This is a Duplicate of Jira Issue VWR-7264 ‘Viewer crash (no error message) when attempting ANY asset upload’ assigned to ‘WorkingOnIt Linden’ (sorry!)

‘Hack’ fix: Xi Tuni suggests there: ‘Found a work around for this problem. Goto preferences to the tab communications, change path, from that moment on uploading and snapshot saving did work. I think the problem is related to the Vista SL communication. U have to do this everytime after login if want to upload and save to disk. Hope they can fix this or give us tip what todo in Vista. This works for me, but indeed, having to change the location of chat logs (I suggest to myself, switching between two set locations) on each login is a real pain, as I largely depend upon them.

File Dialogue crashes SL client

Using both normal client and RC, when attempting to open any file dialogue, this crashes the viewer, thus rendering the uploading of texture/animations and the saving of any snapshot to hard disk impossible. The latter is a showstopper for me. :(

Crash feature works with:

• File > upload image
• File > upload sound
• File > upload animations
• File > bulk upload
• File > Snapshot to disk
• File > Take Snapshot > enable ’save snapshot to hard disk’. The moment I press save, the client wants to show the file dialog and crashes.

Changing path is possible though, in Preference > Communication > Change Path. Changing the path here prevents the crash when trying to access file dialogue from File > menu. But you need to set a different path each time you reboot your client. Pfff.

Environment

CPU: Intel Pentium III/Pentium III Xeon (0.25 micron process) with external L2 cache (2494 MHz)
Memory: 3070 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 9650M GS/PCI/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 2.1.2
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.16480 (Mozilla GRE version 1.8.1.13_0000000000)
Packets Lost: 5/6102 (0.1%)

Solutions attempted, but did not help

1. Make sure to run as Second Life Client as administrator
2. Disable Vista Aero. Disable all shading on windows, transparency, … .
3. Run with compatibility settings set to XP

I have only one word for this: Help!
This renders a laptop purchased especially for SL use completely useless to me. :(

Acer Aspire 8920G Specs

It’s a healthy baby, with a good - although above average - weight, black body and not to noisy (but sounds great when you tell it to make noise - for a laptop, that is). More specific: NVIDIA® GeForce® 9650M-GS, Intel® Core™2 Duo processor T9300 (2.5GHz/FSB: 800MHz/6MB L2 cache), 4GB DDR II RAM, 640GB HDD (2x 320GB) and the rest of usual features that come with such beings. The only icky thing is the CineDash Media Console, which imho is totally unnecessary (maybe it can be removed without to much problems, like the appendix?) It comes with a clean Vista install (no ‘hey, try this out, it’s shareware crap thanks to nice the PC guys from the shop) which is already way less scary now I found the way to revert it to ‘old, classic windows look’. :d

It’s strange how such a thing can give you a whole new look on virtual life. From 4:3 aspect ratio to almost 2:1 surely needs a while to get used to. (Yeah, I could not help myself. First thing I did was to check how Greenies Lawn looked on this one, and how my fps was doing.)

Software. Errr. Suggestions welcome.

Now the thing is, what to teach it in his first weeks:

* = He can already do that.
? = ‘no idea’ or ‘would this be a good idea?’

1. Surfing: Firefox*, Opera, Firefox plugins
2. Anti-virus: Avast
3. Firewall: pffff. not needed?
4. Zipping/unzipping: 7-Zip
5. E-mail: Thunderbird
6. FTP: FileZilla
7. Graphics: Adobe stuff, GIMP, Adobe Reader*, Wacom drivers
8. Torrent: ?
9. 3D software: DAZ?, Blender (not that I’m good with it)
10. Second Life: Second Life RC Client*, shadow branch test files, avpainter, clothingpreview, qanimator, ?
11. Feed Reader: ? (might go web based)
12. General comfort: Notepad++ *
13. Office: OpenOffice
14. IM/chat: Skype, ICQ, MSN, mIRC
15. Capture audio: Audacity
16. Capture video/screen: any good alternatives for Frapps?
17. Fun & Various: Bryce, PacketGarden, Twinity viewer, ExifViewer, AMP Font Viewer, camera drivers, Spore Creature Creator (maybe), …
18. Music playback: ? (probably WinAmp)

Did I forget any important stuff a PC should be able to do?

