Crash, Crash....Crash.....

Since the last update of the Windlight first look viewer, since I have upgraded my RAM memory, I crash more than ever before. Last Sunday I crashed even 5 times in a row, without even having done a thing, as I already posted this week.
Yesterday evening I crashed again, logged in, went to the place I was logged out (crashed), and once being there, I crashed again. This happened twice at the same spot. It is getting on my nerves, believe me.
Now, when I tried to log in again for the last time, I received that beautiful screen, with on one side, the screen of a PC, and on the other side the Second Life logo. You know what I am talking about, that new screen, telling people they can not connect to the grid for some reason.
I tried once, twice, nothing happened. So I rebooted my system, and tried again. What did you think happened?.....Indeed, the same screen.
As I was trying to log in with the Windlight viewer, I thought, maybe it could work with the normal Second Life viewer, and yes....that worked, without the slightest problem.
Finally.....
And you know every time you crash, and you start again, you get that message if you want to report the crash. I used to deny that message, but this week I thought, if I never send this message, how on earth would Linden Lab find out that I am crashing. So, I pushed the "send" button, and waited, ......waited.......and waited for receiving the confirmation that the message was sent. But nothing happened, so, after 5 minutes, I aborted the action.
Now Linden Lab has an interesting site to look for your problem, if it has been reported earlier: the Knowledge Base, where you will find no answers to your problem.
Reading an article the Daily Evergreen, Victor Graf, the author of the artcle, wrote some fake answers to real questions from the Knowledge Base. And that is exactly how you should handle your problems with Second Life's technical problems.;)

But don't be mistaken, although I might be frustrated by crashing so many times, I am still determined to keep on trying until there is smoke coming out from my pc.;D

ArtProject 08

Kunstwand 1994 > Artwall(k) > ArtProject08

"This event with paintings, sculptures, drawings, photo’s, music, poetry, dance, drama, film, performance, … can be seen as a continuing of the KunstWand project in RL, a happening in Schriek, Belgium that started in 1994 and ended in 2001, it repeated each year performing visual art as well as music, cabaret, music, poetry, telling short stories, filmprojections, …

Between 2001 and 2008 it only existed as a website, with some references to the artists who once participated at the ArtWall(k) project.

Now, February 2008, the project gets a revival in Second Life, starting as a small project created by the group ArtProject08 and with the help of several friends. This event can also grow in SL, and change into a future searching to express life through the digital medium that itself is a digital social environment with his own possibilities of creativity and expression, communication and giving power for a living society."

As this is in fact a project that never ends, there will be continuously new artists who will join the group, and express themselves through their Art on Second life, whether this art is RL or SL related . That is also why there is no limit, why this event can be linked to that other event this weekend, the PQE Festival, as there are no boundaries in Art, certainly when there is a possibility to mix RL Art with SL Art.

(Art)Project08
From Saturday the 2 ^nd of February (opening) 3 pm SLT (= 11 pm GMT) until Saturday the 9^th of February 2008 3 pm SLT (= 11 pm GMT)
At the opening a full orchestra will be playing "Reptilian Allure", from Benedict Hickson, Ruben Charleville in Second Life.

ArtProjects are to be found on the locations:(slurl will be updated)
Crescent (Lily Joliat) Lily World, Crescent (63, 106, 49)
Belle Isle (Birdie Newcomb)
Cave (Ilike Fall)

Participants:
Painting

Roodvosje Rosse : http://community.webshots.com/user/josy222
Birdie Newcomb: teen art brought over for an exhibit.

Photo
Anonymus
Bekas Takaaki
Bryce Galbraith will be showing some photographs of San Francisco in his shop.
LadyArwen Demina: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11508840@N04/
Lilly Dilley, photographer from North Carolina
Looker Lumet:: http://lookerlumet.blogspot.com/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/lookerlumet/

Sculptures
Anonymus
Art Camming
Dan Yapungku : http://users.telenet.be/kunstwand/contactpersonen.htm

Music
Ruben Charleville : www.musiccomposer4u.com , www.myspace.com/benedicthickson

Installation
AuraKyo Insoo

This list can be updated, as every artist can join the group and exhibit his/her work in this event.

Just to give you a sneak preview, Dan Yapungku posted a video, at the beginning of this year.

"Second Life Greetings"

Upcoming Art Events in Second Life !!!!

You better watch out for this weekend if you are interested in any kind of art, whether it is sculpture, photography, music, paintings, dancing……etc..

It will start this Friday, February 1^st, at the gorgeous QTLabs Entertainment Center as well as in sim shopping at the 42nd Street Mall, with Live Bands, Live Dj's, Artist and Vendor exhibitions!

Update: Quantum Tribe Laboratories will have live entertainment 24 hours a day starting from 4pm Friday the 1st right through until 12 midnight Sunday the 3rd!

