Truth & Beauty Lab Answer Board

The latest creation from the Truth & Beauty Lab, the Answer Board, was released yesterday 18-March-2012. The Answer Board is a Pandorabot based rotating sign that provides answers to just about any question or topic one can think of. The board responds to local chat and provides its answers from, first, Wikipedia if it finds a matching article then Wolfram Alpha if no Wikipedia article is found then AI chat from pandorabots.com if no Wolfram Alpha answer is found.

The Answer Board is preconfigured and requires no setup other than rezzing, positioning, and resizing if desired. It uses a shared Wolfram Alpha Application ID which gives the board access to Wolfram Alpha but on a shared basis with a limit of 2000 queries per month. Therefore, it is recommended that the owner of an Answer Board register for their own Wolfram Alpha Application ID at http://products.wolframalpha.com/api/

Although ready to use out-of-the-box, the Answer Board can be extensively customized. A detailed Owners Manual is provided and available in PDF, Office, and OpenOffice formats. Non-owner users who touch the Answer Board receive a User Guide which is also available in PDF, Office, and OpenOffice formats.

The Answer Board can provide information on just about any topic due to the wealth of information available via the combined resources of Wikipedia and Wolfram Alpha. Based on the recently released Pandorabot V7 technology, the Answer Board can automatically detect the user's language and query that language Wikipedia. Language detection is provided for Nihongo, Russkiy, Nederlands, Português, Polski, Italiano, Español, Français, Deutsch or English. It is the smartest scripted agent in Second Life.

In addition, the Answer Board can be enabled as a Greeter to detect and greet new arrivals, deliver notecards and landmarks, and emit a wide variety of particle displays. There is an extensive command set available to the owner and an easy to use dialog menu. The Answer Board is available for L$395 on the Second Life Marketplace at https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Truth-Beauty-Lab-Answer-Board/3304679

Here's what the Answer Board looks like:

New Truth & Beauty Lab Products 2/2012

The Truth & Beauty Lab (formerly Restless Studio) would like to inform you of some new products that may be useful, interesting, fun, entertaining, or otherwise of value.

Smart Rings and Smart Cuffs - http://bit.ly/y1hNrX

Stylishly textured in gold or silver, this line of single sculpted prim Smart Jewelry from the Truth & Beauty Lab can query Wikipedia, provide answers from Wolfram Alpha, emit a wide variety of particle displays, animate your avatar during particle displays, scan the area for objects and avatars, and target an object or avatar with a particle beam. One advantage of owning a Smart Ring or Smart Cuff is that, since the items are worn as attachments, you can travel anywhere on the grid and your Pandorabot featured ring or cuff is there to command.

Menhir Internationalized Pandorbots - http://bit.ly/ysFh7w

The Menhir Pandorabot is a single prim object shaped and textured as a Menhir ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menhir ). Menhir Pandorabots are scripted to include all the features of the Truth & Beauty Lab Pandorabots and the textured single sculpted prim provides a realistic recreation of a Menhir. Preconfigured Menhir language versions are available in English, Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, Nederlands, Polski, and Português. The language configured Menhir will query the Wikipedia in that language, understanding that language chat and responding in that language when possible.

Smart Dance Pole & Smart Tip Jar Combo Pack - http://bit.ly/rMzxle

Automatically login an avatar and have it automatically start pole dancing, chatting, quoting Wikipedia, greeting new arrivals, delivering notecards and landmarks, monitoring and responding to group chat, and more. A super smart pole dance bot! The Truth & Beauty Lab Smart Dance Pole is scripted with the Pandorabot METAbolt Add-On and configured for use as a dance pole. It is an artificially intelligent dance pole and integrates with the Smart Tip Jar, accepting tips, triggering a pole dancing bot to undress, emote, change outfits, and interact with your visitors. Using an integrated Smart Dance Pole and Smart Tip Jar allows you to maintain an artificially intelligent pole dancing bot avatar who accepts tips 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, year round without monthly fees or hourly charges. The Smart Tip Jar can automatically trigger your dance pole bot avatar to undress when a tip threshold is reached and get dressed after a specified duration. NOTE: The Smart Tip Jar splits all tips - 90% going to the owner and 10% going to the Truth & Beauty Lab.

