Beware unofficial sources of L$!

We have read the blog of Vint Falken this week, the article of "How (in)secure is your Second Life password?"

Well, today I received inworld a note saying:

"I recently bought a sizable amount of L$ via ebay. The transaction itself was successful with the funds being delivered in-world.

However, I have now been advised that the L$ were paid fraudulently, ie that a stolen credit card or a hijacked account (or both) were used. Therefore the L$ have been reclaimed by LL and I am making a claim through Paypal against the supplier.

At this point I don't know whether the supplier is fraudulent or they've been taken for a ride too.

So now I...

- have just had to do another sizable transfer of L$ (via LindEx this time!) to get back to a positive balance

- have a claim to press against the supplier to recover the cost of the confiscated L$

- have more hassle than I need on a Friday night!

The moral of the story - caveat emptor; buyer beware!

And change your passwords frequently!

--Chorazin Allen"

Could it be, that we are talking about the same thiefs?
So Linden reacts only for having money back, but not to help residents?
It even seems that Linden is off the hook in this case, so it is impossible to trace the thiefs.

I hope that Chorazin Allen will see her money back, but as Pingping, it is very unlikely.

So all beware, we cannot repeat it enough.

Natalie Moody @ Microsoft Imagine Cup

Natalie Moody, a Swedisch singer and songwriter, was the opening act for the Microsoft Imagine Cup, the world’s premier student technology competition on Second Life. You can find some first pictures of her live performance here.
The Imagine Cup is one way Microsoft is encouraging young people to apply their imagination, their passion and their creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world – today. Now in its fifth year, the Imagine Cup has grown to be a truly global competition focused on finding solutions to real world issues. Coolz0r Coulier has been assigned the very cool role to launch the Imagine Cup into Second Life, the virtual world, as he wrote on his blog.

Second Life - My worst nightmare

(Picture from SL Blogmeet June 16th)
Another evening in SL.
As usual, when you log in at the grid, you receive a lot of notes, in which club, where you are a member off, there is a party going on, or is planned to start soon.

For a change, I decided to join some friends at Strawberry beach, as there was a contest for best male/female outfit.

Not for the contest itself, but I was not in the mood to visit SL4B again, having these lag problems, waiting for the moment that your pc has rezzed everything, so you can make a snapshot, but than it appears that the button “save” does not light up, so you can not take that snapshot, and someone else beats you to it (haha Bella)…….No not today, not for me, thank you.
So I went to that party with my “blogger gathering” outfit, which I think is a beautiful outfit for many parties to come, when I should feel like it to compete in the contests.

The new Second Life release on Tuesday, 25^th June, was, to me anyway, not a success. On Tuesday itself I tried to log in, when I received the note that there was an update, not the 1.18, but an intermediate one. It already started then, I could not update because of my security settings? Never had that message before. So, because it was late, I did not perform an update that night. I did it yesterday, by going to the download site from Second Life.

New update, new problems…..

I logged in, having no friends in my list (again, pfff), my clothes did not want to rez, even though I was at a place with very little to rez and no one in the neighborhood.
Ok, I thought, than I go with half my clothing on to the party. Once arrived, everything started to rez, but also noticed that other avatars had the same problems: very slow rezzing. And now the 1.18.00 update has been delayed….;pffff…..I wonder if that would change anything. I am loosing faith, but…..one big problem….I am kind of addicted to Second Life.

I crashed twice, (hurray only twice!), and I was not the only one, and trying to get some votes for the contest. I noticed too, that when you crashed you lost your votes, and even your subscribing to the contest. So it happened to some avatars, bad luck for them though.

After my first crash, I was lucky that the control panel seemed to have some troubles, so the voting had to start all over again. For everyone. The second crash happened at the very last moment. Shit, I thought, why now? And you know, when you have to wait until you can log in again, that can take some time. To have patience is a virtue, they say.

Finally, after a few minutes, but it seemed very long, I could log in again, and when I arrived, fully rezzed, at the grid, I suddenly saw a message in my left corner, that I received an email from the contest board saying: “The object 'Contest Board V2.03' has sent you a message from Second Life:
You won the contest 'Best Costume Of The Night”

For once, Linden was in favor of me, they did not throw me out off the list, while crashing. And for once I can say: Thank you, although I know they had nothing to do with that, haha.

