaving a family and home behind for a "career" she thought was hers). That didn't work out (evidently) and now, instead of accepting her choice as a mistake, she places the blame on the company or corporation who she chose for her "career" move. Now it's "just a job"......I wonder if she will blame the company if she finds herself standing in the unemployment line if the company ever finds out "it's just a job" for her. Probably, and she will use that to further reject any personal responsibility in life. There are lots of people like that in the world...most, eventually, learn with maturity what the real problem is. But then some don't......and they go to the grave as unhappy and bitter people (another choice in life). Life is not tailor made for anyone.......everyone has to make life, either pleasant or unpleasant, for themselves. She claims she hates capitalism for the reasons she says are limiting her happiness in life. But without someone to make it possible for her to choose anything at all, she has no choice about anything.......capitalism makes those choices possible. Socialism and Communism take away those choices. Reminds me of my 6 year old niece when she wants something yet has not done a thing to make that something available to her. Such as eat the beets and she can go play.........it's the beats fault she can't go play (or her mother's fault because her wants her to eat the vegetable to make her healthy......who's choice is more correct?). Leave it to the immature and the world gets crazy.

Linden Lab stuck their toe in that water a couple years ago........it was a total failure as far as participation was concerned. Cloud computing relieves the users of needing the software locally and the need for higher spec'd machines.........a good move in theory. But cloud computing removes the ability to create a 3D environment that SL is built on. A program built and designed to run on HTML or Java is going to be a compromise between true 3D and 2D.........2.5D? I tried it when LL experimented with it.........it was ugly and looked so much like those Zyngo games on Facebook it was scary. Cloud computer has some growing up to do before it's ready for anything like SL.

I don't blame anyone for enjoying SL for free. What I do blame is people who enjoy SL for "free" complaining that everyone should also enjoy SL for free. I've been in SL for a much longer time than you (getting close to 6 1/2 years now) and just by the time spent in SL I'm pretty sure I've encountered many more people than you..........I was a dancer for years and had a friends list of "clients" that would frighten most people (I was very successful (my income from dancing allowed me to purchase some 75 or 80 skins ranging from $L500 to over $L7000 without resorting to my credit card). You're claim about not "working" is just not true..........yeah, I do define shaking your virtual butt for pervs work (I did it for years myself........I have experience in that area). LL allows you to do what you do and recieve "payment".........and that is not something I have a problem with. It's the slamming SL by people to benefit from that generaousity that gets under my skin. Those people (like what I believe you are) who want more are the ones who I object to. I can't see why you can't appreciate what you can do without spending any real life money. But you do "work" for what you got........as does everyone else who gets along in SL without real money spent. Why are you bitching about LL? Cause it's the kewl thing to do? it ain't cool......it's tacky.

PeterCanessa Oh wrote: Let's all remember that a lot of people with free accounts, who never buy L$ and create nothing can still contribute a lot to SL simply by what they do and/or say there. Oh, I agree 100%. But I think most of those people want or expect nothing for free that isn't. -------------------------------------------- The people I enjoy being around are not the people who complain about anything..........SL, RL, their health, their status in life, nothing at all. I tend to avoid those who do.

The servers located in California are located in Southern California.........they are located in San Francisco, CA which is considered Northern California (by about 400 miles).

Sometimes it seems that SL is full of the people who think everything should be provided for them free of charge. Those same people never even think of what is already provided 100% free of charge. I know people who pride themselves on not spending a single US penny for anything in SL and those people have a great inventory and enjoy SL to it's fullest..........all for free. Then I know people who constantly complain that SL is too expensive. This all on the exact same platform.........simply amazing!! Those people I know who enjoy SL for free work pretty hard to do what they do and deep down inside they all realize nothing's really free. You either work to get your stuff for your enjoyment or you pay to get your stuff for your enjoyment. It's the people who don't want to work for their stuff who do the complaining the most......they want it free without putting in any effort what so ever. It doesn't work that way......not here in SL and not in real life either. It's not able "takers" or "givers"........it's about expectations. Expect something for free without effort and you get disappointed, Expect something with work and you don't get disappointed. Demanding everything for free with no effort is futile......no one is going to give anything just because someone wants it. Most will give if the someone is willing to put in the effort to get it. Linden Lab has been very generous in what they have given.........no other "game" (or platform" has provided what LL provides completely free with no strings attached. Anyone willing to put out the effort can enjoy SL every bit as much as I enjoy SL (and I pay for much of my stuff). Entitlement mentality fits quite well for those folks. "I'm entitled to that because I exist in SL". Your mere existance entitles you to nothing. That's also true in real life.

