New Secondlife Help Page? Not so as I could tell!

*****************************Where we come from***************************** **************************************************************************** Ranting. Again. Just yesterday I started looking at "our" new Secondlife knowledge base. Maybe it's just me... Hey, I can provide testimony, both in-world and out, that there are times I make the easy stuff way too complicated. But have any of you tried to use the new and improved gonna get us Residents to provide information 'cause that way you can earn brownie points help section of the Secondlife Web Page? I just spent 24 minutes looking for a list of Third Party Viewers... this list here. I didn't find that link at the site new users would likely go to first, the Secondlife Web Page... I googled Secondlife Third Party Viewers. After entering my log in info twice while trying to just post a question, {like a new person is going to sit for "X" minutes, hours, days, for someone to answer their question} I quit in disgust. I wonder how this new system will improve the new user experience? Not! {Can't imagine why Third Party Viewers aren't easy to find.}*cough* Please, if I screwed up that search... let me know. When I try and help nooblets, one of the early things I suggest is that they at least try one of the 1 code viewers. I tell them that downloading Phoenix, Imprudence, Ascent, etc. won't remove "Spewer 2.ought oh"... but that they will find the early UI much easier to use as well as make it certainly a lot easier for me to provide them with easy to understand pictorial information. Later, once they have become a little more comfortable, if they choose they can certainly return to their original viewer. Works every time. But what about the uncounted thousands that never meet someone in-world that can take the time to help? I know... if I expect anyone to do anything except disappoint me.. I will be disappointed. Cynical s.o.b. I am. And then... I read Wagner James Au's New World Notes from yesterday afternoon. {And no, I won't HTML link it} He continues to shill for Facebook. I will let his commenter's speak for themselves... at last count there were 28 against anything that would connect Facebook to Secondlife, 1 for, and 1 ehhh maybe. Jeez... we are still going though all the current privacy stuff. Enough with and outfit that can't even keep their own CEO's account safe. I know... much too cynical. =^..^= And so it goes My love to all, brinda Namaste नमस्ते

Virtual World "wills"?

*****************************Where we come from***************************** ***************************************************************************** I just finished reading Ener Hax' great blog a few minutes ago. She mentions something that I've thought about before, what does happen to your "stuff" here when you die? Btw thanks to Eners commenter "Johnny" for his link to this site. Now I have read a bit about what The Benevolent Monarchy has posted about this some years ago. What I read from them is fine as far as any money left in the deceased account. As for your inventory, Ener did a previous post last spring explaining options. If the death isn't a sudden one just leaving your password with others sounds like the easiest way out. The Benevolent Monarchy. Have you tried to get anything done there? I knew someone that was falsely ARed as under age, it took her around a month to finally get someone to rectify that... and only after she found a Linden in world {Honest, she actually found one!}. I have real people that have paid me real money for the experience I promised them at Benares. What would happen to my sims? Can you say *log on* and see, "Your former location no longer exists or is currently unavailable and you have been moved to a nearby region"? I will not have that happen to those that have trusted me. My solution will be as I commented on Eners blog... It's just the right thing to do. While I have found more stuff that, "the boys", as soror Nishi calls them have broken... I'll save that for the next rant! And so it goes My love to you all, brinda Namaste नमस्ते