Featured Artists include:
Komuso Tokugawa (playing each night!)
Streeter Nation
Grateful Stryker
Mikelec Criss
RockPianoman Pienaar
Rosdrop Rust
Jaggpro McCann
Mimi Carpenter
Capos Calderwood
03restes Larsson
GRENSGEVAL Belgian Live Band
Edward Kyomoon
The Rails Band
Maximillion Kleene
Starr Singer
Ohmy Kidd
Nikita Lumet
DJ Kay Binder
VLB Virtual Live Band
Mich Rumpler
Matthew Perreult

Live PQE-Js including:
Master DJ Lysander Lemuria
DJ QTLabs Apogee
DJ Hyperbole Beaumont
DJ NTropy Sellers
DJ Shintoryu Allen
DJ GypsyDoctor Donat
DJ Selena Botha
DJ Redminx Winx
In sim shopping with Particules FX; Bella Dutton Designs; Groovygirl Designs; Social Butterfly & X-ist Essentials Home Furnishings!

QT labs, an American full service Virtual Integration company offering all services necessary to successfully integrate any size company or organization into the Second Life environment, is organising this “Positive Quantum Energy (PQE) Festival””

It was Corinna Cortes, from “Snowtigers”, who is also co-organiser for this event, for the European part, who has informed me about this, as it would be linked to another event, which is coming up this weekend, the ArtProject 08.
Snowtigers is a group in Second Life for wintersports, and has a place of their own on the grid. It is an international community with 1200 members! in SL, and has activities such as snowboarding and icehockey. They also have art events, with musicians performing, sometimes DJ parties, and a gallery. Some artists are exhibiting in this gallery, and I have now some of my works too, with a direct link to Lily’s gallery, where I have my exhibition of some of my other works, which are a part of the ArtProject 08.

That is also the purpose, to link the Art at this event to the Art of ArtProject 08, which will be the subject for my entry tomorrow.

Short notice upgrade for Second Life

It is not my intention of posting notices about upgradings from the grid, but this one could interest all of the European residents, as Linden Lab has planned to do an update of the central servers, which means that we could face some troubles getting into Second life this evening. The update will take place between 10.30 AM and noon SLT.
The second item is that there will be a 5 hour rolling restart commencing from appr. 2.30 PM SLT, but expecting to last a bit longer.
Info from Massively.com and Second Life.

As you know I upgraded my PC up to 2,5 Mb Ram memory, but nevertheless, I keep crashing, even more than before. On Sunday I crashed five times in a row, right after being connected to the grid, so...bye bye notices, IM's. Yesterday, the same thing happened, but only three times. What an improvement!;)
And thanks to my extended RAM memory, I now crash from one second to another, where it used to take quiet some time, before I could try to log in again. W00t!! What an improvement! ;)

But reading the post of Tateru Nino, none of these bugs will be fixed today, ;(((

What a weekend !!(2)

Maybe this is a good title to describe what has been happening the past days. I will use it in the future for my recent experiences on the grid.

My weekends seem to be very hectic lately, as it was not different these past days. And not everyone is happy with these circumstances.
You can imagine, if people ask you to do a photoshoot on the minute, and you have to leave suddenly. But sometimes this request is justified. I know, sometimes you just have to say “NO”, but you will always have exceptions….Nevertheless, I do understand the people who dislike this kind of behaviour, and respect that.
To assure you, I do work with an agenda most of the time, ;))

Last Saturday was a day to remember, as Freggeltje and I had our rezzday party….huh….yes… I could not wait until the 29^th….;)), but Freggeltje had hers 14 days before mine, so we decided to have the party together, past weekend.
It started with the private performance of Preciousse Moody, and the dance party at the Spin Lounge right after. No need to say that is was rockin’ time, with music from the 70’s and 80’s, together with our friends. I am curious to see how many rezzday’s will come in the future ….will I still be here next year?
I won’t tell you about all the up’s and down’s from the past year, but let’s say that it was fun being there on the grid, and it still is, especially among friends, which is still the main attraction for me to have it going.
Thank you, my friends, for being there, and for those who missed it, …see you next year !!…;))

Yesterday I attend the class from Ryker Beck at Avatrait. I have to admit, I did not expect it to be so professional. You even received the whole class in a briefcase, to study at "home", lol. These classes are certainly worthwhile to look out for in the future!

And then we have that project…that event. It was rather a quick decision, but as I told you last week that I had met a Belgian Art Professor, he introduced me immediately to his coming project: Art Project 08, and I have some of my works exhibited in this event. Let’s describe it as a gathering, a gallery of many artists of different kinds. Music, Poetry, Paintings, Photography, Sculptures……..and not only from SL, but also from RL. In fact, most of the Art here will be from RL. But it will be an ideal opportunity to meet some great artists.
I will post more of it later this week, as it will start this coming weekend.