If you were running a for profit business and there is a law that requires you to assist in protecting someone's rights like the DMCA law requires the ISP's to do would you expose your business to the possibility of being named as a co-defendant should the "injured" party decide that court action is the path to take? Even if the probability is remote, needlessly exposing your business to that risk is a foolish way to do business. Yeah, technically, you are correct and an ISP cans ignore the DMCA if they think it's frivilous, false or erroneous.....but without a way to make that determination the ISP would be making a judgement without facts. That is the problem with digital content........it's next to impossible to know who's right and who's wrong when an accusation is made. You are saying that LL should take the risk of financial penalties without a way to know with any reasonable assurance that that risk is minimal. The law has a provision written into it for the accused to get their content reinstated by the ISP to counter the "false" take down notice........appeal (or dispute) the claim and LL will reinstate the content. The accuser and accused are then on their own and the resolution lays with a court outside the ISP's domain. They don't have a choice unless you believe a company should take risks that could very well be financially damaging. That's not a smart way to do business.

Is this going to be art? Well, yeah since technically any photo or display could be considered art. But defining this project as some type of art is something I think we should stay away from. As I understand the original idea the project's intent is to highlight the residents and users of Second Life. A way for everyone to show themselves to the world if they choose to do so. Making the project some sort of "art project" would remove the resident as the purpose of the project and replace it with the art involved to create the presentation or display....it would become some sort of art gallery instead of a gallery for residents to be seen in their chosen persona. Diversity in SL is huge. Keep the focus on the diversity of the residents not on the art of the creators. That's my take on that. On the maturity rating. I'm not opposed to nudity (heck I was a dancer for about the first 3 years I've been in SL.......exotic dancer, in fact). But we are going for the largest audience we can and that audience is the residents who have mature ratings checked in their viewers. Yeah, it's going to exclude the 15 throiugh 17 year olds. That's unfortunate but if we go with adult then we exclude many more or if we go with general we run into the problem of excuding a very large portion of the residents who choose to dress their avatars in less than Sunday church attire. Sexy or racey does not have to be nude or vulgar. The only problem I see is who is going to be the censor? There has to be a firm line defined and adhered to or it becomes impossible to avoid the adult rating. And I think we should avoid that unless we go with multiple presentations on the appropriately rated land (which may delute the original intent of the idea by forcing residents to make a choice of where they want to have their images displayed). Keep this as simple as possible. Keep this as uncontriversal as we can. We are not going to please everyone but I think we can please the vast majority.

Depth of field and lights and shadows require a fairly high end graphics card. I have an nVidia GTX 550 Ti with a gig of video RAM (which is a mid level gaming card) and my performance takes a serious hit with those features enabled. It does work but my FPS just about cut in half. You need a card that is capable of handling those features which would be not less than a mid level gaming card.......a high end card would be best such as an nVidia GTX 580. Those cards are not cheap......$400 to $500 USD. Open your viewer and under the "Help" menu click on "About Second Life". Copy the computer specs on the first tab of the dialog box and paste back here. That will give enough information so that someone might be able to give you more than I just gave you.

I don't see Knowl meaning a "sexual project". More like some avatars dress on the rather sexy side to maintain their SL image. I know back in the day when I was a dancer, I dressed like a dancer or, at the very least, in provocative outfits. Some of those outfits may not be appropriate for minors or the easily offended. Having a section separate from the more accepted styles is something I would endorse........if for no other reason, than to be on the safe side of the ToS.