Part Two... More "Rules" for Secondlife =^..^=

******************************Where we come from*****************************

**************************************************************************** I doubt anyone ever first comes to Secondlife truly understanding exactly how our world works. Now and exception to that might well be those that come here from other virtual worlds, and when I say how our world works... I don't mean technically, I mean emotionally. In May 2007 I was 65 years old, a self described been there done that sort of person, and because of a very storied past, pretty darned street wise. None of anything I thought I knew would prepare me for Secondlifes emotional stuff. Yes, I had a brief emotional fling... and got over that fairly quickly. Next I met a dear friend from Bangladesh, a person that taught me so much about how Secondlife works. We kinda grew up here. While we were never more than just extremely close friends, I was just feeling so lost when my friend decided that her life was to go another direction. Where I'm headed with this is I allowed my emotions free rein... And I forgot the reason I originally entered a virtual world... entertainment. In my life where I sleep... if a stranger made rude comments about me, most of the time my practise would hopefully kick in and I would simply go about my business and promptly forget what was said. If I were in business and someone took and ad out in a publication and said things about me that were unkind but not libelous, either I counter respond... or ignore. How often have I told nooblets..."Secondlife is not a game, it truly is a second life". Many years ago a very wise woman gave me a gift. It's a gift with very sharp edges, and as such must be handled carefully. The gift? The first three rules of life. Life is not fair. There is no justice. Nothing is truly sacred. There will likely be calls of cynicism. I call it realism. Come on, no one gets out of here alive. Life is incredibly short... much too short to waste such a precious gift. Come to Secondlife, make it the best you can, don't worry about the stuff you have no control over. Live as good a life as you can. Be honest. Allow others the right to make bad decisions. Love with all your heart. Take care of your friends. Jeff...Remember yesterdays rule 1, have fun.

And so it goes I love you all, brinda Namaste

नमस्ते

P.S. There is a fourth rule... I will sneak it into a future post.=^..^=

Part One, "The First Rule of Secondlife"

*****************************Where we come from***************************** ***************************************************************************** As these last few days have gone by there have been a couple of things that seem to want to come together in my head. There often seems to be a persistent problem with some of us that are getting older. It's not uncommon to see the, "My minds made up, don't confuse me with facts" bit. I'd like to think I don't fall into that. I suspect that most people in Secondlife over a few days old have at least read something about the latest Secondlife drama concerning RedZone, data scraping, and the sharing of personal information. I'll leave it to the various pundits as well as the legal minds to determine if it's legal... it doesn't sound like it to me. For many people the concern has less to do with the outing of alts, or being lumped in with everyone that was in the local WiFi Starbucks that morning... it has to do with the possibility of a real life confrontation. Stick around the Internet very long and we will all see some of us that look a little loose in our loafers. I had found a site that advertised relatively cheap VPNs {virtual private networks} and wondered if it was something I might want to look at. So I IMed a friend of mine in-world. This person is one of the brightest people I've come across, travels all over the world for work, really understands how all this tech stuff works, and seems to have both feet firmly planted. Below you will find and edited version of our chat. I deliberately left my friend anonymous for a couple reasons. One, while I have good reason to believe they would authorize the publishing of our conversation, I didn't bother to ask. Second, I don't care who some one cites as an authority there will be those that will 'pick' at that. And third, as I said...this is edited, most of what is missing are my inane comments. ***************************************************************************** Me: Hi! I'm begging again, if you've a minute...well begging information and advice. Them: No worries. What's up? M: Concerning VPN's and hiding IP addresses. Look at this link. All this concerns the recent controversy about RedZone. I'm sure some IP addresses change with every log in right? T: Yeah... There's a DSL type of connection that constantly changes. Dial-up was sure to change. Cable and full on DSL stays the same simply because of the persistent connection. M: See... That's why I come to you for info. T: You can reset your router/modem/whatever and have a 20% chance of getting a whole new address. I'm sure you use a firewall router, right? Like a NetGear or whatever? There's a trick with those... Their MAC address is not hard coded. Reason being, some IP's require you to register a computer and they log the MAC to be sure no one steals your computer. M: OK...Any thoughts about all this RedZone crap? T: Much ado about nothing. People want something to be afraid of. They see the "Address" in IP address and that psychologically tells them it's a location of a sort. M: Yup...my IP logged as Santee {51 KM's away} for nearly a year 'till Cox cable came out and worked on my cable... now it logs as Lemon Grove {37}. T: Exactly. They're all over the place. Now... If you have an open WiFi router, someone can radio in and A-B compare your address... but we're talking about near impossible odds. Historically speaking, nobody has ever been "found" by IP address alone. Any time the story comes up it's IP address -and- [inset whatever wireless tech here]. M: OK Dear. Thank you T: Not a problem M: I suppose one might be able to pay $ to some one at Cox for and address. T: People will attack you like savage wolves if you dare say such a thing :-). In the end a fixed address is still preferable. It's just not reasonable to give every resident their own number. The protocol ran out of numbers just a couple of months ago. We're running on vapours.XD. A 100% surefire way to rotate IP addresses is to have a hand full of Ethernet cards. Don't use them... just write down each MAC address. When you want a new address, put a new MAC in your router, reset it, FOOM! New address. Don't use that MAC for a week and it'll never be the same address again. So 7 cards would do for the most paranoid... M: Yes... I can see how this may be "Much ado about nothing"... at least as far as locating some one physically. T: Yes, People want something to be afraid of. M: Dear, as always thank you for your time and the info. ****************************** OK... for me that's enough. I'm not smart enough to copybot, I wouldn't steal, My alts are nothing secret, and if a shop bans me by mistake? Guess who loses money? There is something else that's an on going issue though, this latest drama within Secondlife is just another thing that some of us will focus on... instead of remembering the first rule. You never heard of the first rule of Secondlife? Then you must not be one of the over 1000 nooblets I've worked with these past three and a half years. A day or so I got a goodbye note from a wonderful guy here. He says he's had enough of all this drama, the content theft, the name calling. This was not a rich guy... but I know how many of us in Secondlife actually even break even. My bet was he didn't, I saw him take new people and give them their first Secondlife job... paid them pretty darned well too. Money is not why he left. I'll try and talk about this more on Monday. Oh... The first rule? It's simple, HAVE FUN! And so it goes I love you all, brinda Namaste नमस्ते

