Ricky Shaftoe

Is there a place I can rez stuff on the beta grid? Everywhere I've visited is either full or privately owned. (Er, can we buy land using our beta Lindens?) I searched on an old thread on sandboxes, but it's four years old, and not sure that info is up to date. I'm Ricky Shaftoe on the beta grid if anyone would be so kind as to send me a landmark. :) Thanks!

Thanks for all the helpful replies. Does the outfit feature save settings on a mesh avi's HUD? Suppose, for example, I click off thirty-seven lines on a mesh avi's alpha. Will the outfit "remember" how the HUD is set? I haven't bought a mesh avi, so I'm pretty curious about that.

Thanks for your reply. I may contact the person, as you suggest. Is it possible to change the wind direction? I'm almost certain the answer is no.

I seem to have smoke particles drifting onto my land from a neighboring parcel. The land in question is Mainland property, by the water. Often the wind seems to blow small gray translucent squares over my dock. They look like the particles emitted by fire and similar things in SL. Is there any way for to stop them at the edge of my property?

Hi all, I have a friend who dislikes the outfits feature and never uses it. She says it propagates too many links in inventory, cluttering things there. Me, I like the convenience of changing looks instantly. Do you all see any downsides to outfits? Do they promote laggy inventory, say? (Incidentally, I found a post here indicating that you can move outfits out of the "Outfits" folder to other folders, where you can store them -- though they'll be invisible on the Outfits tab when editing your outfit. I'm looking forward to trying that.) Anyway, outfits: yea or nay?

Thanks for taking the time to reply again, Drake. I'll check out the landmark you provide. Thanks again!

Thanks for your reply. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could wear my existing mesh clothing with the mesh avi, with just a few minor tweaks of the mesh avi HUD. And it sounds like mesh clothing is actually better than applier clothing, so if I do get a mesh avi, I should focus on buying good mesh for it?

Hi all, I'm looking at mesh avis, in particular the Signature Gianni mesh avi, which I rather like. I demo'd it with a couple of my skins, and they seemed to work fine. The Gianni mesh comes complete with hands and feet, which I really like. But I'm confused about what happens if and when I buy the thing. Some questions: 1. If I buy the mesh avi, what else will I need to start getting myself dressed? I don't fully understand what an applier is. Do I need clothes with appliers? 2. Will system clothes work on the mesh avi? If I want to wear a T-shirt I've had lying around for 10 years, that's no longer gonna happen unless I switch back to my old avi? (I guess one can do that easily enough with outfits. Some of my friends disdain outfits, though; I'm not quite sure why.) 3. Also, how can I figure out how widely supported this Gianni mesh avi is by clothing designers? Thanks!

I like using outfits too. I have friends, though, who disdain outfits. I guess they dislike all the outfit links that appear in inventory when you create an outfit. Should I care about this?

Just an update: I bought a USB headset, and that *may* have cured the problem. At least I can now hear others in my headset, albeit rather faintly. --||-

Hi Qie, wow, nice to hear from you! Thanks for your reply. Yes, I've spent a couple hours staring at that input devices/output devices screen. It took a while, in fact, before I was able to get the green boxes under "output devices" to light up. But at last I did. I did get two-way voice going. My main problems were: (1) in a "Call," the other party's voice was delivered to my speakers, not my headset, creating echo effects for the other speaker and annoying both of us; (2) in local chat, I couldn't hear anyone talk at all, whether through speakers or headset. In both cases, all other SL sounds played fine through my headset.

Is this the right place to ask about technical questions with voice? I can get voice to work -- mostly. While doing a voice Call, the other speaker can hear me fine, but the other speaker's voice comes through my speakers, not through my headphones. That's annoying to the other speaker. More worrisome, in local chat, people could hear me, but I couldn't hear them, even though I could see their "radio signal" light up over their heads. It didn't matter whether I used avatar-distance or camera-distance as the setting for voice volume. I'm using a headset with two miniplugs, Win 7, RealTek HD Audio Manager, Logitech speakers with optical connection to a master volume knob, SL Viewer 3. No amount of configuring or reconfiguring in Windows 7 seems to help. I've got voice volume to max in SL's settings, and when I look at the hardware-settings screen, I see green lights when I speak. RealTek does have an option to "mute the rear output device" when a headset is plugged in, but when I enable this, I don't hear anything at all. I'm going to run out and buy a USB headset, but other than that, I'm at a loss for what to do. I'd welcome any suggestions.