T3-M4 Scanning Follower Droid - http://bit.ly/zj69hQ

The Truth & Beauty Lab T3-M4 Scanning Follower will follow its owner at a configurable offset and can be controlled via a dialog menu interface. Included in its features is the ability to scan the area for objects and avatars then assemble and display a report which includes statistics on the resource consumption of the detected objects and avatars. The T3-M4 Scanning Follower can fire a laser at selected avatars or detected objects/avatars from one of its scans. It also makes cute bot sounds. The boxed product includes preconfigured Scanning Followers - two T3-M4 Astromech Droids. The droids are a realistic reconstruction of the T3-M4 from the Old Republic Star Wars era. The T3-M4 Scanning Follower integrates with the Truth & Beauty Lab Pandorabots so versions of it that chat, query Wikipedia, supply answers from Wolfram Alpha, greet arrivals, etc are also available in the marketplace store. A single prim Eye Candy Scanning Follower is also available for those who prefer to conserve resources and display cool visuals while providing identical functionality as the 39 prim T3-M4 Scanning Follower.

Particle Textures Display Heart - http://bit.ly/y0Fyaa

This single prim sculpted heart rotates, emits particle displays using the particle textures in its contents, and accepts new particle textures allowing you to view your particle displays easily and quickly. The prim cycles through whatever particle textures are in its contents. Clicking the heart prim steps to the next particle texture.

Truth & Beauty Lab Heart Follower - http://bit.ly/y4rPKK

This single prim sculpted heart rotates, follows its owner at a specified offset, changes textures, emits particle displays, and can be used to scan the area for objects and avatars producing a complete detailed report.

Second Life Haiku Generator - http://bit.ly/AjiqZ9

Rez this portrait of Basho, the famous Japanese haiku poet, and click it to get an automatically generated Second Life related haiku. Each time the portrait is clicked a different Second Life related haiku will be generated. The large collection of words and phrases used to construct the haikus is constantly growing and the haikus are generated on a server so you never have to update the inworld object.

The Truth & Beauty Lab Marketplace - http://bit.ly/xaFZ92

Many more new, entertaining, informative, useful, fun, and interesting products are available at the Truth & Beauty Lab Marketplace. Please visit https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/44210 and browse the shop.

Feedback

Do you have suggestions, requests, comments, criticism, kudos, testimonials, funny stories, etc. concerning any of the Truth & Beauty Lab products? Email missyrestless@gmail.com or IM Missy Restless and let me know what you think. I'm always happy to help if I can and many products ideas and improvements have originated with suggestions and requests from clients & casual encounters.

Email2IM - Practical Kinetic Art

One of the scripted objects I created and sell is Email2IM. This single prim object allows me to respond to IM's via Email when I am not logged in to Second Life. I find it quite useful and a great aid in allowing me to assist my customers. I use it almost daily.

Email2IM requires that the single prim object be rezzed somewhere with scripts enabled. I decided to make it something I would want to have in my home in Second Life so I added some texturing and a variety of geometrical deformations to the script. The Email2IM prim became a kinetic art object that is pleasing to watch and changes continually. Voila, art meets practical!

Here is a video of the Email2IM prim hovering over my house:

 The Email2IM Owner Manual is available in PDF format on Scribd. From the manual's introduction:

The Email2IM object enables the owner to email a message to a Second Life resident.The object acts parses incoming email and relays the body of the message as anInstant Message to the Second Life resident whose name appears in the Subject lineof the email. Owners of the Email2IM system are thus able to respond to forwardedIM's even when not online by simply sending email to the object's address with thename of the resident as the subject line.In addition, the Email2IM object changes shape and texture, acting as an art object soas to be pleasing to the eye while in use.

Email2IM is available on the Second Life Marketplace for L$195

Automatic Facial Animation HUD

I purchased a nice little automatic facial animation HUD made by Outy Banjo. Called "Auto Emote", the HUD consumes a modest amount of screen real estate and provides a fairly extensive set of facial animation and programmable trigger phrases. When not in active use the HUD can be minimized to consume even less screen.