Second Life: A Future or a Waste of Time?

Okay, good news, I have found me a way to struggle through all the information on the metaverse, thanks to a friend, and faithful reader of this blog.

Time Magazine ran a piece back in August on five of the worst websites that mentioned Second Life as one of them. Not entirely sure why - since Second Life isn’t a website, as far as I know, but the article begins:

“We’re sure that somebody out there is enjoying Second Life, but why?
and ends,
The corporate world’s embrace of the place as a venue for staff meetings and training sessions does seem to lend Second Life a layer of legitimacy. But maybe it’s a case of some CEOs trying too hard to be hip. “

And I thought Time was a serious magazine with founded information on different subjects, but this seems to me a one man vision, who is not even well aware of what Second Life really stands for, what the future will be with or without Second Life, what Second Life is learning us, what Second Life means to a lot of companies.

It is not just another platform, to my opinion, reading all the different reports on virtual worlds, but it is a current platform for meaningful interaction. There are different kind of projects currently on going in Second Life include some brilliant work .

In the past months we have seen several marketing projects, RL companies coming inworld. They all see some advantages in SL, otherwise they would not be there.

Yesterday I had even a chat with the friend, mentioned in the first paragraph of this post. He is managing director of a RL company, who finds it interesting enough, not only to be present in SL, but also to grow within this virtual world with several SIM’s, and with customers using these sim’s as a recruitment area, a meeting place for its own employees, a place for staff meetings, trainings and conferences.

But not the whole world is yet convinced about the advantages of Second Life, or even the virtual world. There is still much to be said, much to develop, but personally, I am convinced that what we experience today with Second Life might be the first steps of something bigger, which will not be separated from our first lives anymore.

Can you still remember those first years of the World Wide Web? What did people say back then about the web? Something like: “What is this Web thing? Why should I spend time on the Web? These are all websites created by a bunch of people who have way too much time on their hands.”

We now know very well how this turned out, haven't we? Will we have the same 'déja vu' feeling with the virtual worlds? The future will tell us, but I am very curious to know how this story will end.....or will never end...

AVATRAIT GALLERY EXPANDS FREE CLASS PROGRAM TO INCLUDE ART HISTORY

press release

Evanston, IL
01/24/2008

Following the very popular start of their in-gallery art
classes with this weeks "SL Art 101" presentations by
Ryker Beck, AVATRAIT GALLERY announces the next series
of continuing art programs, this one addressing Art
History.  This program will be presented by new Second
Life resident Hitoshi Mayako, who in real life has an MFA
from University of Chicago and is on the staff of the
prestigious Art Institute of Chicago.

Hitoshi Mayako is an accomplished educator with over
ten years experience teaching, and an articulate
communicator who has effectively brought arts education
to diverse populations of students at a variety of
academic and skill levels. Over the course of these
on-going presentations Hitoshi will discuss the
development of art from the earliest expressions of
human creativity, though the various cultures of the
world, East and West, detailing assorted artistic
"movements" and on into the present with radical new
forms such as Second Life art.

The first of these Art History classes will be on
Tuesday, January 29th, at 7pm SLT, with a subsequent
repeat(date and time to be determined) at an hour more
convenient for European S.L. residents.  Other monthly
programs will also be premièring soon, and schedule
information is available at the gallery.

The Avatrait Gallery
(http://slurl.com/secondlife/Simuality/41/213/35)
features Second Life's most outstanding artists, one
of whose works are featured every month, with exclusive
collectible one-of-a-kind framed images available
in-world, and high quality framed prints available
through the Avatrait web site (http://Avatrait.com)
for real-world display.

Art classes at a more European convenient hour!!!!

Good news folks!!! Apparently, the success and the reaction on Ryker Beck's class at the Avatrait Gallery, lead to the organisation of a similar class for the European residents.

The class will be repeated LIVE on Sunday January 27th at 9:00AM SLT for those that were unable to attend the class on Wednesday.

Reminder: Free Inworld Classes at AVATRAIT gallery

"SL Art 101 is aimed at introducing photography in Second Life to the beginning photographer, as well as highlight the many useful tips, tricks, and advantages to learning to use the snapshot tool effectively. Covering everything from basic graphics settings suggestions to simple color correction, this one hour introductory course aims to promote the creation of art in Second Life while providing a few helpful points along the way. "

This link will get you right in the class.

I am afraid that the European residents will have to be patient for such an opportunity , as, even if they would be interested, 6.00 PM SLT, is a rather impossible hour for them.

Read the press release from my previous post here.