SL4B - More Impressions 3

It would be nice to put some figures somewhere of how many avatars visited the place so far at the SL4B sim’s. Although I encountered some lag problems over the last days, I noticed not a lot of visitors while being present at these sims.

Maybe just due to these lag problems? Who will tell?
I am convinced, that even when it is not obvious to simply walk around, it is worthwhile to spend some time looking at the great sculptures and art exhibited during this week.
From my daily contributions, you are able to see that there are some pretty things made.

Beware, according my information, after this week, it will be over. Nothing more to visit. So all of you, get your ass over there, to support all artists, who have been doing their utmost for achieving their goal of submitting the best art they can make.

Just for you. Just to be noticed by other avatars. Just a moment of being in the picture.

SL4B - More impressions 2

Yesterday, it was a very difficult evening. I crashed several times, so it was not easy to make good snapshots. Yet, the structures and buildings made by SL artists is amazing. Not only pictures, but also events, some made in the SL sky, some on the ground, and buidings, as nightclubs are made especially for this anniversary on the sim.
Take for instance the Sensual Elements Club. The builder has played with the lights for his interior, as you have never seen it in SL before.



Me reading the stories in the Playboy.

A blog about male's clothing

I have been complaining in the past that there were too many shops on SL for women. Everything you get for free are women’s stuff. Even beautiful free skins. When a man gets something free, it is a t-shirt, jeans pants, or a skin, you would rather not be seen with.

Now after several months being on sl, most of the time in a t-shirt and jeans pants, except when there is a special party going on, ;), like the blogger gathering…., I found a blog especially for men’s wear. Not to believe in fact. I wonder if they have a lot of readers, but it is for sure interesting to surf through this blog to look for some clothing, and follow the link back on the grid.

Men’s Second Style is a blog for and by men, and was started in August 2006. The main goal is to track new releases and give reviews of existing stores and designers.

If , one of you guys, don’t know where to look for something in particular, if you need to attend a wedding, or a business meeting, check this blog out. I am sure you will find something. And you know what you are buying, as the products are already reviewed.

Not that I am the kind of shopper, no, certainly not, in fact I hate it, like most of the guys, but that is why this blog makes it so interesting. Surfing through it, costs a lot less energy, than visiting all the shops in sl, looking for that suit you wanted to wear, looking for that shirt, which you thought you had in your inventory, but appears not to. ;)

In the meanwhile I have received from Bailey Toland another url about guy's stuff, Thank you Bailey. It is really a complementation to the one I was talking about.

SL4B - More impressions

It is very clear that you will not be able to visit the whole exhibition. There is simply too much to see, but also too much lag. It takes some time before everything has rezzed, and you can take a shot, and move on to the next plot. So I try to give every day some shots of the exhibition, before I crashed, ;).

While exploring the sim, I ran into Kean Kelly, who was also visiting the exhibition, and was not able to participate to this anniversary, due to RL obligations.At the plot of Daequix Scarborough, there is, besides her beautiful pictures, an old film projector with a very nice lightbeam, almost real. (see also Bella March)

SL4B - The SL Birthday history

I have searched for some reports on the previous birthday's. Most of the information was found on the SL History Wiki.

On Wednesday, June 23rd 2004, Second Life turned a year old (a year from its initial launch date into "public" status of June 23 2003), and many events were held in its honor! The celebration spanned over several days and was also known as the "Second Life First Year Anniversary Gala". The main events included a "Gala Parade" featuring floats created by residents, a festival and kid avatar contest, and the Time Capsule event with a live broadcast by Philip Linden.

There were also a lot of unofficial events held by other residents through-out the week of the celebration. These events ranged from sales, to club openings, to parties and more.