I'm inclined to recommend the official viewer, Viewer 3. I didn't like it at first, but I realized I could customize it quite a bit. E.g., if you don't like all those buttons on the left and bottom, you can remove them or move them around. If you don't like the extra browser-like bar at the top of the screen, you can disable it; I did. I also really like the Outfit system in Viewer 3. With one or two clicks, I can change my whole wardrobe. Yes, people used to do that with folders, but I find this a lot easier and more intuitive. I aso trust LL marginally more than I trust third-party authors after the Emerald fiasco. I'm not wild about the way profiles are arranged in V3 -- I miss the look of the old profiles, and I wish the person's pic and info were the first thing you see -- but they do contain more information than you find in some other viewers. Chat isn't bad, except that V3 inexplicably lacks a hotkey (like CTL T) to toggle the IM window on/off. I say give Viewer 3 a chance. Don't just load it up and go "yuck"; play with the preferences, see if you can make it work for you.

Well, there already is a JIRA calling for the return of CTL-T (or some other hotkey) to toggle the IM window on/off. It's here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-26790 I added a comment supporting this change. The JIRA has been there a while, though, so it does not seem to be a priority for LL. The JIRA relates to Viewer 2, so I wasn't sure whether to open a new one for Viewer 3; I didn't want to spam the bug-report database. But if V2 JIRAs are being ignored, maybe I should make a new one?

Well, that sounds better, then. I haven't really noticed any jiggling yet with V3 -- except on my own butt! But I'll keep my eyes peeled, so to speak.

Thanks. Heck, I think Phoenix and Firestorm may preserve it, too. But I'm inclined to stick with the official viewer for now, as I've had some trouble with third-party viewers recently. This one issue isn't enough to make me switch, and I'm actually enjoying some of the distinctive features of V3. E.g., do other viewers have the Facebook-style feed on profiles? Also, I rather like the configurable rows of quick-select buttons on the bottom and left side of the V3 screen. And I kinda like the notifications system in the upper-right. All in all, it's growing on me. Except for this hotkey thing! Where can I ask LL to implement one?

Thanks for the replies, and thanks especially for that wonderful link to all the shortcuts. CTL SHIFT F and G certainly help! But what I really want is a hotkey to give focus to the IM window. Optimally, I'd like to be able to use the keyboard to tab among IMs. Phoenix has CTL-T, I think, to get IM focus. I'm a keyboard guy, and while I like V3 a lot, I really miss my CTL-T! Unless I'm mistaken, it's not on the list you linked. I suppose I should file some sort of JIRA thing to request this? Those never seem to lead to change, do they?

Ah, thanks for the replies. I must have made several physics layers in the past, because I found several in my inventory! Go figure. Now my butt wiggles a little. Woo! How about seeing other peoples' physics? Do I just have the one slider for that? I recall that Phoenix had a range of sliders for boobs and other body parts.

Hi all, Does Viewer 3 have just one overall slider for physics? I ask, because I have it in its default position (I think), to the far right at 100%, and it doesn't seem to do anything. It affects avatars, or game world, or both? I recall that other viewers have complicated (and confusing) sliders for all sorts of body parts, lol. Not the case in Viewer 3? Thanks.

Hi all, Is there a list of hotkeys in V3? Just the hotkeys indicated on the menu bar? Can we edit hotkeys? Also, is there a hotkey for making the IM window active (i.e., giving it focus)? Or for the friends list? In the old viewer, and in other viewers, it was CTL-T. I'm constantly hitting CTL-T now to regain focus in IMs, but instead I must now click in the IM window, which is much slower and more annoying. Is there a hotkey for doing this in V3? Thanks.

Thanks for all the helpful replies. Thanks, in particular, to you, Cerise; it looks like it is possible. Not sure I want to bother, as people make pretty good arguments here for leaving things as they are.

An update: the security log on my router did not indicate any trouble with IP Flood Control. I did mull over changing some router settings, but I also ordered an upgrade of my FIOS internet download/upload speeds. From 15/5 to 35/35. And voila! That might have fixed things! Knock on wood. I've had a day or so of flawless operation, using the SL viewer. Keeping my fingers crossed!

I know the SL Viewer lets us enable "Show Lookat," to see where we or other avatars are looking. But does the Viewer also permit us to hide our own crosshairs from other players, or to always display the crosshairs right in front of us? Firestorm and Phoenix both have this feature, but I can't find it on the official viewer. It's not a crucial thing, but it does make me think twice about camming across a room. Thanks in advance.

Hey, I'm desperate, so I'll try anything! And that sounds like a plausible approach. I have an ActionTec router. Looking into it now. Thanks for the suggestion!

Never mind: shortly after my last post, the 12- to 13-second latency returned, and after 25 minutes in SL, I disconnected. Running out of options. If the new router doesn't work, I don't know what I'll do. Will try SL chat again tomorrow. Would be a shame to quit SL on my 7th rez day.