What won’t make it on the new PC: lot’s of useless Intel programs, Microsoft Office, Flickr Uploader, _anything_ CoffeeCup, Nero 7, Corel Painter (unless I buy a new Wacom someday, but never actually used it), Google Video Player, AC3D, QuarkXpress, Flock, Google Earth, Flux Player, Pownce client, HentaII3D, Plopp, meet-me (never worked), AC3D, … .

Fingerprint, a bit ‘over the top’?

A final questions, that ‘fingerprint identification’ that comes with almost every laptop nowadays, does anybody use that? Is it extra safe? And what if you loose your finger? Seems kinda silly and ‘unnecessary luxury?’ (ok, so is the subwoofer in the laptop and some other things, but still. :d)

‘Huh?’ Was my first reaction. How the hell can they - Jonathan Harris & Sepandar Kamvar - know how I feel. Let alone the whole of mankind? But seems that the global scale is the blogosphere: since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world’s newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling”. As blogpost often contain author name, date, geolocations, … and We Feel Fine even looks op the info in the profile of the blogger, they know - more or less - who you are, what’s your sex, how old you are, where you live, … . The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day. The internet holds emotions after all! ;)

You can look up those feelings at We Feel Fine in quite a few different ways: Murmurs the most extreme for those who are fond of prying into someone else’s life and Metrics the most fitted for those who prefer general data over one person views.

Interesting because?

• It gives us a ‘voyeuristic’ look on other people’s lives and more important, emotions: gossiping is out of fashion as one does not know one’s neighbours any more, and reality tv continuous to suck. People trust things to their weblogs - and thus the entire ‘web population’ that they often would not even trust their partners with.
• Data! Compare the average amount of happiness in the USA vs happy people in the EU, see if it’s true that the only ones with either euphoric or highly depressed feelings are teenagers, and if the weather has something to do with it. Does astronomy make sense? Do all people born in 1984 feel more or less alike? Were there more ‘I feel disappointed’ people on the day George W Bush was elected president again? Etc.

Can you think of any more interesting uses?

My only ‘doubt’ about this, is that even if it would scramble all the blogs, it is still a bit a biased image the We Feel Fine API paints:

• I tend to blog when I’m a) euphoric/made a new discovery/did something well/very positive feeling or b) sad/disappointed/very negative feeling. I assume this is the same for others, creating an universe of feelings where the extreme ones are represented far more, and the ‘neutral’ feelings are neglected. Now who would write: ‘I feel normal’? ;)
• It will be a representation of the blogosphere’s feelings, thus people who have access to the internet. Which excludes how much of the world’s population? We’ll probably not get feelings from war zones and the poorer countries, which makes this ‘an universe of feelings from the wealthy nations’. If I would type ‘I feel hungry’ and ‘I feel unsafe’ a few times, would that pull things straight, you think? Far from.
• What languages does the application speak? Does it read feelings in Japanese, Russian, Spanish, … and even Dutch? As I could not find any information about that, let us just assume it is ‘the universe of feelings from wealthy nations where one speaks English’.

None the less, gathering blog data from a variety of online sources, including LiveJournal, MSN Spaces, MySpace, Blogger, Flickr, Technorati, Feedster, Ice Rocket, and Google, We Feel Fine is an impressive project.

We feel sometimes we shut people out of important happenings like SL5B, because they don’t speak the right Linden language - English in this case. So here is the call out in a few languages. Feel free to translate and spread the message for messages yourself! (And can we get a copy then? ;))

1. ‘A Message to Second Life’ (English)
2. ‘Eine Nachricht an SL’ (German) (by Andromega Volare)
3. ‘Votre message à Second Life’ (French)(by Trinity Clift)
4. ‘Bericht voor Second Life’ (Dutch)
5. Spanish Version (in the comments) (by a user form the Spanish SL forum)

English version

SECOND LIFE IS 5 YEARS OLD !