On June 23rd 2005 Second Life celebrated its 2nd birthday, or rather the day Second Life was opened to the public! The main celebration was held in the Vehicle Sims of Bethel, Brilliant, Georgean, and Fortuna. The four vehicle sims were turned into a giant museum displaying various large builds, pictures of SL over time, and objects from the time capsule opened last year. The main layout comprised of four large pathways going out in all cardinal directions with a large celebration area in the middle at the corner of the four sims. Along the sides of these pathways were the various builds and objects people laid out for others to see. The event area and event itself were all put together by a group of residents led by Pathfinder Linden who happily took on the task of setting it all up.

The SL 3rd birthday didn't really get all the attention it deserved, with all the CC-less sign up drama happening the last weeks. And you could see it weighing on the organizers, who must have spent all their free time on this. Philip's speech was completely sidetracked by these issues and the obnoxious griever.

What is interesting to see is, look at the number of residents, and the ones which were logged in at that time. (date June, 29 2006)

There was not much to find on the internet about last year’s event. Was it not successful? Although many of us were also present at the third birthday, it seems that no one has made a report of the official opening. The only reports I could find were on the mentioned links.

SL4B First Impressions

As I was not able to attend the grand opening, I will post some impressions of the SL4B. Reports of the opening are to be found on other blogs, such as Vint Falken and Bella March.












The stand up comedian Max de Groot, who was having some kind of troubles with the audio stream, so I was more interested in the audience.











At the plot of Yann Mip, right across of Vint Falken's place.













And Dalien Talbot, watching every move at Vint's.

About Photoshop, Friends and SL4B

During the past five months I have been learning how to work and what are the possibilities with post process programs. I started with Paint Shop Pro, a program which was installed at work, (version5), installed version7 at home, and already work some years with it now.

While subscribing to Second Life, I got the impression that most of the artists worked with Photoshop. There were comments on “Flickr” referring to that program, and at that time I thought, I must have that program, or I will not be able to learn, which was and still is my main goal being on the grid.

In the very beginning I used PSP, and also Picture It, which was a useful combination.

Now, I work almost only with Photoshop, and still trying to get to the bottom of it. But it takes time, so does SL, so does the photo processing, so does this blog….so does RL. What I mean is, it takes a lot of time, to find the right information, to read or view it, to implement it and to learn the skills of the tools. Here is one link for tutorial videos for Photoshop: The house of Tutorials : Lesson based learning for Photoshop.

And while doing all that, I was missing a very important appointment: SL4B. The fourth Second Life Anniversary. I don’t know how I could have missed it, as most of the bloggers already reported some articles about this event, but still….

Luckily for me, I have still some friends in Second Life. Bella March, a Belgian artist/builder/photographer, who is also on the grid for more than 6 months now, contacted me over IM, a few days ago, asking why I did not participate to the SL4B.

Me, falling right out of the sky (Dutch expression, don’t know if it has the same meaning in English), did not know what to say. She told me that all buildings would stop at 0.00hrs that day. That was SL time, so there were still some hours left, but I had no space, nothing prepared, I could not enter the sim . This would be one of the worst nightmares for me, not being present at one of the biggest events on SL, among other artists, if it wasn’t for Bella.

She told me that she had some space left, and proposed to offer that space for me showing my pictures. Waw, what a great woman! And what a great friend! Reminding me of this event, offering the space, and helping me out.

Now, I was at play. I had to contact someone to ask if I may enter the sim, filling in some documents, and wait for 20 minutes before I could enter. After twenty minutes of waiting, nothing happened, and still could not get into the SL4B. It was almost 0.00 hrs, local time, but after a few IM’s, I received my tag (as a volunteer) and could enter.

Bella helped a hand by setting up a slide show, right next to her stand, with my pictures. Ouf!!

Probably I will not be noticed among the big sculptures and other building projects, but I will participate, what is still the most important thing. Thanks to Bella!

Now, with only one day left, I am trying to have me noticed, by changing my tag into artist, instead of volunteer, and have my name on the list of artists. I am wondering if I will succeed, but sent several IM’s to responsible persons, and waiting for their responses.

That is what SL is all about.

It was late that night. I logged in, and was directly attacked by IM’s, as usual.

You start to chat from the moment you arrive on SL, and if you are not careful, you will not move, until it is time to log off.