The HUD includes over 300 trigger phrases and operates in 3 modes - automatic, click only, and loop mode allowing you to hold animations indefinitely and combine animations.

From the description on Outy's Second Life Marketplace:

With this HUD, you can mix facial expressions like paint. Great for models who need to hold a pose indefinately, in-world performers who want their mouth to perform dynamic movements during a performance, those who want a timed auto-smile, or even those who just want to make silly or ugly faces(Combining animations can make for some pretty crazy faces).

Auto Emote v2.0 supports 950 phrases, and you can edit them to your liking. The Auto Emote Trigger Phrases notecard contains groups of 50 triggers per facial animation.

Here's a  video I made of me using the Auto Emote HUD:

Available on the Second Life Marketplace for L$500

Become A Second Life Video DJ - My Video Playlists

Recently I've laboriously gone through all 26 video playlists I maintain and updated them - revising links that no longer play in Second Life, adding new videos & playlists, and removing videos that are no longer available. There are nearly 500 videos linked in these playlists so the process was tedious but enjoyable since I get to watch a lot of great videos while I revise the lists.

The playlists are formatted for various media devices in Second Life - the NHC Media Center, Damani MediaViewer, and Icarus V2000. These Second Life televisions allow an SL resident to watch YouTube videos, play movies, view streaming video content and web TV shows, etc. I maintain the playlists inworld for my own use, on the Second Life Wiki Media playlists article, and available for purchase on the Second Life Marketplace.

There are playlists for Cake, Evanescence, Green Day, Pink Floyd, Slow Dances, Muse, lots of female artists (e.g. Kat Deluna, Beyonce, Priscilla Ahn, A Fine Frenzy), Lady Gaga, Machinima, Trance, Fractals, Second Life music videos, Tech N9ne, Infected Mushroom, Weezer, U2, AC/DC, Guns N Roses, and much more.

Each playlist is a notecard written in that media device manufacturer's  playlist format. Simply drag the playlists you want to use from your inventory into the Contents tab of your media device. The playlists should then show up on the TV's menu.

What this allows me to do inworld is easily plan and create an audio/video set either for personal use or as a Video DJ. No need for expensive difficult to setup Shoutcast stream server plus you get to watch the video :) Some SL media players allow you to simply click "Play List" and sit back or dance for hours while the TV streams dozens of videos inworld. Others you have to step through the list manually. Some players allow guests at your event to sync their viewers with yours, others only support asynchronous play. I use the NHC Media Center as it is cheap, plays lists, and guests can sync plus it comes with a Media Dome replete with dance floor visuals and a VJ booth.

Let me know if you find any links that need updating, have any requests or suggestions, would like to contribute playlists or links to the wiki, or have any questions about how to set yourself up as a Video DJ.

Here's a video treat from my "Wow Volume 1" playlist:

YouTube Keeps Us On Our Toes - Newly Revised NHC Media Playlists

I create and maintain a set of media playlists for several of the major media players in Second Life. One set, the NHC Media Playlists, I offer on the Second Life Marketplace for L$25. It's really convenient and kinda cool to be able to automatically play a series of YouTube videos on your land or in your club. Sort of like a Video DJ.

However, the videos tend to disappear over time or become unplayable in Second Life. Several things can happen to make a video disappear. The user can pull it or quit YouTube. YouTube can make the video unavailable due to Copyright infringement. But, by far, the most frequent cause of YouTube videos disappearing or becoming unplayable in Second Life is due to the actions of the Warner Music Group (WMG). Since WMG owns the rights to the songs recorded by artists under contract with them, they can get YouTube to pull them over Copyright dispute even if the artists do not object or actively encourage the free distribution and viewing of their music videos. All the artists can do is make the videos of live performances of their music available and most do.

That artists do not control the distribution and terms of use of their own artistic creations seems wrong to me. It seems like a crime.