It's up to you but purchasing a used computer is iffy at best. But maybe this is a refurb......better but still you're buying an old computer. One that there is no way to know how well the computer has been maintained or if it's been subject to abuse in the past. The video card is a recent one and SSD's are relatively new too. That would indicate to me that HP has replaced what was in the computer before they took it as trade in (I'm assuming it's a refurb by HP). Hewlett Packard would not replace something in a computer that was working..........what caused a video card and hard drive to fail and need replacement? Heat is probably the reason (it is for so many computer failures, I'm just going with the odds). And heat is almost always due to poor maintenance in desktops (laptops are not necessarily the same since they run hot even under good circumstances). If that computer was over heated to the point of distroying a video card and hard drive, it most likely got hot enough to damage other hardware components. Hope it comes with a good warranty......more than 30 days. Ask some hard questions of HP before you give them a check. That's my advise.

The video card is up to the task (though shadows and DoF will slow it down apprecitively). What I'm questioning is your choice of CPU (an older Core 2 quad CPU) and why the heck are you going to DDR2 memory? The Core 2 series CPU's are really very good but they are outdated by about 3 years.........an i5 or i7 series if you are going Intel are much better choices. DDR2 memory is much slower than DDR3 and because of that you are not going to realize much performance boost with that 8 gigs. It might be that your motherboard is what is limiting your choices (I haven't looked the MB up so I'm guessing here). If that's the case I sure would go with a more recent motherboard. It would be a disappointment for you if you wanted to upgrade some hardware device a year from now and find out you can't because you have an old, outdated motherboard. The 500 GB SSD is a fast and excellent hard drive........but with the slow memory you're defeating the purpose to some extinct. If necessary go with a smaller SSD to save enough to upgrade the MB, CPU and memory (SSD's are expensive I know).

Before you rant using a title for your rant "SL hates entrepreneurs" you might want to read what you are accusing SL of doing (or not doing). Digital Millennium Content Act (DMCA) is what is involved here. It's a United States law to give digital content creators/owners ways to protect their intellectual property rights (IP rights) for digital content. Linden Lab (or SL, as you referred to the company) must abide by the US law because they are a US based company.........they have no choice in the matter. You can read what the law is: https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=dmca&oq=dmca&aq=0p&aqi=p-p2g2&aql=1&gs_l=hp.1.0.35i39l2j0l2.1764l5047l1l11370l6l3l3l0l0l0l116l312l1j2l6l0.epsugrst.1.&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=21ba5269d78bca91&biw=1536&bih=759 After reading the Wiki page, Google the DMCA Takedown procedure. That will tell you who can file for the take down and what the provder of the content must do once the takedown notice has been filed (and how it may be appealed and how the content is treated once the takedown is appealed. What you going to find out is that no one except the IP rights owner (or a legal representative) can file the take down notice (and that the take down must be filed properly, to the proper entity for anything to take place. Then you'll learn why LL has taken the stance they have taken for pirated or stolen content. Once you know who must and how they must file a DMCA takedown you'll know that this misinformed person who you call a low life brat can file a thousand AR's against you for stolen content and they will simply toss the AR in the trash.......the complaint has to come from the IP rights owner (or their legal representative) and no one else. Direct your rants to the right target. It's not LL's fault this moron doesn't know what he/she is talking about. It's also not LL's fault that you are (apparently) just as ignorant on the subject. Forget your "friend's" threats.......as long as you are certain that you are not violating and license provided for the use of these free (or even paid for) full perm content items. If you are violating any part of the licenses attached to the items then, you are subject to a DMCA takedown being filed against your content......but the complaint will have to come from the IP rights owner (not your new friend with his/her threats).

A mural could be done. In fact, I believe a collage is still on the table which is very much like a mural. Everyone has their individual ideas on what would be best (I know I do) but the idea is Knowl's so I think we should try to do what he wants. I've sort of arrived at my idea of what Knowl had in mind but I'm still not sure everyone is on the same page. That needs to be hashed out yet and I'm with the folks who have said not to rush it. I would like for the project to be done well and not simply look like a group scap book that just happened.......but that may wind up being what everyone wants and I'll go along with it if so. I'd like to be able to look back next year and be proud of our efforts. If we do this correctly with thought and planning (as much as planning can be reasonably done........plans will change quickly as the project develops, I'm sure) the display could look very professional and be a nice experience for anyone interested in Second Life.

