SL7B: An Overview

It is Second Life Birthday time again! As of a few days ago I've been on the main grid a full four years and if the Internet Time Acceleration Principle holds, it feels like 10-times longer. Under this premise, our World is now 70! Really, though, it is just seven years old (give or take, depending on when you celebrate the actual inception) and this year's party is ready to rev! Official opening is on the 21st at 10AM SLT but we denizens of the Press are getting a preview right now. I've already posted on the Lucky Kitty Crew blog (Web) about some of the gifts that are available and will follow up here with posts about individual exhibits and activities. There is no way I can be exhaustive ... cripes, just the number of sims is a bit overwhelming ... but start with these resources listed below and check back here throughout the run of the event.

• The official SL7B blog has the latest news and a great teaser machinima (Web)
• The SL7B wiki has the nitty gritty details like dates and policies (Web)
• Bear Island is a great first stop to see a ton of Linden Bears, old and new (detailed post later; Web)
• A really great set of Flickr pix from Radioactive Rosca (Web)
• The Destination Guide will be featuring some of the best builds (in-world or Web)
• Daniel Voyager was spotted early on during the Press Preview so watch his blog (Web)

Inventory Rebirth

Recently, I and two of my alts experienced massive inventory losses: skins, prim attachments such as hair and shoes, eyes, mesh-based clothes, and more. Interestingly, items that survived the loss were ones that I had "linked" to create Saved Outfits in the My Appearance pane in the Second Life v2.0 viewer. Clearing all the saved outfits did nothing. Nor did clearing both individual and group caches. In fact, I performed all the inventory recovery steps that The Lab recommends whenever there is a loss, including waiting 24 hours since a recent grid maintenance had been postponed and even trying the official viewer called Snowglobe. I've been down this expensive road and am still recovering so I put a lot of effort into writing the Tickets. When I filed one for each avatar's loss (two premium accounts and one "free" account) I detailed, including Wiki page URLs, all the steps I tried to bring everything back and included pictures showing what should be in my inventory (see above).

Within moments of filing each Ticket a (probably automated) response was sent back that the Ticket was closed and I should try all the steps that I had already outlined. Moments. Not time enough to read the Ticket let alone look at my account. So I reopened each Ticket, pointing out (politely) the inadequacies of Customer Service at Linden Lab, repeating what I had done to solve the problem myself, and demanding someone actually read the Ticket.

Fast forward a couple days since the initial problem. No responses. With starting a major sim remodeling and my Second Life 7th Birthday build underway I decided to rely on a 3rd party viewer rather than risk losing more stuff. Bam. All my stuff was there! I logged out and tried my alts. Their stuff was back. Then I tried the official viewers again. Gone. Back to a different 3rd party viewer. Back.

Today I started closing the tickets, still not having received a response and posted this in the comments of each:

Fearing the loss of more inventory, I tried a 3rd party viewer and *behold* my lost items were in their proper places. After starting the Official 2.0 viewer again, the lost items were again gone. I recommend adding a step to the "Complete Inventory Recovery article" http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Inventory:_Complete_recovery_steps_and_information_about_perceived_loss ... Uninstall the Second Live viewer and delete all traces of it (easy on a Macintosh; hard on Windows) then install a fresh copy of the official viewer to "recover" all lost items. This seems to be a problem with the Link function of the My Appearance feature, Saved Outfits. Items in a folder that are NOT linked to a Saved Outfit become hidden for some reason. I also had to clear the current Snowglobe viewer as it showed the same losses as the 2.0 viewer.

I beg The Lab. Don't ignore tickets. Treat your Premium customers better (I've talked quite a few friends into Premium accounts just so they have a stronger say when problems happen). And, for everyone's sakes, fix the bugs in the v2.o viewer. I'm tired of finding new ones.

Birthday Pouts

Building for the Second Life 7th Birthday celebration started today, but not for me. It looks like my application for this year was denied. Wish I knew why. My theme was going to be based on a collaboration of art from women in the Isle of Lesbos community, a Diversity Within Similarity theme to go along with the over all Birthday theme of Unexpected Collaborations. I had builds in the last two annual events so I guess it is someone else's turn. Maybe I'll work up something to appear on the Isle by itself. Maybe not. I have a big commission, of sorts, coming up where I'll collaborate on a sim rebuild. It's all hush-hush now, but you'll be sure to see something posted about it here.

Some Merchants Just SUCK

Some merchants in SL are as bad as they are in RL. Trust me.

I had purchased an air hockey table in-world from jrenslow Bach, as described in my XStreet item Discussion copied below, and tried to contact him in-world when I had an issue. He gave no response to IM or to a note card so I posted in the Discussion section of the item's XStreet listing (URL) hoping he would contact me. A month later, he did, demanding that I change my Discussion post but never offered the free upgrade promised.

Here is the Discussion Posting:

Posted By: Uccello Poultry at 2010-03-06 20:45:15 (has not purchased this item)
The description on XStreet was rather vague so I searched in-world to find a demo. One was not available but the quality of the other merchandise seemed good and I thought "well, I can afford to lose L$400 so ..."

Yes, I lost my L$400. When the description says ★Menu Controlled that's exactly what it means ... you move your paddle one increment at a time left/right/forward/backward via pop-up menus. Other Air Hockey tables in SL have you drag the paddle to hit the puck. The menu only starts or ends the game. Also, the description here indicates the set is Copy/Mod. With no description for such on the signage I figured it would be the same in-world. No, it is NO COPY. It leaves your inventory when rezzed and cannot be copied in-world.

Until this unit has significant changes or improvements, please learn from my L$400 and find another unit to buy. Find my other reviews on XStreet. You'll see that I seldom give negative feedback and it is usually mild.

Terms of Service do not permit me to copy/paste the IM from today here, but jrenslow Bach was exceptionally rude, demanding that he show me the upgraded table rather than give me the free upgrade promised. He also said that he is going to have my first comment removed by XStreet, so I posted a second comment:

Posted By: Uccello Poultry at 2010-05-05 14:23:43 (has not purchased this item)
At this very moment, the maker is arguing with me that I cannot have a free upgrade as promised unless I change my earlier comment in the discussion. Also, he tells me that he is going to have XStreet remove the discussion stating I never bought the table. It is still in my inventory. DO NOT BUY FROM THIS MERCHANT. VERY RUDE.

Additionally, I filed a complaint with Linden Labs, ticket #4051-7706335 and I'm highly recommending you shop, shop, shop before giving your money to jrenslow Bach.

Hover Text Pollution

There was a time that when one rented space in a mall the most common rule was "No Hover Text" and I was fine with that. It's a handy thing to use but it can be quite annoying, especially when it interferes with an otherwise scenic view. Here I am at a bunny pen my friend Jehria has and I can't see the bunnies for all the pollution. She likes it so I can't complain about it here but I finally got my wife to turn off the hover text over her bunnies in our bunny garden at Dolce Valentina (SLurl). Now I can enjoy the bunnies and the environment. But visiting Lops of Lesbos (SLurl), where this picture was taken, is still hard on the eyes. Ah, what we do for our bunnies, huh?