The second most common thing WMG (and others, like Sony) do to "protect" "their" intellectual property is to disable embedding of the video. What this means is that you can watch the video on YouTube but the Second Life media players cannot play it in Second Life.

All this adds up to making my playlists go stale over time as they gradually are inundated with links that no longer work in SL. Recently I've refreshed a few of my playlists and that is the reason for this post.  I have updated my NHC Media Playlists product on the SL Marketplace replacing unavailable links with new ones that play in Second Life.

I will soon be updating the SL Wiki and inworld freebies I make available.

Reservation and Payment System

I've recently added several new features to my Reservation Board. I received some excellent feedback from several board owners (especially Giovanni Benazzi) and have just released an update incorporating these new features.

The Restless Studio Reservation and Payment System is a one prim board that, when touched, presents a series of dialog menus allowing the user to select a destination/event, date, time, and class/duration of event. It will then accept payment to secure the reservation. Both the user and owner of the board are notified via Instant Message and, optionally, email. In addition to the details of the reservation being messaged, the board can be configured to deliver a ticket upon receipt of payment.

The Reservation System is available on the Second Life Marketplace and includes three pre-configured textured boards - one for airline reservations, one for event reservations, and one for escort bookings. The system is fully configurable and can easily be reconfigured and deployed in another context. Open Document and PDF formatted documentation for the Reservation System is freely available for review or download.

New features in this release include:

• Classes of Events (e.g. Economy Class, Business Class, First Class). The type of class can be configured. For example, an event class type of "Duration" might have values of 30 minutes, 60 minutes, and 90 minutes with different prices for each.
• Ticket delivery - upon receipt of payment for a reservation, a notecard, texture, or object can be delivered to the user. This can be used at the time of the event as a verification of reservation (e.g. a pilot who is not the owner of the board can confirm a passenger list). Tickets are No Copy / No Modify / Transfer.
• A "Price List" button has been added for easy quick review of a list of destinations/events/classes and their prices.
• A "Start Over" button has been added to allow the user to begin the reservation booking process over.
• Multiple bookings in a single session are now supported.
• Configuration notecard settings are verified. If you misconfigure the DAYS or TIMES setting so it doesn't exactly match up with the number of EVENTS then it reverts back to the default (all days, all times on the hour) and IM's the owner with a warning.

 What does all this add up to ? Well, according to Giovanni Benazzi, owner and operator of BENAIR Private Charters at Second Life International Airport:

[2011/09/16 11:11]  Giovanni Benazzi: you have the best airline booking available out there  :)

Uesugi Daishō Katana/Wakizashi from Needful Pixel

The Uesugi Daishō (大小), literally "big and small", is a Japanese term referring to the traditional pair of edged weapons of the Samurai. The daishō is composed of the long sword (Katana) and the shorter sword (Wakizashi). These weapons of the Uesugi series are Spellfire v4.0 "dual swords" scripted weapons. Only L$149 on the Second Life Marketplace from Needful Pixel.

 The package includes a sheath, worn on the hip, for both swords.

 The swords can be drawn and sheathed using either gestures or a HUD.

 Sometimes I like to wear the sheathed swords just for the look ...

but sometimes I like to fight!

A wooden stand to rez and display your swords is included.

Kirsten's Viewer Discontinued

As every major Second Life blogger has pointed out today, Kirsten's Viewer will no longer be maintained due to personal issues. Kirsten's Viewer is a 3rd party viewer favored by many of Second Life's best photographers and machinimists.

• Here is the official announcement
• Strawberry Singh, an excellent SL photographer and blogger, posted this farewell
• Second Life blogger supreme Daniel Voyager covers the story
• Hamlet Au at New World Notes published a post on the demise
• Inara Pey at Living In A Modern World bids farewell 
• Bixyl Shuftan at Second Life Newser posted this
• Nalates Urriah posted this
• Bryn Oh bids farewell to Kirsten's Viewer 

On the plus side, Kirsten's Viewer is licensed under the GPL and hosted on SourceForge which means that the project could be picked up or forked and continued. Alternately, code from Kirsten's Viewer could be integrated into other viewers (e.g. Firestorm/Phoenix) - I would think the shadows implementation would be extremely desirable as other TPV's I have tried implement shadows poorly (meaning they really just don't work).

