“CHRISTMAS MEMORIES” The 10th Anniversary SL Christmas Expo Now Accepting Merchants

Christmas trees towering over your head while the Lionel train makes is journey around the base. Brightly wrapped gifts spread under the lowest boughs, as the aroma of sugar cookies and gingerbread drift in from the kitchen. Carols playing on the Victrola while the family gathers together to celebrate the holidays.  Christmas Memories of all shapes and sizes spring to mind each year as the holidays approach.

The 2020 SL Christmas Expo, December 4^th -13^th celebrates its 10^th anniversary this year. Once again merchants from across the grid will come together to Give the Gift of Hope to Children with Cancer.

In support of the American Cancer Society, the Expo and its partner Linden Lab has set a goal of $25,000 (L$6,250,000) to provide funding for the fight against childhood cancer.

The 2020 Expo, “Christmas Memories”, will feature a multiple region collection of more than 150 of Second Life’s premier Merchants, Breedable and One Of A Kind Auctions, Gotchas, Hunts and lots more.  As always you will find Christmas Tree lots, Ice Skating, our annual Snowman Building Contest and appearances by Santa and Mrs. Claus. The Holly Jolly Café returns bring nearly nonstop entertainment and the 3^rd Annual Lights of Hope contest will feature the best builders and teams of Lindens and Moles competing in a holiday home decoration competition to be judged by YOU.

Our 10 days of Christmas will culminate with our Live Auction, featuring amazing one of a kind items from Linden Lab and SL’s top creators and the Annual Holidays of Hope Ball.

Since 2011 the SL Christmas Expo has provided Second Life residents with the premier Holiday Shopping and Entertainment event and Christmas Memories is sure to do the same.  Believe in the Magic of Christmas… Reserve your shoppes and sponsorships NOW at SLChristmasExpo.com.

*In-world Inquiries should be directed to: Merchant Registration Coordinator Emirsyn (Emi Resident)

 The American Cancer Society is the world’s leader in the fight against childhood cancer, attacking cancer from every angle. All proceeds from the SL Christmas Expo support the Society and its mission to Save Lives, Celebrate Lives and Lead the Fight for a World Without Cancer.

If you or a loved one has questions or needs help with a cancer diagnosis call the American Cancer Society 800 227-2345 visit cancer.org or the American Cancer Society region in Second Life.

contact: Nuala Maracas (slchristmasexpo@slchristmasexpo.com)

Read More

SL CHRISTMAS EXPO TEAMS UP WITH LINDEN LAB TO HELP THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY PROVIDE VR HEADSETS TO PEDIATRIC CANCER PATIENTS

The American Cancer Society and SL Christmas Expo announced today that all donations to the “Believe in The Magic of Christmas”, the 9^th Annual Christmas Expo, in support of the Expo’s mission to Fight Childhood Cancer, will be dedicated to help provide funding for VR Headsets for childhood cancer patients. Along with Linden Lab, their partner in the fight against cancer, and our sponsors and participants, the Expo will be working to reach the Goal of $20,000 to help fund the Society’s VR Headset program for pediatric patients undergoing cancer treatment.

WHY VR?

The American Cancer Society and Children’s Hospital of Atlanta (CHOA) have partnered to provide virtual reality (VR) headsets for pediatric cancer patients to use while undergoing various cancer treatments within the hospital.

• For over 100 years, the American Cancer Society has provided patient services to improve the lives of cancer patients. The virtual reality pediatric program uses innovative technology to further expand the services offered to pediatric cancer patients in an extremely impactful and relevant way.
• Research suggests that ideal distraction tasks consume some portion of attentional resources so that less cognitive capacity remains available for processing pain. 
• Distraction is a pain management technique that has been shown to successfully reduce pain and behavioral distress in children during invasive medical procedures. VR distraction is a promising intervention for children undergoing painful medical procedures and is an ideal distractor for procedure-related pain because it competes for attention resources in multiple sensory domains and provides visual and auditory sensory blocking of external stimuli.^..
• 19 studies across nearly 1,000 articles have explored the effects of VR interventions with cancer patients. These studies found:
• VR improved patients’ emotional well-being
• A reduction in patients’ distress in terms of cancer-related psychological symptoms.
• A significant decrease in anxiety, distress, and fatigue immediately after chemotherapy sessions with VR

With more than 100 Merchants, Raffles, Breedables & One Of A Kind Auctions, Gotchas Hunts and Entertainment, games, contests and fun, the 10 day Expo, which runs from Dec 5^ththrough 15^th, is the Premier Holiday Experience in Second Life.  This year’s Expo will also feature the reveal of the long awaited 4^th Edition Linden Homes and special content provided by our partner, Linden Lab. The Lights of Hope House Decorating Contest will also return for a 2^nd year. The Expo will conclude with the 11^th Annual Holidays of Hope Ball.