As part of the SL5B celebrations, Dizzy Banjo and Lillie Yifu are creating “A Message to Second Life”.

We have created a giant bottle, which we want to fill with all your messages to Second Life. What would you like to say to the entire SL community on its 5th birthday ?

What does Second Life mean to you ?
How has your Second Life affected you ?
What hopes do you have for the future of Second Life ?

You can submit your message in two forms :

- An uploaded audio recording of you speaking your message ( PREFERRED OPTION ! ! )
- A text based message in a notecard

Once we have recieved your messages they will all go into the bottle and spill out intermittently as part of a fun interactive sound and music installation celebrating the Second Life spirit !

At the end of the 2 weeks of birthday events the bottle will be sealed and cast off into the SL ocean, perhaps it will be found again at SL10B …

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR MESSAGE :

Audio Messages :

Watch this easy video tutorial which will explain how you can record your voice and upload your message and give it to us. Maximum 10 seconds!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xLt-vyKQoc

Text Messages :

1. Please write your message within 140 characters in a notecard.
2. Make the notecard FULL PERMISSIONS by right clicking on it in your inventory and checking the “copy” and “modify” boxes
3. Goto SEARCH ( open the all tab ) and type in DIZZY BANJO and click my resident profle ( the top link )
4. Drag the notecard onto my profile.

Note : All messages need to adhere to the Second Life Terms of Service, and be PG in nature.

DEADLINE !!

ALL RECORDINGS AND MESSAGES MUST BE RECIEVED BY :

WEDNESDAY THE 18th OF JUNE 2008 !

Thanks for your interest and we look forward to hearing your submissions soon and putting them into the bottle !

German version

SECOND LIFE WIRD 5 JAHRE ALT !

Als Teil der SL5B Feierlichkeiten inszenieren Dizzy Banjo und Liilie Yifu
“A Message to Second Life” (”Eine Nachricht an SL”)

Wir haben eine riesige Flasche gemacht, die ihr mit euren Nachrichten an
Second Life füllen könnt. Was würdest Du gerne mal der gesamten
SL-Gemeinde an ihrem fünften Geburtstag sagen?

Was bedeutet Dir Second Life?
Wie hat Second Life Deinen Alltag verändert?
Was wünscht Du Dir für die Zukunft in Second Life?

Du hast zwei Möglichkeiten Deine Nachricht zu übermitteln:

- eine Audio-Aufnahme Deiner gesprochenen Nachricht hochladen (bevorzugte
Option!!!)
- eine Text-Mitteilung als Notecard

Wenn wir Eure Nachrichten haben, kommen sie in die Flasche aus der sie
dann- gemixt mit einer fröhlichen interaktiven Sound und Musik
Installation- zur Feier des Second Life Esprits heraussprudeln werden.

Nach den beiden Veranstaltungswochen wird die Flasche zugestöpselt und in
die Brandung des SL-Ozeans geworfen werden,vielleicht taucht sie ja zum
10. SL-Birthday wieder auf?
…

So sendest Du Deine Nachricht:

Audio Nachricht:

Sieh Dir diesen kurzen Film an, er erklärt wie Du Deine Stimme aufnimmst
und wie Du sie zu uns hochladen kannst. (in englisch) Make sure your message is maximum 10 seconds!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xLt-vyKQoc

Text Nachricht:

1. Schreibe Deine Nachricht mit max. 140 Buchstaben in eine Notecard.
2. Erteile der Notecard ALLE RECHTE indem Du sie in Deinem Inventar
rechts anklickst und die “copy” und “modify” Kästchen aktivierst.
3. Gehe zur SUCHE (öffne den “Alles” Tabulator), tippe “DIZZY BANJO” und
öffne sein Profil ( der oberste Link)
4. Ziehe Deine Notecard auf das Profil (drag and drop)

Wichtig: Alle Nachrichten dürfen nicht gegen die Second Life Terms of
Service verstossen und müssen PG (jugendfrei) sein!

Abgabe bis spätestens:

Mittwoch, dem 18. Juni 2008

Danke für Dein Interesse, wir freuen uns darauf bald Deine Übertragung zu
hören und sie mit in die Flasche stecken zu können!