Secret Rock Pool from Zinnia Karu

Zinnia Karu gave me (and all the Organica Happy Clam group) this secret rock pool she made. It's only 11 prims, comes with several animations, can accommodate more than one, and looks great! See the video I made of the secret rock pool.  You can visit Zinnia's cute little store inworld. Thanks Zinnia!

Restless Studio Full Perm Wikimedia Textures

Restless Studio provides several packages of full perm textures gleaned from Wikimedia. These textures have been cropped, scaled, and digitally modified for tiling. All are freely licensed for reuse, redistribution, and resale under one of the Creative Commons licenses. This means that Second Life residents can use them in their builds, modify them (with appropriate re-licensing), copy them, transfer them to others (again, with appropriate licensing), and even resell them.

Why buy these textures when they are freely downloadable at Wikimedia ? Well, you are certainly welcome to search through Wikimedia and download the upload at 10L per texture but the time and money you spend doing this yourself will far exceed the moderate price of the already prepared packages. In addition, most texture packs provided by Restless Studio are modified to allow seamless tiling of textures. This and many other questions are addressed in the Wikimedia Commons Product FAQ.

Here are links to the currently available Restless Studio Wikimedia Commons Texture packs:

• Flowers - 45 full perm textures, 90L
• Nature - 27 full perm textures, 50L
• Space - 17 full perm textures, 50L
• Fungi - 29 full perm textures, 60L
• Nudes - 42 full perm textures, 145L
• Seamless Stone Textures - 10 full perm tiles, 50L
• Seamless Brick Textures - 64 full perm tiles, 250L 
• Seamless Camouflage Textures - 25 full perm tiles, 100L
• Seamless Metal Textures - 10 full perm tiles, 50L
• Seamless Mixed Textures - 70 full perm tiles, 250L
• Seamless Textile Textures - 18 full perm tiles, 75L
• Seamless Wood Textures - 25 full perm tiles, 100L
• Seamless Texture Mega Pack - 222 full perm tiles, 495L

Also available is the THiNC book "The Nudes of Wikimedia" which includes 42 freely redistributable full perm textures of high quality photographs of female nudes plus a THiNC book of these textures.

Sinful Needs Seraph II Wings

Sinful Needs recently updated their Seraph line of wings, drastically reducing the prim count and improving performance as well as appearance. These are fully featured wings and integrate seemlessly with the Sinful Needs A4 Hud. Extensive controls allow you to configure the texture of the upper and lower wing areas, set the gender and status of emote responses, size, control the movement, automate movement or visibility when flying or landing, and much much more. You can read the Sinful Needs recent blog entry on their wings after checking out my pics below:

Credits:
    Wings by Sinful Needs - inworld shop or SL Marketplace

How to Raise the Group Limit to 42 in Phoenix

Linden Lab recently announced they have raised the group limit from 25 to 42 for those Second Life residents using Viewer 2.4 or later. People using "Viewer 1.23, or a third-party viewer based on Viewer 1.23 code, then you can add more groups in Viewer 2.4 and they will still be accessible when you switch back to Viewer 1.23". That is, the workaround for those of us using Phoenix was to log in using Viewer 2.4, join a bunch of groups (up to 42), log out, and log back in using our Viewer 1.23 based 3rd party viewer.

Switching between Viewer 2.4 and Phoenix is a pain. First, I don't want to have to logout, login, join a group, logout, and log back in just to join a group. Second, Phoenix still shares a cache with Viewer 2 and my outfits, appearance, shape, etc all get messed up when switching. The two viewers really have poor compatibility right now.