After having these friend list problems the past few days, where there were no friends online, except when they log off, then you see them, one by one, damned, I wanted to ask him/her something and now she/he is off line, it was in fact a relieve that we could see who was on the grid. Sounds familiar?
But not today, no, today everything worked normal, as it should be. Finally.;)

Suddenly, someone was in the IM box, someone who I did meet once, someone who helped me finding the place where I took some great shots of a mermaid, asking if I was still looking for beautiful places. Of course, I said, always, and she TP’d me over to a place called “Bliss”.

Hop in, she said, once arrived at the spot, and we took off in a big beautiful balloon, over, one of the most magnificent places in Second life. She asked me, if I did not forgot my camera.
Haha, how can I forget my camera in SL?
I turned, up and down, zoom, up again, till I saw nothing at all. My screen was black.
Luckily she could still talk to me in the chat box, but I was lost. What a pity, she said, it is so nice here.
And I was struggling behind my screen, to have at least something in my sight, something I recognized, and finally I did. In the far distance I saw our balloon.

And, she asked, back on track?
Yes, I can see our balloon, but can not reach for it, I can not come any closer. But after a while, having tried every move with my mouse and the CTRL and ALT button, I saw that the balloon, I was focussing on, was not our balloon. The ride was almost over when I managed it all back to normal.;) Nice flight, she said, with a smile on her face......

Back at the arrival, she asked me if I knew other places in SL, which she did not discover yet. Auch, that was a difficult one, but also a challenge.
So I took her to the Rainforest, hoping that she would like it. And she did.
We had to look for a train, that would take us to spectacular places in the Rainforest, but the only train that we found was one under the temple (of doom?), and was not taking us anywhere. It was a little toy train, making circles, and not riding out of the building at all, but it was fun.

OK, let’s look for other spots on this island, we said to each other, and off we went, both flying to different directions, hoping to find something, that the other would like.

At the end, it was she, who did tp me over to a spot.
Come here she said, isn’t it beautiful?.... Sit down.
And because I have no poseball problem anymore, I was not afraid to try the first one, the one that was the closest to me. I sat down, and when she also pointed at the poseball, she was suddenly laying in my arms.

Well, the least I can say is, that it was a nice, enjoyable, but short evening, as she left, back to RL, where she had a volleyball training, and I had to go to bed. That is SL, having fun with someone from the other side of the world, and yet, being at your house, in your chair, behind your screen.

The Unofficial Complete Fool’s guide to Second Life

The Unofficial Complete Fool’s guide to Second Life, written by Foolish Frost.

This is what I found, while surfing through a lot of blogs. It is an interesting guide for those who are just starting with Second Life.

Things have changed in the meanwhile, The login place doesn’t look the same anymore, yet, all the actions of the avatar stays the same, so, again, this might be a good guide for beginners and for older avatars who are suffering from Alzheimer.;)

I have to admit, now a days you get a really good education before you are allowed to enter the grid. You have to follow four directions, and each direction will explain to you how to walk, how to speak, how to dress, how to use the chat box with history, how to fly etc…

I remember, when I first came to Second Life, I crashed immediately, while flying too far away from the initial place (was to curious, I suppose). The second time I logged in, I could already enter the grid without having learned the basic stuff. So everything I know from Second Life, is based on a self learning process, as I am sure, a lot of us, are still learning too. Every day we find a new application, a new setting, and Linden still finds it necessary to add things, where we did not ask for…..;), instead of solving the bugs.

This guide is probably only a few months old, but seems already old fashioned, as things have changed in SL. Nevertheless I would recommend this guide to all new starters, who have already found their way to this blog.;)

At that time it appears, that it was possible to build anywhere you would like to, hereby disturbing the owner’s land with prims, he didn’t ask for, and limit his own ability of building.

You can download the guide from this side as a pdf-file, and print it out.

Have fun reading it! I did….;)

Good behaviour in SL

After several months being in SL, wandering around, I thought it would be interesting to publish some ideas for newbies, how they should behave in SL. In the first period they arrive in Second Life, they think there are no barriers, and they can ask and do whatever they please.