Do not miss out on Believe in The Magic of Christmas, the 2019 Second Life Christmas Expo, December 5th through the 15th, in support of the American Cancer Society.

Give The Gift of Hope and Fight Childhood Cancer!

Registration is underway and going fast! Sign up now for a store, shop or booth, and join some of Second Life’s premier merchants as a sponsor! For More Information or to reserve your store visit: https://slchristmasexpo.com or contact Nuala Maracas in world.

P R E S S   R E L E A SEFor Immediate Release

September 4, 2019
Contact Nuala Maracas   nuala.maracas@gmail.com

Read More

Sansar goes into open beta - Lacy Muircastle reporting...

Any opinions stated in this article are mine and not that of the owners and publishers of the SL Enquirer.

Are those of us who enjoy dabbling in virtual worlds, with virtual lives and experiences just suckers for virtually nothing?

Virtual life is an escape from reality is it not?  It’s a way of taking your dreams and making something of them.  It’s about socialisation in an increasingly isolating real world.

More and more of us work from home these days, which means that more and more of us will want to find ways of integrating into society in alternative forms.  Enter Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many other social media applications.  They serve the purpose of keeping us connected, but I don’t believe that it’s the same as socialising.  Before the appearance of social media, there was Second Life.

I read an article which said that SL died when social media hit the scene.  Maybe it stalled, but it didn’t die.  Second Life is very much alive and well.  The fluidity of those who are resident is a constant, but it continues to offer the platform to be who you want to be and to be able to do what you want to do.

All the world’s a stage, and that goes for virtual worlds too.  Linden Lab, the company behind the virtual world Second Life, launched its alternative platform Sansar into open beta on the 31 July 2017.  This iteration of a virtual world or should that be worlds is built for the VR era. VR as in affixing a headset to your face…  Supposedly the much vaunted Sansar takes a new approach to virtual worlds.

Whereas Second Life was built as one single world, Sansar’s architecture is more like a platform. On it, “creators” can host virtual worlds and experiences for others to visit.

The creations are not placed in one continuous virtual space; instead, they are individual experiences which can be accessed by browsing the Atlas. Each experience or virtual world in Sansar is also its own entry point into the platform.

Linden Lab’s business model for Sansar is to let people visit worlds on the platform for free, but charge creators who want to host more than three experiences (virtual worlds).  Creators too will have mechanisms available to “sell, rent, or charge for access” to earn from their creations. Though still in Beta, Linden Lab is already offering paid tiers for hosted experiences starting at $10/month for five hosted experiences.

That’s a significant shift from Second Life’s business model where users rent a virtual real estate in the virtual world, allowing them to build in that area of the map.

The main difference between the way Sansar will function versus how Second Life operates will be in how Sansar makes its money. In Second Life, the price of a sim tended to be far too pricey, running users more than $100 per month for a full-sized sim space, while sales on the Marketplace and in-world see very little tax. With Sansar, Linden Lab plans to flip this model – allowing users to acquire space at a more reasonable price and taking more of a cut for user sales.

In previous articles, Linden Lab CEO, Ebbe Altberg described Sansar as a bit like WordPress for virtual reality with the goal to make creation easy and for spaces to gain followings of their own. Platforms like Sansar are trending towards the future of VR – where virtual reality isn’t just for gameplay, but for social interaction and experiences. But… That must still be some way down the line.  Yes, I know it’s still in Beta, which means if you thought you would be getting the endless social VR experiences Linden Lab touted at the outset of the project you'd have to wait a little longer.

I have downloaded Sansar and have been in to see it for myself. It was an excruciating experience in frustration.  I checked that my computer could handle the download and that I had enough bandwidth, but wow, what a total pain in the neck the process was.  But it took many; many goes before it worked.

Eventually, I managed to log in to one of the Sansar Studio experiences (in desktop mode.  I don’t own a headset,) but then what.  I’m not a gamer, so I didn’t instinctively know how to look around, walk around, etc.  Thankfully there was someone there who helped me find my feet.

So for those of you going in to explore Sansar, I’ve included the control instructions (desktop mode) from their help page.  Good luck and have fun.

Controls for visiting an experience:

Avatar controls

Use these controls to move your avatar in desktop mode:

Arrow keys: Move your avatar forward, backwards, left, and right.

WASD: Move your avatar forward, backwards, left, and right.

F3: Toggle between first person and third person view.