Second Life is after all a very small world

It was an evening like all other evenings, except perhaps that I had to rebuild a part of my house, which had, accidentally, been deleted by someone. Lesson: never clear your inventory inside my house.;)

But what was more interesting that night , was that I received an invitation from a friend, to attend a speech from a Russian professor about the movie “The Golden Compass”. As I am always interested in the movies in general, I thought this could be interesting, also for a story, to blog about.
When I first followed the TP, I crashed. (yes, even with my extra RAM memory,;)). I came back, but the TP did not work either, so for the third time I rebooted again, and succeeded in getting to the right place……after 15 minutes.
The discussion was already on going, when I arrived, and I was trying to figure out the basics of the answers and questions. But, besides the fact that I was following the debate, I noticed the language the man spoke. It was English alright, but with a particular pronunciation. Now, I hear you thinking….of course…it was a Russian professor.
But that was not the English of a Russian. I told my friend that it could not be a Russian professor, but she assured me that he was.
As stubborn as I am, I went through his profile, to find anything to prove that he was as much Russian as I am. And what I found out, was beyond my expectations.
He spoke a “Flemish” sounded English, that was clear to me, so he had to be Belgian, which he was. Secondly, I found out that he was born in the same town I was.
That was not all, after his conversation to the public, I went in IM and what appears….. we have some common acquaintances in RL, haha.
He is a professor all right, at a university in Belgium, and teaches to future Art teachers. And yesterday evening he was giving his interpretation about “The Golden Compass”.
There are a lot of pro’s and contras, as we use to hear with every movie. But we can summarize it by saying that it is an easy to be continued story with not a real statement, except the maybe hidden attack against Christianity, but this is not so explicit as in the books. Others call the movie based in a true story that is captivating, sophisticated, and truly interested, so it is an excellent sophisticated story that is very well told.

The trailer of the movie can be watched here.

What a weekend !!

What a weekend! What a week!

I have lost friends in the past week, but found some old ones back. With lost, I don’t mean completely lost, but they will not be on the grid anymore. And found…..well…..a dear friend from “Doornroosje”, the group where it all started for me one year ago, crashed heavily a couple of months ago. But after quiet some time, he logged in from time to time at a cybercafé, he bought himself a new laptop and is back on the grid since the beginning of this year. Welcome back Julio!

And yesterday evening, somebody knocked on my screen in IM, who I thought was never to be seen in Second Life anymore, but was not gone all the time after all.

And no, I am not talking about chat buddies, I am talking about SL friends!;)

The good news about this all is….that there are some new projects in the pipeline……

As you already could see on my flickr site, I have been busy taking pictures for Noelani’s series “The adventures of Alex Black”, of the complete cast. More and more I get the feeling that this could turn out in one major hit. Not for me, but for Noelani.
The place where it all happened, is one that I discovered some months ago, and is the ideal background for this series. Quiet, beautiful, no lag……..no, I won’t tell you where, you can figure it out yourself, as the name has been posted somewhere earlier, but want to let Noelani do her thing without being disturbed.

And then the big “reborn”!!! The best is yet to come, but I went this weekend to a shop, to buy me a 1Gb RAM memory card. Waw, what a difference. I should have done this ages ago. I only had 512 Mb and crashed all the time, could not do two things at the same time. Or I had to stay on the grid, or I could surf on the net, but both….forget it.
Unfortunately they had only one “old” memorycard in stock, as I was looking for two DDR cards. But from next weekend on, I will have two extra 1Gb RAM memory, which would give me a total of 2.5 Gb instead of 512 Mb, and I hope some extra speed too in processing.

So, the coming weekend is one to look forward to, and not only for the extra card..;)

Some figures

The economic matrics of Second Life has been posted on the official blog.

Starting in 2001 with one registration, December 2007 ended with 11.704.934 registrations, inclusive 93.219 premium accounts.

But what surprised me the most is that a little country as Belgium (+/- 11.000.000 inh.), was listed just behind Australia in active users count, as countries by hours as well, on the 12^th place.

You can read it all at the official Linden Blog.

Time to change....from blogstyle?

I lost something of value.

It was a tool for me, a help for having the latest news, to have an overview of most articles.

Now I have to find another way, to find the news, to find something to blog about, and that is not done in a few days.

So I want to apologize for not having the best articles lately, the most interesting ones, but I am working on it.

Being on the grid only, does not give you the content of the blog every day. You have to work on that, read other articles, surf around the metaverse. And for that, you need time, time that I don’t have…. But I managed it in the past….now I have to find a new method….or…only to post an article when something occurs in my direct neighborhood. But that would mean that there won’t be an article for several days, and I don’t like that at all. I like to blog, and I like that my blog is up to date with the most interesting news, at least what I think that could interest others.

Besides blogging, I take snapshots in Second Life and post process them. This is what I do, and this is what I have learned the past year. Posting my pictures every day on my blog, is not my intention, you have “Flickr” for that. What I am trying to tell is, that I need material to write about, and that I need the time to find this material. Every blogger has his/her way, and there are many possibilities. Only….I have to find the most suitable way for me.