Some of these points might even be interesting for all other avatars as well, as it is never too late to get some education.;)

This was already posted before but I have adjusted it a bit, as some things did change over the time in SL.

• Don’t offer friendship to people you haven’t even talked to. Make an effort to get to know someone.

It is difficult to decline friendship when it is offered, but would it not be preferable that those people should present themselves before offering their friendship?

• Don’t ask strangers for a lot of real-life information on first meeting them. Conversely, don’t offer a lot of personal information yourself.

In RL we all have psychological defenses, which prevent us from behaving inappropriate. In SL though, those defenses are thrown away, at least in the beginning. People have the impression that they have direct access to other people’s minds and thoughts. Try not to demand real life details from people you have just met, and try very hard to avoid divulging a lot of personal information. This effect does wear off, to some extent.

• If an avatar chooses a male or female character for his or herself, it is polite to treat people as the sex they appear.

Sometimes we know that an avatar is from the opposite sex in rl, as they appear in SL. Please treat this avatar as the sex they have chosen. So a female avatar should be treated as a female, even if you know this avie is a male in RL..

• Don’t offer teleports without an exchange of IMs first.

There is nothing quite so annoying as getting a peremptory teleport offer without any sort of discussion taking place first. It is polite to contact the person by IM first, and then if the person is agreeable, to send a teleport, not before.

• Don’t appear at a friend’s side without warning, even if they allow you to map them.

This could also be annoying, a friend appearing at your side without warning, This will be easily prevent by withholding the ability to be mapped by friends. But even if you have a SLurl of someone’s home, try to warn him/her that you are coming and ask if that is ok. Imagine, you drop by just at the time your friend is adjusting their skin, or heck, even worse, they may just be involved in a delicate conversation or action.

• Try to be succinct when contacting someone you don’t know.

It can be quiet annoying when someone is contacting you, while you are in the middle of a complex texture job, struggling with your prims. I can imagine , for example when you have a shop, and customers want to ask you in which color they can have this or that. Instead of starting with “Hi”, following by “Can I ask you something”, and “Sorry to bother, but……” It would be better to try to contact the other person, to whom you would like to ask something, to phrase your question into one sentence, explaining what you are looking for. You will maybe not get an answer right away, but at least, you did not embarrass the other person, who you, in fact, don’t know at all. I am sure that you will get an answer, just be patient.

• This goes double if you are IMing a group.

Try to sum it all up in your first post when IMing to a group. This allows those who aren’t interested or can’t help to cancel out of discussion, and those who can or are interested to stay and chat. Starting the conversation with hi! when you know there will be 40 “hi!”s in reply is just mean. In fact it would be better not to start a conversation in a group. Just announcing an event is ok, not a whole discussing. And if you have the urge of starting a conversation in group, start it, and if you have the responses, continue in a conference, if necessary.

• Don’t explore someone else’s house unless invited.

Not respecting your neighbour’s space in SL can be as serious as not respecting your RL neighbour’s space. People get angry and vengeful. Try to treat people always as you would wish to be treated, and that means only exploring the places you are invited to explore. If in doubt — ask!

The fact that it is possible to do this in SL without ever stepping foot over the threshold, by moving your camera around seems to be beside the point.

• Do try to learn about people by reading their profiles.

This one is a very handy tool. You can pick up all sorts of useful information from people’s profiles, from information about their likes and dislikes, to special places to explore. I have a friend who already has discovered several beautiful places just by the information of the profiles. Make a habit of clicking into the profiles of the people you meet, and getting to know them a bit.

All these issue’s seem to be normal to us, yet, not all of them are respected by some avatars. RL is not at all the same as SL.

I think if these “rules” should be respected by everyone in SL, and don’t worry, most of the avatars I do meet, are respectful, our second life would be so much more agreeable.