Use these controls to move your avatar in desktop mode only:

Hold CTRL: Select a teleport destination. 

Click the left mouse button while holding CTRL: Teleports your avatar to the selected location.

Scroll the middle mouse button while holding CTRL (prior to teleporting): Choose the direction your avatar faces upon completing the teleport.

Camera controls

Use these controls to control camera movement in desktop mode:

Hold the right mouse button + drag: Rotate camera to look around the environment.

F4: Enter free camera mode when not using a VR headset.

Arrow keys: Move camera forward, backwards, left, and right (free-camera mode).

WASD: Move camera forward, backwards, left, and right (free-camera mode).

E, C: Move the camera up and down.

NUMPAD+: Increase camera movement speed.

NUMPAD-: Decrease camera movement speed.

F3: Exit free camera mode.

Note: An extended keyboard's numeric keypad is needed for the above NUMPAD (numeric keypad) shortcuts to increase/decrease camera movement speed. It won't work on a tenkeyless or other small-form-factor keyboard. An add-on USB numeric keypad should work.

Chat controls

Use these controls with text on the Chat app in desktop mode:

CTRL + X: Cut text.

CTRL + C: Copy text.

CTRL + V: Paste text.

CTRL + A: Select all text.

Controls for edit mode

Camera Controls

Use these controls when editing a scene in desktop mode:

Arrow keys: Move the camera forward, backwards, left, and right.

W, A, S, D: Move the camera forward, backwards, left, and right.

E, C: Move the camera up and down.

NUMPAD+ and NUMPAD-: Increase and decrease camera speed.

Hold left mouse button and drag: Move the camera left and right.

Hold right mouse button and drag: Rotate the camera up, down, left, and right.

F1: Toggle VR mode.

Action buttons

Use these controls when editing objects placed in a scene:

CTRL + Z: Undo

CTRL + Y: Redo

CTRL + D: Duplicate

Delete button: Delete

Controls for avatar customization

Action buttons

Use these controls when editing objects placed in a scene:

CTRL + Z: Undo

CTRL + Y: Redo

Read More

SL14B - Lacy Muircastle reporting...

It's party time again in Second Life.  Okay, when is it not party time in SL, but you know what I mean.  It's that special time of year when the whole of the SL community can get together and celebrate our amazing virtual world.

If you want to hear what the Lindens have to say, see below for who's on and when.

Visit http://www.slcommunitycelebration.info/ for the daily events schedule.

Here are the main SLurls for the duration of the event:

SL14B Welcome Area

SL14B Welcome Area

Teleport area:
SL14B Teleport from Here!

SL14B Auditorium

SL14B Astound Auditorium

SL14B Cake Stage

SL14B Fascinate Cake Stage
SL14B Captivate Cake Stage
SL14b Stunning Cake Stage
SL14B Pizzazz Cake Stage

SL14B Live Stage

SL14B Incredible Live Stage

SL14B DJ Stage

SL14B Astonish DJ Stage

SL14B Stage Left

SL14B Stupendous Stage Left

Other infrastructure areas

SL14B Max Mystery Island
SL14B Max Mystery Island

SL14B Gift Areas
SL14B Electrify Gift Area
SL14B Spectacular Gift Area

SL14B Pod Tour
SL14B YavaScript Pod Exhibit

SL14B Linden Prize Givers
SL14B Electrify Linden Gift Area
SL14B Stupendous Linden Gift Area
SL14B Mesmerize Linden Gift Area
SL14B Stunning Linden Gift Area
SL14B Captivate Linden Gift Area
SL14B Dazzle Linden Gift Area
SL14B Incredible Linden Gift Area
SL14B Fascinate Linden Gift Area
SL14B Pizzazz Linden Gift Area
SL14B Spellbound Linden Gift Area
SL14B Astonish Linden Gift Area
SL14B Beguile Linden Gift Area
SL14B Wonderous Linden Gift Area
SL14B Impressive Linden Gift Area

Over and above the resident-led events and activities planned to mark SL’s 14th birthday, there are the 'Meet the Linden' sessions which are hosted at the SL14B Auditorium.

As with recent SLB events, Meet the Lindens comprises of one session a day, from Monday, June 19th through Thursday, June 23rd, and offer Second Life users the opportunity to hear from Linden Lab staff.

This year all of the Meet the Linden sessions will take place between 14:00 and 16:00 SLT (that’s a full two hours each), with the schedule lining up as follows.