Maybe I will change the way of blogging. More writing about experiences, about myself, Looker that is. But if I write about Looker, it is inevitable that pictures are involved, and looking in the past, those articles were not the most commented, except for a few ones.

Does Looker need to change in 2008? Not only from skin, but also from blogging?

What do you think, what do you want to read?

Update: New Second Life Policy on inworld "banks"_ some answers

As I was closely watching the developments at WHJ Holdings, I see now that they are almost ready with a solution to follow the rules of Linden Lab.
It will no longer be a bank and all members will be partners, or shareholders. This means they can buy and sell shares only through their website, not inworld. It seems that the majority of their "customers" agree with that policy, except for a few members.
A lot of questions raised by this new policy of Linden lab, not in the least at the current "Second Life banks", but it seems that there are always doors open to other solutions, without having "casualties". The residents are therefore not always screwed by Second Life.;)
But nevertheless, there are many people among us, who are wondering , what is allowed and what not, and will still be suspicious by any other action of a former bank.
On "The Second Life Newspaper" , there is a phone conversation written down with some questions and answers regarding this issue, with Patch of Linden Lab of 1-15-08.

Here we can learn that in general loans still will be permitted, as long as they are not connected to interest, and that the lender will be able to charge a service fee for lending.
The ATM's are being targeted because they are tied to interest bearing accounts, so they will be ok just for depositing in an investment account .

The fact why this new rule had to be set, was only because of the interests, paid by the SL former banks, which were not according LL's point of view regarding the protection of Second Life's economy and its residents, probably inspired under a "virtual" pressure by the US government and other commercial thoughts.....

The Second Life 48 Hour Film Project

Past weekend several Second Life teams submitted their films to the 48 Hour Film Project.
All of the films that were submitted will screen on January 16th and 17th, in Second Life's New Globe Theatre and 48.tv at 5.00 PM SLT. The films will play simultaneously at both venues.
The 48 Hour Film Project is a wild and sleepless weekend in which you and a team make a movie—write, shoot, edit and score it—in just 48 hours. On Friday night, everyone gets a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all to include in a movie. 48 hours later, the movie must be complete.
This is the main idea and in 2007, 30.000 filmmakers made films in 55 cities around the world in RL.
This event, with the same brain-twisters has come to the virtual world and the winner will also, besides receiving an interesting amount, be screened at Filmapalooza, a RL event, at the film festival Cinequest in San Jose, California.

This years teams are:

DreamTeam, Dnali Anabuki
The Good Griefers, Cecil Hirvi
GT SLAR, Ashang Jinn
The LifeFactory, LifeFactory Writer
The Machinimatrix, June Brenner
MetaverseTV, Robustus Hax
Team CADE, Sweeny Todd
Team Classy, Lucinda Obviate
Team Harvey, Chantal Harvey
Team Titatovernaar, Titatovernaar Balder
The Vesuvius Group, Rhiannon Chatnoir
Wildcuts, Orpheus Kurosawa

This article is maybe late for you who were interested to compete, but is maybe something to keep in mind for next year's competition. And it will always be interesting to see what those contestants can do in 48 hours with a machinima in a virtual world.
It is not too late to see the last screen at the New Globe Theatre.

Teaser for Second Life series....

The past week you may have seen some pictures on my Flickr site with the beautiful Noelani Nahama. She had asked me to take some pictures of her for a project she is working on.
Now she has released a teaser of her work, called "The Nine Deaths of Alex Black".
It is about a story, situated in 2035, where, as you already could guess, the world is nothing but chaos, famine and disease. And then there is Alex Black, a female assassin kicking some serious ass, according the writer's words.
After seeing this trailer, I am really impatient to see the series, it looks very promising. The way the camera moves is quiet impressive. Okay, and Noehami will forgive me by saying this, it is not the professional movie trailer, but it has some potential, I think.
Certainly something to watch closely in the near future.

Not necessary to say, that you will be seeing more of our work together in the future.......more to come.....

Multiple viewers at the same time?

Torley Linden wrote a post on the official Linden blog about how to run multiple viewers at the same time on Second life.
Now I was wondering why you should use multiple viewers, as to me, one viewer is difficult enough, without crashing. But I know some avatars who use more than one avatar at the same time.
According Torley the following usages could occur:

• Reproducing bugs (like VWR-3123) that require more than one avatar.
• Attending two “can’t-miss” events in different locations.
• Filming movies (machinima) with another avie as a “stand-in”.
• Transferring and organizing inventory between accounts without having to log on and off repeatedly (waste of time!).
• Talking to yourself.