SLBlogmeet June 16th

Yesterday evening there was another blogger gathering at Veyron's. This was also the first time that I could attend the meeting. I was anxious to see all my fellow bloggers, most of them for the first time. So I did pull on my best suit and tp'd me to the place.
It started as a party, went to the bridge of the "Enterprise", cause as you know, the theme was Sci-Fi, and ended as a party at the Holodeck. The music was great, everything was in fact, but I did miss the agenda !?. It was well written on the SL Bloggers Wiki, every point we needed to talk about, but at the end, nothing was discussed, as far as I know at least. So there is still a lot to talk about.....when is the next blogger gathering?;)
I hope that, despise all the efforts that has been done, and I know it is not easy to set a date and time that will suit everyone, at the next blogmeet, there will be a lot more colleagues at the gathering.
Check out all pictures at my flickr stream, and on SL Boggers Wiki.

Problem poseballs solved !!

It seems that I have found the cause of my poseball problem, where I have been struggling with for months now.
It appears that when I leave my glasses off, I have no problems with any poseballs what so ever.
I need to investigate it more thoroughly, but I am convinced that this simple solution will help me get over my troubles and frustrations.
It might be interesting for those who are dealing with the same problems. Check the items you are wearing!
This means that, in the future, Looker will have probably no more glasses, but he can at least sit down, without falling through the chair.;))
Thanks Tiana and Dalien for your great help and support!

DarkChild

Yesterday, my good old friends of Doornroosje, Dante Kish and Inex Dix, opened their brand new furniture store at the Belgian Sim (yes, same as the Atomium, New Mardes Club …..)

The least I can say is, that it is worthwhile to pay the store a visit if you are in need of new modern designed furniture. Even when you don’t need them, it might be interested, because Dante made all these chairs, tables and other products with the greatest attention and skills.

I have to admit, if you have a house on Second Life, and you need to decorate it, and are still looking for a kitchen, bedroom etc., there is probably no better place.

As they just have opened the store, and still are busy with designing and building other articles, I would advice to visit the place, but keep in mind to visit it again at a later time also, as design furniture is rare to find in SL, and there will be coming new articles all the time. Some of these articles are even a copy of RL stuff.

I did not had the time to put the SLurl into this post, as this was not written behind my usual PC, where I had stored this address, so please forgive me, I will post it at a later time, but use in the meanwhile your SL GPS, type Belgium, België, Belgique into the Search bar, when it works, and use your skills to find the location at the sim.;)

Second Lifers enlisted in search for Maddie

As you all know, it has been six weeks now, that British toddler Madeleine disappeared in Portugal.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the search for the missing child has moved to Second Life.

“Investigators are in talks with Second Life to prominently display pictures of the missing four-year-old, said Jim Gamble of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP)

Missing posters of Madeleine have already been see around the virtual world since mid-May, but these are not officially sanctioned.”

For the moment the search is on going in Morocco, because of a tip from a Norwegian woman, Mari Olli, who said she had seen Madeleine in the south of the country.

As also the blog of Metaversed, I would also like to contribute to spread the word, and maybe, just maybe, helping the parents to find their daughter back.

What to do when you don't have Sci-Fi clothing?

The last few days were a little bit boring on Sl for me.(yes it can be boring too, especially when we are talking about shopping) ;)

As I will have no time this week, for having a nice outfit at the blogger gathering next Saturday, I had to look for clothes and stuff real soon. It became even a bit stressed, as we had again the usual lag situations in Second Life. At the time I logged in for the first time , back in January, there were about 25.000 avatars on line every evening. Now a days, you will find more than 40.000 on line. No wonder we have some lag issues at some sims, not to mention the “pose ball issue” that I have experienced so far.;)

The first day that I was looking for some Sci-Fi stuff, I ended at a Star Trek store. Outside there was a nice USS Enterprise, but beside from that I did not find anything that could help me.

Going through the search bar, was not a real help either, as most of the time it did not work.

Next stop was another store, where, according the information, you would be able to find some clothing and weapons. I do not remember the name of the place, but I did not find anything useful.
From there I moved on to a store, where I suddenly “overheard” two avatars in their conversation, talking about another one; they mentioned a name, that was quiet familiar to me, so I went towards them and simply asked if they were talking about a friend of mine, who I did not see for some time now, because of the different time zone we are living in. She lives in New Zealand.