That's prettly much my thoughts too, Irene. If we're going to do a "group shot" type photo (similar to the Hippystock example posted earlier) then group submissions by residents could be incorporated into the final images (there will be more than one or two with the numbers that have been thrown out in this thread). I have no problem with editing for a "group shot" but there is much much more to it than just removing the background of the images and then placing them on another image as a group of avatars posed for a single picture. The angle of the shot, distance from the camera, quality of the video card's color and rendering, the resolution the picture was taken at (that is very much determined by the monitor's resolution and the video card's ability to render at that resolution), and, of course how the image is saved ..........if those seemingly small details are consistant, the final image is going to look like a hodge podge of cobbled together cut-outs (or grafetti). I don't think we want that. But unless the pictures presented for inclusion (editing) are very close to the same size, color, distance from camera and angle, no matter how good an editor is the final image is not going to look very good or professionally done.....you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I love the group shot idea..........but, on this scale it just won't work very well.

I thought about the cube idea but Knowl mentioned a line to walk along...........I like that idea too. I just made mine at 10 meter by 10 meters for convenience and keeping it square limits all the math involved in keeping the aspect ratio correct for a power of 2 sized texture (making life easier for everyone). A shorter wall would have a nicer look but that can be figured out later......besides if the wall is going be as long as it appears it will be 10 meters would look a lot shorter once it's built. On the editing. Once you do one or two textures you get so it's easy since you don't have to do any thinking once you got the numbers down.........at least it is for me. It took my about 20 minutes to do my example once I found a couple images I had saved from over the years of my projects (that was the most time consuming since I have a poorly organized file where I keep all that stuff on my computer). I'm not a fast texture creator and 100% self taught (well I did buy a book on GIMP but beyond that nothing formal).........if I can do it I'm sure you can too.

I just got yours in-world and yes you and I are on the same page. I was worried that the 128 images pasted to the larger 1024 texture would not have enough detail for what I think everyone wants. I did my experiment and sent to everyone in the group. The method will work using either texture size for the preentation but with so many potential images I think a larger prim size would be best to make more images on a single panel and reducing the total number of textures used........mainly for lag but also for prim usage. The prim size could be altered but still at some power of 2.........like maybe 20 meters wide by 2.5 meters tall and the texture size at 1024 by 256 pixels. Same number of images but only two rows instead of 4 with 16 columns. That can be worked out once we figure what we want. I don't think the editing is going to be as complicated as you think........unless we go with a group type shot (which I think everyone is shying away from anyway).

I see and appreciate what you are attempting to do with lowering the rezz times. But 85 textures at 512 by 512 resolution is a lot of textures to rezz..........it won't be quick by anyone's definition. The prim size has nothing to do with how long it takes for a texture to rez. A 10 by 10 panel with a 512 resolution will not rez any slower than a 3 by 3 panel........it's the texture that has be processed by the graphics and how large that texture is determines how long it will take for any graphics adapter to rezz the image. I did a quick and dirty calculation using 32 128 by 128 images pasted onto a larger canvas sized at the maximum SL allows for upload (1024 by 1024 pixels). That's 27 more avatars per panel. It was mentioned that perhaps the 128 size is too small to retain enough detail if someone views the individual images up close......and that may be true, as I have not had time to experiment yet. But I'm thinking of placing the 1024 x 1024 uploaded canvas containing those smaller images on a 10 by 10 panel. A sim's size is 256 by 256 meters so 25.6 panels is needed to cover one side of the sim.........that's way less than half your 85 panels. The time to rezz 25 1024 x 1024 pixel textures is less time that it takes to rezz 85 512 x 512 pixel textures. The rezz times are going to be slow no matter how it's done unless media on a prim method is used and I'm not sure how well that would work since the only way I can imagine it working is to have a slide show type presentation (how many people will wait for the image batch to cycle through to see the avatars?). To avoid image distortions we have to think in powers of 2 for all the images. Otherwise we get into weird prim sizes to accommadate the odd texture sizes and I'm afraid that will not work out very well unless one person does it all......big job for several, almost impossible for one. For a couple hundred avatars that would work fine.......for a potential couple thousand (or more) a very intimidating task (even for an experienced graphics editor). I'm sure everyone who volunteers to do editing can get on the same page once the details are known but to keep it consistant with what the SL software works with is the best approach to avoid glaring differences in each editor's work. Things like making sure no texture contains alpha channels is one very important little thing that would help keep the texture lag down. Was it Dresden or Luc who mentioned a supervisor? We would need one person who can remind us all of the small things like that as we edit and put the panels together for the display. An experience builder would be nice too to help put the panels in place.......that may be a little more complicated that it appears on the surface.