The first one is probably the most effective one, for reproducing bugs that require more than one avatar.
Attending more than one event, would only be interesting if you don't have to be as one avatar at both places.
Filming movies....than you have to be a real lonesome avatar, not having friends who could help you out to make the movie.
organizing your inventory....if one is a mess, than the other will not be any better, but for transferring money, it could be useful.
And why not talking to yourself on a lonely night??? Yes, that would be it, when there is nobody left on second life, and I need a chat. That will only happen when the grid is down, but then again, I can not log in....euh?

But apparently there are more people interested in this tutorial, and I was wondering why.. Can anybody tell me, besides these above mentioned points, as these are not limited, why we should log in with multiple viewers? As told, it will slow down your PC......

Second Life Photographers or Image Makers?

There is a debate on " New World Notes" about what should we be called. Photographers or image makers?
I like to call myself a SL Photographer, and I have been doing that from the beginning that I am on the grid.
But reading the comments of this article, it is not very obvious for everyone that we are making photographs.
"Photographs, after all, are created by exposed light hitting a film or data strip. That doesn't happen in Second Life. " according New World Notes.
If that is the definition, then we have to admit that they are not photographs. But I think there is more to it than that. Pictures, taken with a digital camera, aren't exactly photographs either, to my opinion, as they are not photosensitive material being burned with light. So all the professional photographers, who were taking pictures with a reflex camera, and now with a digital camera, are no photographers anymore?
The composition, light and subject of a picture are still important to catch an image, to make it more than just an image, and for being called a photograph.
Ari Blackthorne wrote an interesting view on this matter, by saying "Being a 'photographer' is a process of envisioning the image before it can actually be seen - anywhere. You look at the scene and mentally place your camera around the vicinity, imagining the viewfinder to obtain the look you want. Then, position your camera there and decide if it's what you saw in your mind's eye. So a really good picture is rarely accidental."
This is a well put answer, I think, to define in our view, what a photographer is doing, and why he is called a photographer. Even though the polls, at this moment, show a little advantage for screenshots, images above photographs.
Another interesting question would be, if the pictures seen on flickr are photographs or not. Because a lot of images are being post processed, that it is not clear anymore if they are brushed or filtered in such a way, that it is more the skills of Photoshop which are being applied, than the skills of a photographer. But that is a whole different issue, which was not the object of the article.
So, in general, I don't really care what it is called, but I am convinced that I make photographs in Second Life, as you have to use the same skills in SL as in RL. There are other factors, okay, but it doesn't change the real vision of a photographer.

That is exactly why I am in Second Life.

According a report from Forrester, an independent technology and market research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology, within five years we will get our real work done in the virtual worlds.

"Virtual worlds like Second Life, There.com, and more business-focused offerings are on the brink of becoming valuable work tools. Major companies and public-sector organizations — such as BP, IBM, Intel, and the US Army — are investing heavily in virtual world technologies. But it's still early, pioneering days. You've practically got to be a gamer to use most of these tools — set-up can be arduous, navigating in a 3-D environment takes practice, and processing and bandwidth requirements remain high. But within five years, the 3-D Internet will be as important for work as the Web is today. Information and knowledge management professionals should begin to investigate and experiment with virtual worlds. Use them to try to replicate the experience of working physically alongside others; allow people to work with and share digital 3-D models of physical or theoretical objects; and make remote training and counselling more realistic by incorporating non-verbal communication into same-time, different-place interactions"

We all know that more and more companies are making their appearances into Second life. When we see, with the last virtual world conference in mind, that the big players are interested and investing in the virtual worlds, it is a certainty, that within a period of time we all would have the benefits in our real life of the virtual ones.
Can you imagine what would be possible in a virtual world like Second Life?
- As I am working in the automotive industry, an advantage would be the 3D prototyping , which would allow us rapid building, alternation possibilities, and avoid costly real world design mistakes, not even speaking about the loss of time in real world by making these rapid prototypes.
- The different communication advantages, throughout training, real-time chat and voice.
- We are all already aware of the marketing and media interests in Second life, and it is still growing.
- More and more will rich media and 3-D search solutions become important, as virtual world worlds expand their web-presence.

Don't be surprised that in a couple of years, the virtual worlds will become more and more integrated in our real life, just as the World Wide Web did some years ago. What would you do these days without the Internet?

Info from Forrester and Business Communicators of Second life

Rezzable Collectors Gallery

I have visited the newest Gallery space focused on magnificent sculptie prim work. The recent works of Light waves are exhibited here, as shown in some of my pictures.


This new space is designed and built by Miki Gymnast, and gives you the opportunity to walk in a circle, to explore and admire every single piece. There should also be a Starax freebie at the info board, but I did not succeed to get one.;) (maybe due to the lag)

Update: New Second life Policy on inworld "banks"

As I wrote yesterday, the "Whitfield-Hastings & Jenkins" organisation has now proposed four possible strategies to continue their business. It is up to the customers to decide.
As for now, withdraws are possible, but limited.
It does not seem that this bank will stop their business, without struggle for a "new way of living" ,as they like to call their proposals.
It will be quiet interesting to see how these former banks, will find a way, to keep most of their customers, still stay in business, and most of all, keep up to the new Second Life policy.