It's Your Privacy...Send Linden Lab a letter.

******************************Where we come from***************************** **************************************************************************** I would imagine that most people that have spent enough time around the Internet understand that one of the downsides involved is that there are some dangers. While most of the dangers are monetary... Bank accounts, Identity theft, Credit card charges, dangerous links that can cost you a trip to a computer repair specialist ( or a "factory restore") w/the loss of data), there are instances of actual physical harm coming from the rare occasion of a nut job coming to your door. Long before I ever had a PC I knew that rule about we have a choice about what information we put on the Internet...but once that information is out, it's there... permanently. Now I would imagine that most everyone understands that every website we visit "sees" our IP address... that's how the website "knows" where to return the data we've requested. Likely all bloggers use a program that tells us a lot about our visitors... We use that information to keep track of how many visitors we have as well as a few other things, such as how you found us, where you went after you looked at our blogs, where you come from in the world, the time of day, your service provider...... and yes, your IP address. Now please keep in mind that your IP address does not exactly locate you, mine shows me as Santee California, that's 51 kms away. Your service provider of course does know your location exactly, but that information requires a court order to access. Having said all of that, I still respect all IP addresses as personal and wouldn't post those just because that information is no ones business and I understand that there are people that just don't want that info released no matter how innocuous it may be. Here's where I'm heading with all this. For well over a year or so I have been aware of a system that detected copybot viewers. Some months ago another item went for sale here in Secondlife called RedZone. Redzone is advertised as a way to detect both copybot viewers and............any alts that someone may have. There are a couple of problems... first, RedZone just matches IP addresses. Go to your local Starbucks free WiFI and log in... everyone that logs in there is your "alt" (same IP). Second, there are those that are using RedZone to effectively "out" alts as well as collecting information on what places you visit in Secondlife. All that is bad enough but.... Redzone is keeping a database of all this information and sharing it. The RedZone program exploits your choice to enable streaming media... it's not your choice to provide your IP address, RedZone takes that info. I realize that many of you may not take the time to read JIRAs... the Secondlife bug trackers, but I encourage all of you to educate yourself about this. So far The Benevolent Monarchy has done virtualy nothing to put a stop to this. As you will see in the links below this can and will have far reaching consequences for our world. Send Linden Lab a letter, Linden Lab, 945 Battery Street, San Francisco, CA 94111 Ask them to put a stop to RedZone and programs like it. Here's a link to the JIRA its self. https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-24746 And Ann Otoole has a very good post on this subject here. Her post will also give you a link to the Alphaville Herald. And so it goes My love to you all, brinda Namaste नमस्ते