The graphics are pretty close to the same with the major difference being the graphics memory......that would give quicker texture rezz times and a few more more frames per second. The rezz times will be noticible, but the FPS will not likely be significant for the eye to see but definitely better graphics performance (that is due to the larger graphics memory on the card, the performance of the models GT 555 and GTX 560 are nearly identical). The double system memory will also be a noticible increase in performance over all in SL (and all other programs too for that matter). You should be able to run SL at high settings without problems and at ultra with some decrease in performance (though perfectly acceptable for most people). Shadows and depth of field will slow you down noticibly, but if you like that look then you might want to live with it (I don't like the harsher look so I don't use shadows and depth of field gives a slightly blurry look to distance objects). You have to decide for yourself if the 3D capable monitor is worth the extra bucks it surely costs (probably significant). I think 3D is a fad and will fade away pretty quickly (it did years ago when a bunch of 3D movies hit the market......it's having the same problems getting consumers enthusiatic with the recent resurgance of 3D. For the over all performance increase I'm not sure I would go with the 3D model. The first Asus laptop is almost as powerfull as this laptop.....for what you will notice in SL paying more may not be worth the money since both computers will handle SL quite well (the 3D model a little better but not by a significant margin).

Charo, I'm not disputing anything you mentioned. But I do want to comment on a couple things. I agree a "photo wall" with images placed side by side would be a little bland (boring?). A collage could be made instead that would look a little better but still just about as easy to edit......I'm not in love with that idea but a little more so than the "photo wall" idea. Here's my take on the photo mosaic idea. The mosiac part would become the subject of the project instead of the users' images. The photo mosiac, as the focal point, is quite impressive and very artist looking. But what do we want to emphasize? The mosiac or the residents of SL? I think the residents should be the subject and whatever means of displaying the residents (the subject) should be secondary. Think of art galleries.....the art is the subject and frame the art is in is secondary so that the viewers look at the art, not the gold enlaid frame it is mounted in. I know editing would be easier if all that was necessary would be to crop the photos and resize for presentation. The original idea (as I remember it) was to have a "group shot" put together by editing out whatever background was in the original image and then placing those cut-outs on another background as a group appearing to pose together as the same time at the same location would be somewhat more difficult to do......and certainly more time comsuming. But the advantage is that it would look much more natural to a viewer of the final combined image and the subject (the residents) would be the focal point of the image. Depending on the background to be removed the cutting could be difficult or easy. The photos with a busy or similar background to what the resident is wearing in the photo would be the most difficult and photos with the background very unlike the resident would be the easiest. I've done it both ways with both SL snapshots and real life images (I've even combined the two to create a mixture of both real life and Second Life into a single image). Removing the backgrounds took required about 90% of the total time to make the final image.......I do remember one image taking me a couple hours to remove the background but I also remember a few taking only a few minutes. There are things I found out that I had not thought of when I first tried doing it...........the scale of the images need to match up closely to each other so that detail is uniform between the different images once everything is merged into one image. Another is the color quality must be close too. Those two things present a potential issue for allowing user submitted photos for inclusion in the group photo (different graphics card will have different resolution capabilities and the colors will not necessarily be the same........all graphics collors are callibrated differently by default and each user will have different preferences about what looks best). On the resolution part that can be pretty much over come with cropping and small amounts of resizing after the cropping (unless the resolution is very low minor adjustments won't be noticed). The potential color difference would be a problem though. Another plus is that, in a "group photo" I can see many more avatars in the single image (maybe a couple hundred). I did some calculations (but haven't verified if it would work by