Second Living Bay Sweetwater @ home

Facebook’s new Timeline, like fb itself, is still keepin’ it real. The next chapter of social media history, embodied by Facebook’s new Timeline and Ticker, was announced earlier this week at the f8 (as in “fate” ) developers conference in San Fran — see the Zuck’s keynote here. Though negatively received at first (what isn’t?), changes will be coming to a Facebook page near you soon, in the next few weeks, with a target date of September 30 to begin rollout.

But what will it mean for those of us who are …  [sshhhhhh!] … on the pseudonymous side of reality? Will we use it at our peril? I think so. For pseudonymous avatars, the  Timeline presents an intriguing question: What exactly is our “life”? And how will we present it in the Timeline?

Continue Reading ““Timeline” keeping it real – sshhhhh!”

If you are a builder who uses a mac and viewer 2, you’ve already got two strikes against you. LOL. Or so the SL lore goes.

Using a mac is always challenging in a program that’s built for windows. And viewer 2 … well, viewer 2 is just plain challenging to use on any platform. Especially if  you’re still trying to learn where things are in viewer 2 — like me, LOL.

So today I’m going to share 2 things I learned by trial and error today.

(1) How to find Local Mode on Viewer 2 (commonly called The Ruler)

Builders often like to line up what they’re building on a grid so that measurements can be exact, and placement of, for example, a beam one one side of a house will be at exactly the same relative location on the other side.

This used to be very easy to find in viewer 1.23: In the edit menu build window, just below the icons of the build shapes, there was a small drop-down bar called “Ruler” or “Grid,” depending on the version. In any case, it was very easy to select “Local” or in later versions, the grid would appear in your building as soon as you picked that “Ruler” dropdown.

But in Viewer 2? Not so easy. It stumped three experienced builders, til we finally figured it out:

1. Get in Edit mode (that’s important)

2. Choose Build, Options, Grid Options.

3. In the Grid Options menu, select “Local” from the drop-down bar.

4. You’re done. There’s your “ruler.”

(2) How to link multiple objects at the same time.

Trick question! This is not really a viewer 2 issue or a mac issue, but because I thought it was, and so spent so long figuring it out, I thought I would include it here.

The key is to get in edit mode first. That’s the step I always forget. Then it’s pretty easy. Here are instructions, using viewer 2.

1. Get in Edit Mode

2. Choose Building, Options, then toggle:  Select by Surrounding, and Select Only My Objects.

3. Then you’ll be able to draw a little yellow box around all the objects you want to select (it’s easiest if you do this from above looking down). Each selected object will be outlined in white.

4. From the dropdown Build menu, select “Link.”

5. You’re done. Your objects are all linked. Btw, the last item selected will be your root prim, and your object will take it’s name. If you want the name of the linked object to be something different, just rename it in the General tab of the Build window.

Sadly, KirstenLee must abandon development of of the KirstensViewer due to personal commitments IRL. This was the best viewer there ever was, and there are many machinima makers who will sorely miss it! The good news is we can still use the viewer; it just won’t be upgraded.

I’m sending prayers and good wishes to KirstenLee and Dawny. Thank you for everything.

Last tracks of KirstensViewer (pic by KirstenLee)

Back in college lit, we studied a Ray Bradbury story called Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Basement! The premise of the story was that aliens, who could take on any form, packaged themselves as mushroom spores, then sold themselves via advertisements in kids’ magazines like Boys’ Life. When the boys ordered the mushrooms, raised them, and ate them with their families, the mushrooms could take over whoever ingested them.

I thought of this story when I saw that Google over the past several years has induced ordinary people to build a world for them–Google Earth. This is the virtual globe that Google first offered as a free software download in 2005, which it still is today (although business-oriented versions Google Earth Pro and Google Earth Enterprise cost some serious money).

Google Earth–like any other social network these days–has been busy harvesting its customers as product. Dangling the lure of free software, Google Earth has enticed people with time on their hands, and an unfulfilled creative urge, to start building houses, parks, trees, water features, bridges, buildings, castles, and every kind of world landmark–all modeled in exquisite texture, size, and scale to match real world counterparts. Your grocery store clerk is probably spending his evenings modeling a 3D masterpiece for Google Earth. Right under our noses, Google is populating its virtual world–and getting us to do it!

Linden Lab’s got nothing on Google . . .

When I first began hanging out in Second Life years ago, I marveled at Linden Lab’s ability to somehow convince a bunch of hugely talented people to spend untold hours building a world that Linden would profit from. More amazing, Linden actually noodled these same people into paying for the opportunity to do so! Even now that I’m a serious Second Lifer, I still marvel over Linden’s ability to crowdsource the building of a world.

Continue Reading “Boys and Girls! Raise giant worlds in your basement!”

In my blog post here a month ago, I discussed my suspicion that it was bots, and not real viewers, who were clicking up the views on my Here Comes Peter Cottontail video once I listed in on youtube’s Promoted Video program. I promised, in Part 2, to tell you how I intended to thwart the evil Bunny Mafia plot and break its stranglehold on the children’s bedtime story market. This is that promised post.

First, I varied the geographical locations where my ads appear to avoid the bot-spots, starting with the city of Ramnicu Valcea in Romania, dubbed by Reader’s Digest (June/July 2011) “The City That Cyber Crime Built.” (Listen to the Reader’s Digest podcast here (RD does not offer the article online), or read about it in Wired Magazine here.)