Day (14:00 – 16:00 SLT)	Lindens
Monday 19th June	Patch Linden, Senior Manager, Product Operations, and Dee Linden, Land Product Specialist
Tuesday 21st June	Xiola Linden, Lead Community Manager
Wednesday 22nd, June	Landon Linden, VP of Operations and Platform Engineering; Oz Linden, Technical Director, Second Life
Thursday 23rd June	Oz Linden, Technical Director for Second Life and Grumpity Linden, Senior Producer at Linden Lab

Read More

Second Time Around by Lacy Muircastle...

It’s finally done…  This manuscript took a long time to come to fruition but I’ve enjoyed the journey immensely, and I have Lanai Jarrico, she of the SL Enquirer, to thank for its existence.  

Out of curiosity, I joined Second Life, which was back in 2008.  What a mind bend it was.  The learning curve was incredible and coming to terms with the technical aspects of just moving around never mind making the avatar look halfway presentable was daunting.  But I persevered and with time things began to fall into place.

But now what?  I decided that if I were to remain in Second Life that I needed to do something constructive.  In Second Life you can do what you want, be what you want and as a creative platform, the options are many and varied. In 2000 I’d dabbled with the idea of writing, but I filed it away and didn’t think about it again till early 2009.  I’d come across several virtual publications in SL and decided that’s what I wanted to do.  Write.

I applied to two virtual newspapers, one of which I never heard back from and which subsequently closed and the other was the SL Enquirer.  Lanai Jarrico, the CEO, and publisher of SLE gave me a chance and now here I am.  She became a good friend and I will forever be in her debt.  Persia Bravin, another colleague at the SL Enquirer, showed me the ropes and with her encouragement, I was on my way.   

Lanai Jarrico

Back in real life, I came to the conclusion that I’d like to write a book.  Apparently, we all have one in us…  I took an online writing course offered by Get Smarter and facilitated by UCT lecturer Dr Ron Irwin.  Second Time Around was born.  My first draft was, well let’s just say not awfully good and I obviously needed to learn a whole lot more about the craft of writing.  Who knew just how difficult it was to write.

I rewrote my manuscript, several times... and along the way, I connected with All About Writing, run by Richard Beynon and Dr Jo-Anne Richards.  They coached and mentored me, and the final version of the book is the result of that collaboration.

To my friends, Persia, Maxes, Mal, Peny, Dallin, Nigal, Lowell, Craig, Giancarlo and IrishGent amongst others, thank you for being part of my journey.   And to all those avatars I’ve had the honour of interviewing over the years, I have enough material to write several Second Life related books…

Huckleberry Hax

A big thank you goes to Huckleberry Hax for allowing his character, Definitely Thursday, to have a cameo role in this book.  Definitely Thursday is one of the main protagonists from the Second Life based AFK series written by Huckleberry Hax.

links:   huckleberryhax.wordpress.com

Last but not least, thank you to Linden Lab for providing the platform for creativity in a virtual environment and to Philip Rosedale for coming up with the concept in the first place.

Second Time Around by Lacy Muircastle

A 21^st Century romance in which virtual life intertwines with real life

Sheridan King had it all and then she didn’t.  Her trust in men irrevocably shattered, or so she thought.

Luke Ashton, accomplished Ad man and artist, surfer and ladies’ man.  His pain and distrust of women run deep.

Having a Second Life© complicates matters even further.  What is real and what is imagined?

Josh Magic and Callista Hancroft

Second Time Around is available on Kindle by Amazon.

Read More

It's carnival time

Our virtual world is turning 14.  Let's celebrate together as Second Life residents. It's your community, be involved.

To quote from the blog:

While much of the interest around virtual reality has shifted to singular experiences, largely fueled by the pursuit of headset-focused content, we want to remind you of the joy of hundreds of people from all over coming together in one place in celebration, and form a carnival-like atmosphere that you simply cannot achieve alone. Let’s challenge all the perceptions, break all the molds, and show everyone that we know how to celebrate.

For more information please go to:

http://www.slcommunitycelebration.info/

Read More

Is your email address verified?

Making Email From Second Life (More) Reliable

 Sign in to follow this   

Followers 0

Entry posted by Linden Lab · April 19

9,921 views

There are lots of things in Second Life that send email, but as many of you have discovered, that email doesn't always get to the intended recipient. There are a lot of reasons for email from SL not being as reliable as we'd all like, and the Lab is working on fixing as many of those as we can, but some of them need your help.

One of the most important reasons mail doesn't get through is that many Second Life accounts have bad email addresses - when something in Second Life sends to one of those bad addresses, it generates errors. The number of those errors causes many network providers and spam detectors to block even perfectly good email if it comes from Second Life. To fix that, we need to cut down on the bad addresses, so…  over the next few months, we will be converting all the sources of email in Second Life to not even try to send to an address that has not been verified.