No worries! Phoenix 725 and 818 already have support for up to 40 groups. To enable this feature in Phoenix use the debug menu to set  the phoenix40GroupsSupport to TRUE as follows:

1. Enable the advanced menu in Phoenix by clicking "Phoenix -> Show Advanced" at the top of your viewer window
2. Enter debug settings by clicking "Advanced -> Debug Settings"
3. In the debug window type in phoenix40GroupsSupport
4. Set the dropdown below that to TRUE
5. Log out of Second Life and log back in

When you log back in after completing this procedure the Communicate window Contacts tab -> Groups tab should now say "You belong to XX groups (of 40 maximum)" at the bottom of the window. Note, this raises the group limit to 40, not 42 as that was the original LL stated new group limit. Future versions of Phoenix will support the full 42 group limit.

That's it! Enjoy the ton of new notices, spam, discount offers, inane chat, and tp invites you will now receive!

Pandorabot & Actorbot Add-On

Disclaimer: I am reviewing my own products in this post. They're cool relatively inexpensive products though so I forgive myself :)

The Pandorabot from Restless Studio is not your typical chat bot. Yes, it chats with you in local chat using an artificial intelligence programmed at pandorabots.com in the AIML programming dialect. However, the Pandorabot will also query Wikipedia for appropriate responses, check your spelling, send email, greet new arrivals, and deliver a notecard, landmark, and user guide. All for L$245 and consisting of only a single prim (the perched 3D sculpted parrot Pandorabot is 12 prims). If you don't have a place to rez objects there is a wearable 3D sculpted parrot Pandorabot (11 prims).

For an additional L$150 the Pandorabot can be integrated into an Actorbot to create a realistic 3D animated avatar bot that includes all the Pandorabot features as well as the programmability  of the Actorbot from Sine Wave. The Pandorabot Actorbot Add-On kit consists of a Pandorabot V4, an Actorbot integration script, and a script that can be used to position your Actorbot on a prim and animate it according to what is in that prim. Watch a demonstration Pandorabot Actorbot in this short YouTube video and visit the Restless Studio demonstration Pandorabot Actorbot.

Both the Pandorabot and Actorbot Add-On come with extensive documentation available in PDF online and plain text inworld. Here's a few photos to give you a sense of the Pandorabot look:

Pandorabots are available on the Second Life Marketplace (search for "Pandorabot Missy Restless" or just "Pandorabot"). The Pandorabot Actorbot Add-On is also available on the Second Life Marketplace (search for "Pandorabot Actorbot").

The PDF documentation for the Pandorabot and Actorbot Add-On is available online at http://www.scribd.com/missyrestless . There is also a Pandorabots Blog with lots of How-To's, many more pics, and updated info/links.

Phoenix Second Life Viewer (Emerald Succesor)

I am trying out the newly released Phoenix viewer for Second Life. This viewer project was hastily formed when the Emerald project self destructed, hopefully leaving behind the individuals whose actions resulted in the project's demise. Read about that all over elsewhere.

Emerald users will be quite pleased with either Imprudence or Phoenix. Both are based on Emerald source code. The Phoenix viewer, however, is nearly identical to the final releases of Emerald and contains all of the features Emerald users are accustomed to. On the other hand, some users may prefer to grant their trust to the Imprudence team which has not been involved in any way in any of the questionable activities that resulted in Linden Lab banning the Emerald viewer. Imprudence is also very "Emeraldy".

Support for ogg vorbis audio streams in Phoenix is the principle reason I am using Phoenix as my primary viewer. Imprudence 1.4.x may provide ogg vorbis support in the final release at which time the choice between 3rd party viewers sanctioned by Linden Labs becomes more of a toss-up.

[UPDATE] Phoenix 1.5.1.225 was released containing fixes, performance improvements, and the ability to display friends' chat in a different color. However, the team also lost a couple of developers including lead developer Dimentox Travanti  over "a difference in opinion on how the project and team should be run". It would appear the Phoenix team continues to suffer from a fractured and possibly unstable team dynamic. Perhaps we will learn more in the next few days but for now the promised "transparency" looks like nothing more than corporate double-speak to me.[/UPDATE]

I configure the Phoenix viewer with the following preferences:

Main Menu at top left of Phoenix window

Edit -> Preferences

General ->
    check "Show Start Location on Login Screen"
    Rating "PG, Mature and Adult"