French Version

Dites nous ce que vous pensez de SL pour son 5eme anniversaire!

SECOND LIFE A 5 ANS !

A l’occasion des célébrations du cinquième anniversaire de SL, Dizzy Banjo et Lillie Yifu écrivent “un message à Second Life”.

Nous avons créé une bouteille géante que nous voulons remplir avec tous vos messages pour Second Life. Que voudriez- vous dire à toute la communauté de SL sur son 5ieme anniversaire?

Que signifie Second Life pour vous ?
Quelle fut l’influence de SL sur vous ?
Qu’attendez-vous de SL dans l’avenir ?

Deux solutions s’offrent à vous pour transmettre votre message :

-un enregistrement audio de votre message que vous aurez téléchargé dans SL (OPTION PREFEREE !!)
-un texte écrit dans une “notecard”

Après avoir récupéré vos messages, nous les mettrons tous dans la bouteille et ils se répandront de façon intermittante comme une animation audio et musicale interactive pour fêter l’esprit de Second Life.

A la fin des deux semaines d’événement la bouteille sera fermée et jetée dans la mer virtuelle, peut-être sera-t-elle retrouvée pour le dizième anniversaire de SL….

COMMENT ENVOYER VOTRE MESSAGE :

Message audio :

le lien ci-dessous permet de voir une vidéo qui montre comment enregistrer votre voix et comment télécharger votre message pour nous le faire parvenir :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xLt-vyKQoc (make sure your message is max. 10 seconds!)

Message écrit :

1. Ecrire un message de 140 caractères maximum dans une “notecard”.
2. La “notecard” doit être “FULL PERMISSIONS”. Pour celà, afficher ses propriétés à l’aide du clic droit de la souris, puis cocher les cases “Modify”, “Copy”, “Resell/Give away” en bas.
3. Rechercher “Dizzy Banjo” dans le moteur de recherche de SL puis afficher le profil.
4. Faire glisser à l’aide de la souris la “notecard” depuis l’inventaire sur le profil de Dizzy Banjo.

Note : tous les messages doivent adhérer au “Second Life Terms of Service” et être de nature “PG”.

TOUS LES MESSAGES AUDIOS OU ECRITS DOIVENT NOUS PARVENIR AVANT LE

MERCREDI 18 JUIN 2008 !

Merci pour l’ interret que vous portez à cette démarche, c’est avec impatience que nous attendons vos messages afin de les mettre en bouteille.

Dutch Version

Second Life wordt 5 jaar!!

Voor de SL5B feesten - Second Life 5th Birthday - werken Dizzy Banjo en Lillie Yife aan een ‘Bericht voor Second Life’. ‘Bericht aan Second Life’ is een gigantische fles, die ze willen vullen met jullie berichten voor Second Life. Wat zou jij willen zeggen aan de volledige SL community nu we 5 jaar worden?

Wat betekent Second Life voor jou?
Hoe heeft Second Life je leven beinvloed?
En hoe hoop je dat Second Life’s toekomst eruit gaat zien?

Er zijn twee manieren waarop je je bericht kan achterlaten:

- Een geluidsbericht, waarop jij je boodschap inspreekt. (Voorkeur!)
- Een tekstberichtje in een notecard.

Zodra de berichten ontvangen worden, gaan ze allemaal de fles in. Ze zullen te horen & te lezen zijn als deel van een leuke en interactive geluids- en muziekinstallatie om de ’spirtit’ van Second Life te vieren. Op het einde van de twee weken dat SL5B duurt, zal de fles verzegeld worden en in de virtuele oceaan geworpen worden. Wie weet, misschien komt ze op SL10B terug boven water?

HOE JE BERICHT INSTUREN:

Geluidsopnames:

Er is een simpele tutorial - in het Engels weliswaar - over hoe je bericht, maximum 10 seconden, kan opnemen, uploaden en aan Lilly overhandigen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xLt-vyKQoc

Tekstberichten :

1. Maximum 140 lettertekens op een notecard.
2. Zorg ervoor dat de notecard ‘full perm’ is! Rechtermuisknop klikken op de notecard in je inventory, en zorgen dat de boxjes ‘copy’, ‘modify’ en ‘transfer’ zijn aangeduid.
3. Ga naar ‘Search’ en typ Dizzy Banjo and open zijn profiel.
4. Sleep de notecard naar Dizzy’s profiel.