To check whether or not your address is verified, go to your Account -> Change Email page; look next to your current address there. You should see a green checkmark and tag: √ Verified. If you do, you're all set and none of our changes will affect you negatively.  If you don't, there will be a button you should use to send yourself a verification email; when you get the email, click on the link in the message to verify your address.  Changing your email address will automatically send a verification email.

If your address is verified, you should not have any problems with our changes to sending behavior - hopefully, you'll begin to see more reliable messages.

Unverified:

Read More

Sansar democratising VR as a creative medium - Lacy Muircastle reporting...

Time and tide wait for no man, or avatar in this instance and Linden Lab have been beavering away for a while now (or in other words developing) a new platform for creating social VR experiences.  It is due for public release in early 2017.

 “When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.”  Isak Dinesen

It’s with this tenacity that the team at Linden Lab who are working on the Sansar Project have applied themselves.

Yesterday Wednesday August 31, 2016 - Linden Lab® announced that the first invitations to the Sansar™ Creator Preview were being sent out this week. Select applicants will be invited to create their own social VR experiences within the new platform, slated for public release in early 2017.

It would appear that Sansar is now the official title of the new VR platform and the URL for the Sansar website has been updated to – www.Sansar.com.

According to Linden Lab Sansar will democratise VR as a creative medium. It will empower people to easily create, share, and ultimately monetise their own interactive social experiences that can be enjoyed in VR with head-mounted displays like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, as well as via PCs and, later, other platforms. Sansar enables professional-level quality and performance, while also solving the complex engineering challenges that have previously made creating and publishing social VR experiences an extremely complex and costly endeavour.

“Since opening applications for our Creator Preview, more than 6,500 people have applied to use Sansar to create their own social VR experiences,” said Bjorn Laurin, VP of Product at Linden Lab. “To start, we’re inviting a select group of creators whose skills and projects are the best fit for Sansar’s capabilities today. As the platform matures, we’ll continue inviting more and more creators up until public release early next year. Feedback from this early community will help us improve the platform, and they’ll create a range of incredible social VR experiences that everyone can enjoy at Sansar’s public release.”

To apply to the Sansar Creator Preview programme, visit www.Sansar.com.

Along with the press release, the lab have also opened a Flickr account for Sansar.  There are not many images available yet, but it will be a window into the progress of the look and feel of Sansar as it develops.

Read More

Are the changes in SL so drastic after all? Why is change important for growth? – Camury Reporting...

Since the first pixels emerged, so much has changed in Second Life. The changes, positive or negative, inevitably bring something new.  This creates the need for adaptation and causes a great impact on us because, in most cases, we cannot interfere with them.

Many people resist change for several reasons. These reasons may be related to a lack of confidence in the ability of adaptation that we can have.

Breaking into the unknown can force us out of our comfort zone and while it may seem uncertain and even uncomfortable, it opens up the opportunity to learn new things and for us to grow. However, it is precisely because of the uncertainty of the unknown that many end up resisting the changes.

There was a huge hullabaloo when the powers that be introduced mesh into Second Life, but now it is de rigueur.  Mesh bodies have arrived and soon a multitude of mesh heads and applicators will also be available. Many residents found themselves struggling to adapt to the new HUD systems.  Granted they can be confusing for many of us.   As a result a number of people still resist change and continue to look as if they were back in 2007.   However, this is a trend that is here to stay and most of us have adapted very well to it.

Are the changes in SL really that drastic?

 Mesh definitely revolutionized the way we present our avatars Inworld.  It offers more options to residents for custom creations.

As Second Life defiantly approaches its second decade, we have seen many projects emerge from Linden Lab and there will be more to come.   The big push for this year is Project Bento.  For those who are not aware of Project Bento, it’s to add ‘bones’ to our Second Life Avatar skeleton.  It will allow greater customization of our avatars. We will more than likely see other new projects emerge in the second half of 2016. The nature of innovations  is such that they pop up on a continuous basis.  If you want to know more about this subject, SL Enquirer published an article about Project Bento:

http://www.slenquirer.com/2016/02/the-project-bento-promises-better.html

Linden Lab, also announced the Sansar Project, which is in beta testing. This is a new platform, created from the experiences gained in Second Life but that promises to make it easier for people to create and share their creations. The SL Enquirer also published an article on this subject:

http://www.slenquirer.com/2015/12/second-life-will-live-on-after-project.html

The ability to accept, adapt and transform change into opportunity is what enables us to succeed not only in Second Life but also in various aspects of our actual lives. So let's look forward to seeing the best of the changes to come.

Additional Information:

Images taken from the official Linden Lab websites

Read More