Can you imagine what a coincidence it is, to meet people inworld at a certain location in Second Life, who knows a friend of yours, among 40.000 others?

They were indeed good friends of that person, so we had a little chat, and there went the time that I was suppose to spend on finding Science Fiction stuff.

Okay, so I had to find the stuff another day….I thought.

But as usual, as soon as we were on the grid, all the notes came in, that we had to read, and delete, or accept. And then the IM’s from friends, the tp’s, and of course the daily SL problems. (beware of tomorrow’s release!)

Fortunately I stopped that day in the Belgium sim, where I met Pieter again. He was so kind to help me on the issue. And while trying things out, we had in fact a lot of fun.

So finally, I found something to wear, but have to admit, the next time, I take a girlfriend with me shopping, they buy a lot easier.

The next days, will be very quiet on this blog, as I am abroad for a couple of days, and will not have enough time to post pictures or stories.

But after Saturday, you can be sure of it, you will find a full report with pictures on the blogger gathering.

To be or not to be.....A cry for help

Poseballs in Second Life seem to be a problem for me. I have been trying to get some help from the Linden Lab, but until now, with no response or news. I have also looked into the knowledge base, but these are all general problems, not specific ones as mine.

I have also tried to log in with another avatar, and at first, this avatar had no problems, but yesterday, when I tried him again, he had the same problems.
Maybe some of the readers of this blog could help me out, as the Linden’s are not interested in the basic accounts, as I understood from following emails:

My email to Linden:
“Dear sir,
It had been some time now that I have problems with all the poseballs. It seems that my avatar only wants to sit, but does not do the animation as it is suppose to do.
Can you help me? I have cleared my cache several times already, but the problem stays the same. It happens with almost every poseball.
Please advice what I could do to solve this.”

The answer received by Linden Lab:
“Thank you for contacting Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life. Our support system has
changed and we have discontinued the use of this email address. To find information on
your issue and to contact support, please visit http://secondlife.com/support .
Please note, information sent to this email address will not be read or responded to.”

After checking out this link, giving by Linden, I stopped at this message:
“Basic Accounts: If you are a Basic account holder, you have access to our in-depth Knowledge Base and Solution Finder. You do not have access to our Inworld or Outworld support teams. However, we're constantly improving our Knowledge Base and Solution Finder to assist Residents who are Basic account holders with resolving your issues independently. There are also a few Special Questions** for which we DO provide Basic account holders with ticket access.”

It is understandable that they only will help the premium accounts, but as I don’t know how to solve this problem, I will never be interested to pay someone or give payment information, not knowing if the problem gets solved or not. To my point of view, it would be interesting for them too, if they could help the basic accounts. Just to show, that they have a great support.
But I assume they don’t have. ;(

Reminder: Downtime, Wednesday June 13th

As a reminder, Second Life will be unavailable this Wednesday, June 13, 2007 from 6am until 12pm PDT, for 1.17.01 release.

Finally, it seems that a new update will take place on wednesday. Still without voice, which was in the Beta version, but will not be in this new release.(fortunately) Normally this release was suppose to take place last week, but due to some problems, which we all can confirm, it was delayed.

We now hope that this release 1.17.01 will fix a lot of bugs, and that we, at least for some time, be released of all these pretty cumbersome bugs.

The ArenA Soccer Stadium Amsterdam

It was a quiet evening on SL. The friendlist was not working again, so, I stood there, no one to call, no one to visit. It could not be true. I tried already to IM some friends, which succeeded , when suddenly the first of my friends came online, Pieter.
Immediately I contacted him by saying and asking if he was having the same problems.

Enough now about the non working items of the Lindens.
Pieter, he is a journalist for the secondlifecrew.be, told me, that he wanted to do an article about the soccer field of Ajax Amsterdam. I thought it was not a bad idea, to come over to take the pictures, that he could use for his article. And so we did, the results of the pictures are to be seen in my flickr stream, the article will soon appear on www.secondlifecrew.be. (article in Dutch: Mannen en voetbal...) But upon request, I could translate it and put it here on my blog. Let's hear your wishes.