Belangrijk: De berichten moeten ‘PG’ zijn (niets sexueels of extreem grof) en mogen de Second Life Terms of Service niet schenden.

DEADLINE:

Alle geluidsopnames en tekstberichten moeten ontvangen worden voor:
WOENSDAG 18 JUNI 2008!

Alvast bedankt voor de interesse! Hopelijk kunnen we snel je inzending in de gigantische fles stoppen! ;)

Latest concerning news about SL5B is that Lindens abandoned all family values, and are willing to tear child avies away from there worried parents. *evil Linden God’s voice* No longer shall thou picture your virtual families! No longer shall thou be allowed to take family snapshots when on an outing to the Hawaii Zoo! Thou shall in no way and under no circumstances picture an adult and child avatar in the same virtual photograph! *end Linden-god-tone* Sounds a little bit crazy if child avatars are allowed to walk on the same sims as adults do? And nothing wrong can be depicted as it all must PG anyway? Nope, this is exactly what Mr Stephen Venkman got to hear from ‘dze Lindens’. They forbid him to show snapshots of his virtual family at SL5B! Comments quote Dusty Linden as saying: ‘If you can agree:not to show kid AVs with Adult AVs (unless specifically OK’d by LL)and that LL reserves the right to adjust images, themes, etc. to address this concern…’ about another application.

SL5B Evolutionary Time Line

1. SL4B: Resident run. You get to pick if you are on a mature or PG sim. A bit laggy, but all fine and in good spirit.
2. SL5B: All sims are Mature, but ‘KIDs’* is advised.
3. SL5B: Buildings from the child avatar community, goreans and BDSM are rejected.
4. SL5B: Lindens take SL5B away from the community. Linden has the last and official call.
5. SL5B: All avatars are allowed, but everything needs to be PG.
6. SL5B: Photographs of fully dressed child avatars doing normal childlike things with their family are FORBIDDEN.

Now WTVF**?! Looks likes we’re in a fast pace evolving back to 19th century. Oh no wait, even then it was perfectly OK to picture a child and adult on the seaside, as long as they were dressed in those really long vintage bathing suits. Family photographs being evil, is this a 21th century invention then? Something that comes with the digital age?

JIRA ISSUE MISC-1231

Sean Heying beat me to it, but I hereby declare the JIRA ISSUE MISC-1231 Missing Cultures and Communities from SL5B as ‘reopened’. If we did not get your vote yet, please go there and vote! It’s easy.

Oh, and normally this should not be necessary, and Lindens should notice there’s something wrong as their event volunteers & organisers are redrawing from their positions one by one.

Call for your RL family photographs

From Shoshana Epsilons’s blog: Now they are saying “you can’t have a picture of a child and an adult in the same picture.” That’s STUPID. Their statement should be “we’ll evaluate each picture on a case-by-case basis” and then decide each picture on its REAL MERITS. They also said “no pictures of children around beds”. So, kids, don’t jump on the beds and don’t crawl into your cribs!

Sho is one of the lead organisers of SL5B - the SLart department - and does another call out: I want to donate my display to a protest. If you have any clean and wholesome family-type RL pictures that YOU OWN ALL RIGHTS TO, please send them to me in-world. I will heavily moderate the pictures, so not all pictures will be allowed. I expect good quality art pictures that are wholesome. Credits will be given to the photographer. So I’ve decided to pitch in. It’s not a real artsy photograph, but it’s a family photograph from the small Vint - estimated 3 or 4 years old - that I hold dearly. I guess in the end, they almost thought me that art is not about ‘prettiness’, but about having something to say about the society you live in. Art is always an analysis of that. Combined with my feelings, the fact that I am actually willing to show off the 4y old me, says enough about how I feel about our virtual society at the moment. I hope Sho will include it. I even asked permission from the parents - the real ones, obviously - to publish it.