Ranting about facebook...conclusion

******************************Where we come from*****************************

**************************************************************************** More of the rant about Hamlet Au's New World Notes blog of a few days ago. I won't copy Mr. Au's rebuttal to my first comment, it did sound convincing. You know, convincing in that don't confuse me with facts my minds made up and I know more than you mentality. And perhaps he does, his response can be found on page two of comments... just before the following. My counter below: "Mr. Au...I bought and read your book, and that was after I had been in Secondlife for awhile. When I read that, I saw someone immersed in this world I've come to love. You were here near the beginning. You as much as anyone should understand that Secondlife is not easy... it will never be easy, at least the Secondlife I know and love. I don't remember now how I found Secondlife, it wasn't the CSI episode and yes likely it was and advertisement somewhere. Here's the thing... my guess is that you as well as most everyone that comes to Secondlife and decides to remain has had my experience with proselytising about this world... the very few we even talk into attempting Secondlife don't find what they are looking for. People want simple. People want quick. People want easy. People want Facebook. With Facebooks track record of security... no way. @Lili said it well..."Facebook is only a distraction for Linden Lab." "OK, let's say we get people to sign up... we've got sign ups now... what is it, less than 15% stay past first hour? If Linden Lab wants to improve concurrency? There is a way... it was a way that seemed to work before. SECONDLIFE is not easy, don't dumb it down... restart the Mentor program... restart the Help Islands. At the risk of irritating more than I may have already, my take of a great number of the people we all know: About forty years ago when I was in my late twenties I asked a very brilliant friend of mine if she thought I was and elitist. {this friend had a PhD in education as well as a masters in speech pathology} She patted me gently on the hand and said, "No dear, and you may not be exceptionally bright... this world's full of dumb S.O.B's." I'm still not and elitist and not nearly as bright as those that created our world... but if so many of us in-world can see so many of the problems, problems that could be fixed without a major outlay of cash. Why can't those that run this world. In some cases we all know why... to fix some would require saying a mistake was made. If we don't help the ones that do sign up... signing up more won't help." For what it's worth................ And so it goes My love to you all, brinda Namaste नमस्ते

Ranting about Facebook... part one

*****************************Where we come from******************************

***************************************************************************** OK, My great plan for a blog topic suddenly changed. I had a long semi ranting comment on Hamlet Au's New World Notes blog... Hamlet had posted from Mitch Wagner about how he {Wagner} just didn't seem to want to take time to come in-world, and that Facebook met his needs today. Along with all that, so many today have decided that Secondlife is both a little too difficult and takes too much time. These people prefer Facebook or at least those kinds of "social media" applications. I guess to say I got carried away would be and understatement. First my comment... then Hamlets response. Tomorrow I'll post my reply to that response. In the interest of brevity I'll paste that comment here: "OK Mr. Au, Have a great time with "social media", go spend your time on Facebook and any other shallow log in/log out platform that pleases you. But I'm curious, for one that's made at least a partial living from Secondlife {as a Linden for one}, and spending so much of your time writing this blog about Secondlife... why? Why even bother with Secondlife at any level... unless writing about Secondlife pays your wages? Some months ago you abandoned us for Blue Mars or at least that was a perception. While I often have appreciated your reporting. Your constant calling for the end of Secondlife as we know it and shilling for Facebook isn't what I expected. For me you have lost credibility. But of course I'm sure what I think is of no consequence to you. What do these people have in common?@Medhue @Lili @Roslin Petion @Ciaran Laval @Laetizia Coronet @Tinsel Silvera @Adeon Writer @Ignatius Onomatopoeia @Aliasi Stonebender @Rawst Berry @Paisley Beebe @Rin Tae @Nickola Martynov @David Cartier. Times up! They have time to log in to a virtual world and immerse. Some like Nikola seem to find similar things as I do. I can look at IMs to Email, see there's a minor question or issue from a resident, log in fix issue and log out. Other times I may spend what is and inordinate amount of time in-world... loving every minute of it. After nearly four years in Secondlife I'm every bit as infatuated with the almost infinite possibilities. For me the magic has never ended..." OK, more tomorrow And so it goes My love to you all, brinda Namaste नमस्ते