actually trying it in world). Using each image to be included on the final image resolution at 128 by 128 pixels (that's a fairly small image but I'm pretty sure large enough to maintain a level of detail good enough to be able to identify the image's subject), you can get 32 images on a 1024 by 1024 pixel image (the largest you can upload to SL).......that's placing each image side by side and top to bottom without any overlap. If the display is a prim cube you can place a different image on each face. The top and bottom of the cube would not easily viewable so throw them out, leaving four faces per cube..........giving 128 images on each cube (4 x 32). That wold make 10 cubes to display 1,280 residents. This project could get prim heavy quickly. I'm not one to endorse a web based presentation because, as I see it now, there is a lot of SL related stuff already web based (Market Place for example) and that discourages users from going in world. In my eyes, that's the exact opposite of what I would like to see........get people in world instead of directing them out of the world. But, the media on a prim idea looks like a good compromise. I don't know how it works specifically but I think I know enough of the basics to see where it might be a solution to the prim method of displaying in world......we could be talking about 50 or 60 prims just to place the images on to present for viewing. Someone might know more about media on a prim and could shed more light on that possibility (like how is the media streamed to the prim and what are the costs....such as required bandwidth, hosting, or other costs). I'm leaning to the group photo idea regardless of the editing work required (I believe the end result would be worth the extra work and effort). That along with the media on a prim idea seem to be a good combination. Using the group photo method, quite a few more avatars can be included on the 1024 by 1024 uploaded image but it would still require several prims to display all the residents images. I'm flexible and will go with whatever the majority wants and decides..........but those are me thoughts at the moment. I reserve the right to change me mind. One more thought. We've had two people volunteer land and server space. I know neither Hippie or Dilbert have even hinted at compensation for their donations of server space or land space........niether of those things are free. I will lobby hard and long for tip jars, at the very least, to help pay for the real life costs for providing that kind of support for the project. I, for one, appreciate both Hippie and Dilbert for their generous support. Thank you both.

Of the three you listed the first one (the Asus 17 inche one) would run SL best....that's strictly using the listed graphics spec's). You should be able to run SL at mid to high preferenes settings. Shadows and depth of field will slow you down significantly though. And if you run SL with a wireless connection (as I assume you would when traveling) you will have issues with connections.........but with a solid wireless connection SL should run okay in most circumstances. Laptops are not my cup of tea.......mostly because of the heat issues you will encounter that are not such a problem with desktops. A cooling pad would, in my opinion, be a must have peripheral device. And try to run using the AC adaptor as much as possible..........the heavy graphics will work your graphics card pretty hard which will drain your battery significantly faster (not to mention the adapt would help to keep the battery cooler and not add so much heat to the laptop).

How complicated do we want SL to become? It's hard enough to deal with the many different viewers we have now (plus the new ones that will come and go over time). Now we want to introduce grids and/or areas where specific tasks can be done? Say someone wants to upload meshes. They need a viewer that can display and show meshes, they need to complete the mesh tutorial, they need to have payment information on file and, of course, they need to skills and knowledge to use a suitable 3D modeling software program independ of Second Life. That's quite a bit of "things to know"......now we have to know where to go within the Second Life grid to use specific tools or functions necessary to create or enjoy meshes? That's just another level of complications that could (and should) be avoided. Some of the most useful software programs in existance are also some of the easiest to use. Once a program gets complicated and "feature rich" the user base drops. But the up side is that the complicated programs tend to produce the most qualified users simply because the users have to dig deeper and work harder to gain the necessary skills and knowledge. However, SL is full of amateurs doing some of the most amazing things with so little to do those things with. I'm for slowing the "features" down a little to allow time for us users to catch up with technology a little bit.