Group instant messaging and successful meetings in Second Life

Linden Lab have posted two useful stories on their blog that are worth passing on.

The first is a heads-up on a Knowledge Base article on how to instant message a group of up to 20 of your friends without them being in a group you’ve created.

virtual_meeting

The second is a look at how an in-world meeting was held for 160 people in Second Life. The standout sentence for me was:

Gronstedt led all participants through a 30-minute training session and all speakers and exhibitors through a 60-minute training session to ensure that when the conference day arrived, everyone was ready to walk, talk, text chat, and participate in this new virtual event experience.

Half an hour to an hour of training to be able to participate isn’t that high a premium, although without doubt it’d be a disincentive to a lot of people. To me, that’s a big hurdle for one-off meetings but a more than worthwhile expense for a business using virtual meetings regularly. Of course, the enterprise solution that reduces the learning curve even further will have an advantage as enterprise comes on board with offerings that reduce real-world travel expenses.

Reducing your Second Life lag

Tateru Nino has written a very useful guide on minimising lag in Second life – you can read it in full here.

Try saying ‘Sim Ping’ five times really quickly 😉

Whilst talking Linden Lab, CEO Mark Kingdon has provided a heads-up on progress toward a more usable Second Life. Lots more improvements are promised, the biggest one being the development of a new Second Life browser. Vint Falken has some interesting insights on what wasn’t mentioned.

More Second Life tutorials

The prolific Torley Linden has released sixteen more tutorial videos (at around 2 minutes each) for newer Second Life users or anyone who hasn’t really looked through what Second Life can do.

The latest batch are:

– 3 ways to get to About Land
– Avatar Rendering Cost
– Find Friends & Groups faster
– Give stuff to someone nearby
– Give stuff to someone remote
– Instant viewer download link
– Learn the Lag Meter
– Make a 1-way tinted window
– Open the Advanced menu
– Scroll through tabs faster
– Stop falling through floors
– Troubleshoot sound not playing
– Turn off annoying UI sounds
– Unwear attachments to give them
– Use the pie menu quicker
– What do parcel status icons mean?

That should keep you busy for 32 minutes or so!

Want to show YouTube videos in Second Life?

Torley Linden shows you how here.

It’s essentially a workaround by using the ‘high quality’ MP4 file associated with a lot of YouTube files now.

Need help with creating scuplted prims in Second Life?

Then Torley Linden’s latest tutorial may assist you in a big way.

Suite of tutorial videos: land in Second life

Torley Linden has come up with eleven more tutorial videos – find them here

Using the Second Life Wiki

Torley Linden has released a lengthy video tutorial on using the Second Life Wiki:

22 more Second Life tutorial videos

Linden Lab’s Torley Linden is a man possessed – today he’s released 22 new tutorial videos:

“Adding & divorcing a Partner – Love & separation in 2 min.
Building materials explained – Rubber? Glass? Stone? What difference do they make?
Changing the time of day – Override to see better.
Changing your login location – For your sheer convenience.
Chat bubbles – A different, cartoony way to communicate.
Cheesy red tracking beacon – It’s animated and easier to see!
Driving a vehicle – Basics of buying and riding transportation.
Finding stuff buried the ground – Popular question, practical advice.
Finding your chat logs – So you can read, archive, delete, etc.
Freezing stuff for snapshots – Supahmodel, work it!
Friends permissions – What do those icons mean?
Hiding online friend notifications – Annoying you? Turn it off.
Hiding the Search panel in the menu bar – BY POPULAR DEMAND, NEW IN 1.19.1 RC!
Hover tips – Use them to get more info.
How high can you fly? – … and what’s up there?
Increasing font size for better readability – SLize matters.
Muting jerks & objects – Don’t let the spam crap get you down.
Stretching prim sides & textures – Makes editing objects easier.
Turning off object selection glow – Remove an annoyance(followup to “Advanced attachment adjustment)!
What are particles? – Not just for *bling*! I show you.
What is a sandbox? – Great to show your new-to-SL friends.
World Map – How to use it. “See the world, they say!” ”

Second Life release series of micro-video tutorials

Linden Lab’s Torley Linden continues to pump out video tutorials for new and seasoned Second Life users alike. This week he’s provided thirteen short videos:

1. What is a prim?
2. What does “rez” mean?
3. Using your mouse’s scroll wheel
4. Toggling Property Lines
5. Organising windows & menus
6. Chat bar shortcuts
7. Linking prims
8. Opening edit tools
9. Wearing attachments
10. Editing attachments
11. Opening the debug menus
12. Advanced movement controls
13. Zoom In & Out

These would be particularly useful for a new Second Life user not wanting to navigate the maze that’s Linden Lab’s support portal.

Second Life tutorial – navigating in small spaces

Linden Lab’s Torley Linden has released another useful tutorial, this time on navigating in small spaces. Anything that minimises the camera issues in small spaces for new users is welcome.

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