Now, if you did not do so already, get your ass over to that Jira Issue and VOTE!

* KIDs = Keep it Decent, stupid!
** WTVF = What the Virtual Fuck
*** PG = Parental Guidance or Puritan Guided. Depends on whom you ask.

Flickr Group

Stephen Venkman has a large fanbase and friend circle on flickr. Please submit his photgraphs and creative works to the group if you would like to show support:

But actually, this little game is genious:

1. It’s not time consuming. A round lasts at max. 2 minutes or so. So it’s great to ‘quickly play’ if you have some free time.
2. You play against others. Competition effect is always nice.
3. It’s something simple, everybody can do it.
4. You can play against your friends on a private match.
5. The creator(s) get to feed people quotes they love. A Clockwork Orange, The Inconvenient Truth, Terminator, … talking about indoctrination! ;)
6. If people like that quote, they can buy the book, film or song on Amazon. And a percentage of those sales of course goes to the creator(s).

I’ll categories this little one under ‘time waster’ and ’surely ingenious!’. But … euhm.. for the competition effect. What are thou scores? ;)

Crimson Shadow and Carnie ads

Rather happy with these two. The one for Carnival of Doom was shot with no anti-aliasing and no high resolution snapshotting available in the RC. So we made the best of it. The Crimson Shadow one was re-shot using RC 1.30 - I think, or RC 1.23 - which the bugs above mentioned fixed. I think it turned out pretty nice, although I should have positioned model Lokum 90° degrees to her left for the main avatar in view. Ah well… . Still like them. =)

The Triptych of the Rezzable Garden of NPIRL Delights

What happens when you touch Hell? Or Heaven, for those lucky souls amongst us? Will you end up in virtual purgatory - or get wings, a cute little halo and the power to throw lightning?

Rezzable is constructing the heavens, earth and hell for you together with ‘Not Possible In Real Life’ and a great team of fabulous builders. We couldn’t wait to give you a preview of what it looks like when art gets more interactive than it could ever be in a museum (don’t touch the exhibits!) or a book (who spilled coffee over the underworld?!!) With all due respect and a friendly wink to the great artist Mr. Bosch, we beg you to touch his art.

Want to find out what exactly happens when you touch it? Heard rumours about that utterly cute flying flash light? Saw the Godsent Wings and Godsent Lightning Bolt Thrower on someone and want one yourself? Always wanted an interactive piece of art in your virtual bedroom? You can test and pick up a copy of the Rezzable Garden of NPIRL triptych at the Garden HQ at The Dump sim (SLURL). For people who prefer to do their shopping off the internet, you can pick up one for free at OnRez.

And various other Garden of NPIRL Delights stuff. More information at garden.rezzable.com. And yes, this includes meeting very hansom avatars. *grins*

Greenies Staff Meeting

Aren’t we cute? Somehow it reminded me of Real life photograph by Lewis Hine.

Digging up RL art in a virtual world

Just when you though you had a desk job, you end up with your hands in the dirt in a graveyard, shovelling up photographs at Rezzable 09 where the ‘Kill All Artists’ exhibition is being held. Ah well, Mr Danone’s photographs are definitively worth the effort and sour virtual muscles! ;)

So as a big ‘thank you’ I’ve asked some kick ass Second Life creators, if they were willing to hand out some merchandise to the persons who made comment 5000 - 5005. As both Stephen Venkman and Kailie Quinn could not keep their mouths shut at the time I reached 5k - hey, I’m not complaining, please continue commenting here! ;) - and I got more than 5 things to give away, I’m just going to give something to everybody featured in the top 5000 to 5010, minus myself.

This means that:

Stephen Venkman - known for his Second Life photography - gets Miss Juliet Ceres’ beautifully created ‘Fitz’ avatar. Fitz was my favourite avatar to run around in during the last week. I just could not stop looking at myself walking when wearing Fitz and I would just *smile*. I’m sure Mr. Venkman will look dazzling as a mechanical steam-powered kitty! *purrrrsss* Read more on the Fitz avatar on the NPIRL blog. If you want one of your own, Miss Ceres has more of them available in-world.