New Policy in Second Life regarding in-world “banks”

Linden Lab has found a new way to disappoint some residents after the collapse of Ginko Financial, and other related happenings (casino’s, sploders…..)

From the official Linden Lab blog:

“As of January 22, 2008, it will be prohibited to offer interest or any direct return on an investment (whether in L$ or other currency) from any object, such as an ATM, located in Second Life, without proof of an applicable government registration statement or financial institution charter. We’re implementing this policy after reviewing Resident complaints, banking activities, and the law, and we’re doing it to protect our Residents and the integrity of our economy.”

Now, to my point of view, it is understandable what they are trying to do, and at least they are giving some time before having this rule effective. Every in-world bank has the chance to make their operations legal, and make their customers aware of the new situation.

I can imagine that every resident, who has money at a bank, will now start to panic, and withdraw all their money, to be sure it is done before January 22nd. But is that possible?

I have learned that the “Whitfield-Hastings & Jenkins” bank has frozen all accounts. This is a security measure from their side, as, when every customer would withdraw their money, the bank would go bankrupt and have no meaning of existence anymore.

“as far as we can see now, the only thing that will happen is, that we will STOP the
"in WORLD ATM´s" and the "in WORLD activities" to match the rules of LL.
This will not mean, that we are stopping business, but we do need the time to
create a system that works for LL and for us and certainly for you.”

All Second Life banks and investment institution are trying to find a way to match the new LL rule, and this morning, there was already some white smoke coming out of the chimney of the Whitfield-Hastings & Jenkins organisation.

“We the WHJ are not going to run away with your money, we will stand here aside you, to show the WORLD and the SL/LL that even this can be managed without letting anyone stand in the rain.”

Later today, they will give some clear answers, how they are going to solve and overcome these unexpected obstacles by Lind Lab.

ART TUTORIAL MAVEN RYKER BECK TO OFFER FREE IN-WORLD CLASSES

Press release

Evanston, IL "01/08/2008"

Avatrait Gallery is very pleased to announce the start of
a new series of in-world Art classes, beginning this
month with celebrated Second Life designer, artist and
photographer Ryker Beck who will be leading "S.L. Art 101:
An Introduction" on Wednesday, January 23rd, at 6pm SLT.

Ms. Beck, a Second Life resident with a special interest
in in-world fashion,photography, and art, has been blogging
her experiences at http://rykerbeck.com,where she has also
relocated her popular graphic and scripting tutorial series.
She is a writer for ASpiRE! Magazine, and has recently
launched her own in-world jewelry design business, Beck's
Fine Jewelry.

This will be the official launch of Avatrait's in-world
classes.  Ryker Beck will be teaching the modules of how
to create art in Second Life, but there will also be
classes on Art History, Art Appreciation, and other topics
of art and in-world photography interest, on Wednesday
evenings (with machinima re-plays on Thursday  afternoons)
every month as part of the new Avatrait activity calendar.

The Avatrait Gallery
(http://slurl.com/secondlife/Simuality/41/213/35)
features Second Life's most outstanding artists, one of
whose works are featured every month, with exclusive
collectible one-of-a-kind framed images available in-world,
and high quality framed prints available through the
Avatrait web site (http://Avatrait.com) for real-world
display.

Cory's predictions for 2008

In a previous post I wrote about Cory Linden, aka Cory Ondrejka, being out the board of Linden Lab as CTO.
Now, he is not really gone, he is still among us, don't even be surprised if you would meet him inworld, and he made some predictions for 2008 on his blog.
The big difference is, that he is not building the virtual future anymore, but we all hope that he will soon, again.

1. The teams I built at Linden Lab will do amazing things this year (duh!)
   
2. Social search engines -- such as Foxmarks, Wikia Search, and others -- will generate initial results that are strong enough for Google to release a Google Social Search Beta to great fanfare and limited use
3. The breakthrough feature on the '08 iPhone will be video capture, editing, and video blogging more than 3G
4. In Europe, virtual world content will increasingly fall under country of origin rules, greatly simplifying the European Union regulatory requirements
5. Games and virtual worlds will once again be vilified in the name of "family values" during the 2008 Presidential election
   
6. Despite number 5, games and virtual worlds will be the cornerstone of at least one nation's effort to reform their education system
7. Despite additional packet tampering and shaping by broadband providers, no effective network neutrality legislation will be passed
8. Between AIR, Gears, GWT, Silverlight, and Weave, some technology will nail a user experience that smoothly supports both Web and offline usage via a browser
9. As the actors join the writers, more AAA content will be developed for machinima, virtual worlds, and the web as a way to give audiences fresh material without crossing picket lines
10. By the end of 2008 I will be building or working on something as challenging and interesting as Second Life

With his knowledge of virtual worlds, it would not surprise me if most of these points will come true, and, I wish for Cory, that point 10 will fall into its place for him.
Thank you Cory, for all you have done for the development of our Second Life, and we wish you all the best!!