Continue Reading “How I outwitted the Bunny Mafia, and lived to blog about it”

I never meant to get mixed up with the mob. I know, all the molls say that. But in my case it’s true. All I did was sign up a few of my videos with Youtube’s Promoted Videos advertising program. And with that, I unwittingly stepped into the crosshairs of what I suspect is a bold international band of bot thugs out to protect their corner on the bedtime story market.

The Bunny Mafia: photo by TPJerematic on deviantart.net

Continue Reading “The Bunny Mafia and the Click Bots are after me!”

I’ve put a “Creative Commons Faves” playlist up on my blog. (Look in the sidebar to the right.) Here you can give a listen to some great indie tunes  available through the ccmixter.org Creative Commons music sharing site, and/or click the arrow to navigate to the ccmixter site where you can download them for free. I’ll be updating the playlist from time to time, so there will always be new tunes on it. I plan to keep it a top-10 list.

Also, just for fun, I have also put up a “Twinkle’s Journey Soundtrack” playlist, due to the growing popularity of my Twinkle’s Journey video. Btw, for you tekkies out there who want to know how it’s done, there’s a blog post coming. For now, I’ll just tell you it’s the “Flash MP3 Player” wordpress plug-in. It’s a tricky little thing, and my tutorial is coming soon. The great thing about this widget is it does not stream the sound from your site, but rather from the site where the audio mp3 resides, in this case cc.mixter.org. Of course, you have to have permission to play the music from the hosting site.

Continue Reading “My new “Creative Commons Faves Playlist” is up”

If you make youtube videos and “borrow” music that you buy on itunes for your background music, chances are you get unsettling notices like the one below that I got from youtube:

If you’re like me, you find these notices unnerving because you worry about being regarded as a copyright infringer by youtube, getting a future copyright strike against you, or even having your video suddenly taken down if the copyright holder changes its policy regarding infringement.

Here’s how youtube works its copyright check: It has an enormous database containing all the music submitted by registered companies and artists. For every video posted on youtube, it performs a search to see if that video matches any of the third party content registered in its database. When it finds a match, it checks the copyright holder’s instructions on what to do, and then does it. Many times, it’s just a warning like the one above. But other times, it can be a more severe action like taking your video down or even disabling your account (don’t expect any advance warning). Read the horror stories in the youtube forum here about lost youtube videos, disabled accounts, and endless appeals. And then go to youtube’s “Copyright School” here (P.S. It’s free and very much worth your time).

Watch the fascinating youtube video here where youtube’s Margaret Gould Stewart talks about how youtube looks at copyright. A guarantee:  it won’t be what you think! They actually encourage it – sorta! According to Stewart, youtube hosts 100 YEARS of new video every day! Can you imagine. That’s a lifetime of human activity recorded every day. Despite that large amount of video, youtube’s screening process takes a matter of seconds. Amazing. In the video she encourages copyright holders to be lenient in their policies since youtube exposure can actually boost an artist’s sales and recognition.

But the bottom line is: if a copyright holder registered at youtube complains, your video is history til the matter is sorted out. No questions asked. And usually no notice given til your video disappears. And after that, if you disagree, you’ve got a long appeal ticket process.

So I’ve decided indie music is the way to go. These are artists featured on many indie websites who actually like you to use their music. That’s what they put it up for. As long as you credit them, they’re pleased as punch that they’re getting heard through your videos. Using their music on your videos is one of those rare win-win situations.

In my latest machinima here, I used indie music that I have grown to like a lot. I imported it into itunes and even listen to it sometimes as background music while I work.

Here are the songs and two of the best music sharing websites I’ve discovered: ccMixter and Jamendo. Each site and each song below is a real gem. A warning: you’ll find so much incredible music on these sites that you can spend hours doing this. You’ll also find a lot of dreadful stuff. It’s a sorting process, but well worth it.

“It’s Just a Matter of Time” by Salvatore_J, vocals by Shannon Hurley (ccMixter music sharing website)
“Give Me Time” by Code:Again (Jamendo music sharing website)
“Auld Lang Syne” traditional tune, words by Robert Burns, sung by Jim Tait
(Jamendo music sharing website)

He’s listening! Firesheep is the next big bad thing in the real world, a Firefox add-on that lets people steal your cookies at Starbucks (no, not that kind of cookies, we’re talking techie cookies here, lol), or at any other unprotected wi-fi hotspot (airports, hotels, even my local community center), to gain access to your accounts and do the usual identity-theft type of mischief. Read all about it here.  And weep. We all used to think it would be the next great thing to build a community of open wi-fi spots we could all hopscotch our days through.  Maybe it still is, just get ‘em to use https.  And maybe start researching VPNs – a good starting place is here, or there.

P.S. How about virtual Firesheep? Here’s a sheep in Second Life listening in on your chat — maybe its avatar owner uses a Display Name from the new SL viewer beta to steal your avatarian identity.  rofl

As a dedicated Mac user, the latest rumor flung into the blogosphere by Twizzers in her tweet here that Microsoft might be buying – or even already bought! – Second Life sends shivers up my spine worse than any Halloween ghoul. (The rumor was fueled by Tech_Eye here, Massively here, and Tateru Nino here – still nada from Microsoft to confirm or deny.)

But still, it got many of us wondering why Microsoft would be interested in a second world that is slightly soggy financially. The best explanation I have heard comes in a comment by hoytak on slashdot:

“Everyone knows that Microsoft doesn’t like its current life and wants a new one. Unfortunately, Second Life only allows actual people to play, so for Microsoft to be able to play as a corporation, they would have to buy it first and change the rules. Isn’t that obvious?”

Hahahahahaha.