Kailie Quinn - aka Katarina Malthus - gets Miss Ceres’ skilfully sculpted Wastelands Armour, an all time favourite of me. Perfect for wearing when you are in an hostile environment, or just want to look ‘though’. Maybe she can use it to collar Mister Venkman in ‘Fitz mode’ and take him for a walk? ;) As said before, Miss Juliet’s stuff can be found in-world at Virago.

Wordfromthe Wise - who participated in the ‘10000L$ bounty for best trademark parody’ contest - will receive CodeBastard Redgrave’s marvellous Machinimacam, which enables you to make better, more interesting machinima. You don’t have to limit yourself to filming your own avatar walking anymore! ;) I wonder if his - or her - next entry for a contest will be a machinima now?

Kanomi Pikajuna - ‘Kanomi is important. Kanomi is special. Kanomi matters. She is the friend to all. Everybody likes her! Everybody likes the nice girl who is the friend to all. She is nice and important and she is special and important and the nice special important friend to all! Kanomi is important! Kanomi matters!‘ - receives not one, but three different prizes, all created by virtual fashion designer Sofia London. Soon Kanomi will be the proud owner of a lurveBite after glow dress, a guy beater tank top and the black ink dress.

Notorious clothing collector Veyron Supercharge - well, as long as the clothing does not reveal to much, that is - has won famous designer Rebel Hope’s awesome Cleopatra outfit: ‘Cleopatra is a 23 piece costume including bodice, pants, skirt wrap, two options of snake arm bands, prim shoes with jewels w/base, jeweled ankle bands, scarab jeweled bracelets, ankh and jeweled staffs (one with a crossed arm pose), lighting system to cast a beautiful light on her upper body, crown of jewels with sculpted prims, sculpted jewelled necklace, Cleopatra cross arm pose separately also, and the box is Cleopatra’s Needle and is included in the package.‘ The throne she will have to buy herself, though. Or… does anybody feel like being her Marcus Antonius? ;)

Last but not least, Mister Tao Takashi will receive a an exclusive beta version of ‘The Ordinal Wilks&Co Vertical Clock-Loading Pistol’, created and donated by steampunk creator Miss Ordinal Malaprop. Rumours go that the pistol refusing services, or misbehaving occasionally is intentional. As this is an exclusive beta, I do not own one of myself, nor could I supply a photograph. So I’m very curious at seeing the ‘Ordinal Wilks&Co Vertical Clock-Loading Pistol’ depicted and tested. Mr Takashi, fire away! ;)

(As all winners were unaware they were entering a contest, they will be notified by email and asked if they want to receive the gift before they are being shipped.)

Now that we have to respect Second Life to have suddenly turned into an ® in stead of our virtual world, and Linden Dollars to be ™ , but still valuable, everybody awaited a response from Linden concerning OUR IP rights. Now, finally, Linden Lab talks about protecting our copyrighted content: a whole policy change, allowing creators to prove what is theirs, a more easy DMCA process, and a promise of swift action upon filing a DMCA complaint. Oh wait… I’m dreaming out loud. Actually they just rechewed what we already knew, and made a promise on something we can’t test yet and won’t change the policy on ’suspending’ thief’s accounts!

Linden’s blogpost basically comes down to ‘blame the creator’. Creators need to file DMCA reports more efficiently and with more data. People shopping should learn how to check the inspect the stuff they buy. Which is - when boxed - actually impossible. And Linden? They should do nothing. Except continuing as they are doing now, and maybe, follow up on DMCA reports a bit faster. ‘Protecting Your Copyrighted Content’ reads as ‘you should protect your copyrighted content’. Sadly enough, we do not have the tools and Linden’s support to do just that.

LL on Protecting Your Copyrighted Content

Laurap Linden:

Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but it’s important to protect your creations in the Second Life world. We respect Residents’ copyrights in works they create, and we’d like to tell you about tools you can use to protect your copyrighted content and how we’re working to improve them.