Bootlag, a store with SL Boots.

Second Life Doornroosje's island will be sold. Eaglewolf has brought the island back to his original state, ready for sale. If anyone should be interested in buying the place, please contact EagleWolf Kubrick in IM inworld. Price is negotiable.

In the meanwhile my other Doornroosje's builder friend, Vera Leven, has started her own shop. She made some real nice boots and has recently opened her shop in Capital City (Bootlag, Capital City 114,62,24 (PG))
I do think women will find their choice in what she has been creating. And even for men, there is a pair of boots.;)

In the past she has been making some real nice things. She was helping EagleWolf in the building of Doornroosje, and Eagle's nest, where it is worthwhile to have a look at. I did not know you could make things in Second Life so beautiful, as if it is almost RL.

I'll write about Eagle's Nest later, but he is changing so often his place, and every time it is getting better, that I wait till he has finished. Although I realize he may never be finished.
It all started with a build upon 300 mtrs. Vera and Eagle started some months ago with this, and now, Eagle has recently changed his Irish pub again.

Second Life artist: Daequix Scarborough

After having some quiet days, without being pressed to an article for my blog, ;)), I am now back on track, and will try to entertain you all with some new facts, articles, pictures, news etc.....for the next.......days?weeks?months?y.....
To start this new year, I want to draw your attention to a fellow photographer, who was also at the SL4B, where I was already impressed by her works, and had an interview in the SL Herald, right before new year's eve.
The reason why I thought it would be interesting to blog about her, is that I saw my name mentioned in that article. More than reason enough to make acquaintance with one of the leading ladies in SL Art, Daequix Scarborough.
I won't copy the whole interview, but picked some parts out of it, just enough to get you interested to read the whole story at the SL Herald.;)

-What is your artistic background? Did you work as an artist before SL?
- Really only as a child/teen- it was frowned on in my family for me to pursue it..... so went into nursing.

- When did you start creating digital artworks?
- Umm, didn't even know how to use Photoshop when I came to Second life in May of 2006. My boyfriend, Solivar is a graphic artist so he's taught me many of the tricks of the trade over the past year or so.
.....
- Do you make mostly portraits?
- Mostly......but I also like to set scenes as well.

- Which kind of scenes?
- Often shoot in Straylight, Apollo Gardens...... and I very much like to work with some sort of fantasy environment if I can work around the area's visitors.

- And which kind of scenes you set up?
- Well for instance....in Apollo I set up one called “Slave to the Sunset”...it has an Asian Influence to it....and was part of a series. It depicts a very rich sunset which took a lot of post work to get it right.....In addition I shot another one in there, “Final punishment”, it is a death scene....this was influenced by the strong Gorean Society here......
.....
- You have been working as an artist since two years. which differences you see in your earlier and newer works?
- My earlier works were often mistakes....but sometimes wonderful mistakes.... I am not more technically able to produce what I want...and often times I can go to the shoot with a picture in my head of where it will end....other times it takes me where it will go. I am now more technically I mean to say. My skills have gotten stronger.....but I still have so much more room to grow.

- Which are your favourite works, I mean among the ones you made?
- Well, some of my very favourites are “Magic Lantern Dreams”, “Slave to the Sunset”, “In Waiting” and most recently “Morning Delight”.

- In SL are there enough museums for SL art? which are the best?
- There are so many but I haven't visited all of them...again Avatrait has a very nice representation....Code Red , September McKinney's, The Cannery is brilliant.

- Which are your favourite SL artists?
- I would say that Stephen Venkman is one of my favorites......Gita Rau. Hmmm there are so many honestly I don't know that I could name them....Codie, Shoshona, Corbett Howard, Looker Lumet....
....

Would you like to know more about this artist, read the article in the Sl Herald, and follow her moves on flickr, she is really an exceptional artist.

Just like me, she started without the knowledge of Photoshop in Second Life, and , although she had a little help from her friend in post processing, has grown to a real SL artist.
The last answer in that interview, if she is a more a painter than a photographer, is also what I feel about my works, as we all try to take a really good shot as a photographer, before crafting the picture.

Taking some vacation.

Although I am back to work in RL, I am taking some time off as a Second Life blogger. Thank you for coming by, and hope that I may welcome you again with my next post.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!

Happy New Year to all my readers, friends and other Second Life residents, who would visit this blog occasionally.