1. Object Creator Inspector - This feature is available for objects only (not textures), and should help Residents determine which object came first in Second Life and empower them to better resolve copying claims among themselves. If you right-click on an inworld object and then click More > More > Inspect, you can see the creation date and creator of each prim in a linkset. - Yeey! If not that this can easily be spoofed. Just take a full perm prim that was created by a famous builder a few years ago. Textures can’t be checked. And what do you think of this dream scenario: ’steal’ a sculpt texture. Put it on the full perm prim that was created by a famous builder a few years ago. Et voila. He does sculpt art even before it was available? ;) Or take a full perm notecard, and do some forgery.
2. The DMCA Process - To help with information required under the DMCA, we’re also developing a new form for submitting DMCA claims. The goal of the form is to help Residents provide all the necessary DMCA information upfront and reduce the number of claims that require supplementation (which slows down the process because we need to ask the Resident who filed the claim for more information). - Does this mean we can file DMCA by email? Great to here we’ll get a status update. Just be a bit more firm, please? Repeat infringers are issued warnings and may be suspended or ultimately banned from Second Life. Do ban them. And their alts. Thank you. Also please remove ALL infringing content, and not just what is rezzed in-world.
3. Copybot Infrignement, a TOS violation - Any use of it to make infringing copies violates the Terms of Service and may result in suspension or banning of Second Life accounts. If you believe that a Resident has used CopyBot (or a similar application) to make infringing copies of your content, please file an abuse report and provide as much information as you can to support your claim. Although technology can’t prevent the copying of data drawn on your screen, we don’t tolerate Residents who seek to profit from infringing use of CopyBot. - Yeah right. ‘May result… .’ And the most :mrgreen: part of this all? However, there seems to be a filter in the Abuse Report feature which _specifically_ scans for words such as ‘CopyBot’ and auto-rejects the Abuse Report. The person attempting to submit the Abuse Report is met with the following popup: “Dear Resident, Reports about copyright infringement can only be submitted as described in http://secondlife.com/corporate/dmca.php. Reports concerning copyright infringement will automatically be discarded if they are submitted through the ‘Abuse Report’ feature. If your report does not relate to copyright infringement, you may close this window and finish submitting your report. Thank you, Linden Lab”. Hat tip to Tengu Yamabushi for reporting this. Of course, LL did not reply to this report of inconsistent policy on the blogpost’s comments. There now is a JIRA issue on this.

Forgotten Linden Promises

I wonder, what happened to all the things Linden promised:

1. We can reduce incentives to copying content within the system, by preserving the creator attribution such as with creative commons licensing. (2006)
2. We could work to reduce how much avatar/clothing data is downloaded, so that a copy can be made of the baked texture and shape but not the pieces. (2006)
3. We could create hover text which would act like a garment label does, exposing both the first use metadata and also a brand name, reducing the incentive to copy by making it obvious that copying is occurring. If your work is “signed”, and clearly you developed it first, then the person who purchases the copy is not unlike the person who buys the fake Rolex off the back of a truck. Plus the signature becomes a recognizable asset and could be coupled with a landmark as a form of advertising. (2006)
4. Offer either a registration or seal program for creators who are willing to provide additional identifying information and who are committed to not infringing on other residents’ content. If the finder makes it easy to search for content and locations that participate in this program, then economic and social pressures combine to reward creators who respect copyright and punish those who don’t. (2007, ‘it is an option’)
5. Make copying of all content within SL trivially easy, but to track appropriate metadata about who’s copied the content and where it has been reused. Maybe even make that data publicly searchable. By making the act of copying easy, the incentives to go around or hack the system are greatly reduced and the community is better able to recognize and respect the wishes of creators. Plus, it would be much easier to implement important concepts like “undo�? which are incredibly complicated or impossible when trying to preserve uniqueness. (2007, ‘it is an option’)

Sadly enough, none of those solutions would work against content that is first taken out of world (glintercept, copybot) and then rebuild in-world. But did I miss any? And have Lindens become more smart, not mentioning this possible (partly) solutions anymore? Does this mean they gave up looking for solutions, and DMCACO - DMCA complaint optimising - will soon be a full time virtual world job?