Network ->
    Maximum Bandwidth to 1050 kbps
    Disk Cache Size to 1000 MB

Web ->
    check "Use external web browser"

Graphics ->
    Quality and Performance to Ultra
    (this setting depends on your system's graphics capabilities)

Audio & Video ->
    Enable Streaming Music When Available
    Enable Streaming Media When Available

Text Chat ->
    Chat Font Size to Large
    Chat Color -> You -> cyan, Chat Color -> IM -> green
    check "Color text in chat from my friends in a different color"
    uncheck "Play typing animation when chatting"
    check "Use machine translation while chatting"

Popups ->
    uncheck "Automatically view after accepting"

Skins ->
    select "Silver" from the drop down menu of skins
    (I tried "Dark" but Silver is a lot more readable)

Phoenix ->
    TP Login ->
        check "Double-click Teleport"
        check "Make name Tags of the same client be the same color"
        check "Disable Teleport Screens"

    IM ->
        leave "Enable Autoresponse" unchecked
        check "Autorespond to non-friends"
        compose an autoresponce message
        check "Send an item along with the response"
        drag an inventory item you wish to send to the bar
        check "Vertical IM tabs"

    Chat ->
        uncheck "Hear typing sound when people type"
        check "When 'Receive group notices' is disabled ..."

    Misc ->
        check "Always rez objects under the land group if possible"
        check "Disables minimum camera zoom distance"
        check "Show a message when someone takes a snapshot"

    Build ->
        check "Embed an item into the newly created object"
        drag and drop a information notecard to the bar

    Page 2 ->
        Effects ->
            check "Enable enhanced physics on avatar breasts"
            Breast mass:      84
            Breast rebound: 11
            Breast max vel:  85
            Breast friction:   11
            Breast min vel:   15

        SpellCheck ->
            check "Show misspelled words in red"

Apply -> OK

File -> Quit
Run Phoenix again, login and check your preferences

Main Menu at top left of Phoenix window

View -> uncheck "Movement Controls" (who uses them?)

Phoenix -> check Show Advanced
    check DoubleClick Teleports
    check Enable Autoresponse

Advanced ->
    check High-res Snapshot
    check Quiet Snapshots to Disk
    uncheck Limit Select Distance
    check Disable Camera Constraints
    Character ->
        Character Tests ->
            make sure "Go Away/AFK When Idle" is unchecked

Toolbar at lower right of Phoenix window

Inventory -> Sort -> uncheck "System Folders To Top"

Finally, I would like to thank all the talented, dedicated, and hard working volunteers that create, distribute, and support these 3rd party viewers. Emerald, Imprudence, and now Phoenix have enriched my Second Life experience. My only question to these teams would be why the ex-Emerald development teams do not collaborate on a single Emerald based viewer. Why does there need to be Emergence, Imprudence, and Phoenix ? Seems like an inefficient and triplicated waste of effort. Anyway, Enjoy!

Imprudence Second Life Viewer

I'm trying out the Imprudence Second Life viewer after the Emerald "team" hit the self destruct button. FYI, read some really juicy Emerald comments by Nelson Jenkins. At this moment (4-Sep-2010) Imprudence is my choice of viewer since Emerald, Emergence, and Phoenix are not on the approved 3rd party viewer list. The only problem I have found with Imprudence thus far is an annoying chirp which sometimes occurs with the audio stream.

Anyway, Imprudence is based on Emerald source code and Emerald users will find it nearly identical although lacking a few features and some settings moved to different places/names. Still, it is an excellent replacement for Emerald and even has breast physics! About the only Emerald feature missing that I used a lot is the avatar radar. UPDATE: Imprudence has avatar radar in the Mini Map - just click the down arrow in the lower left corner.

A cool Imprudence feature is some sort of song id thing. When I teleport somewhere that has media playing and I have my media player turned on then I see the song and artist identified in local chat. Neat! [I am told this was also in Emerald but I never saw it]

You can read a detailed list of Imprudence features on their wiki as well as a list of features entering the experimental releases.

Here's my first round of instructions/recommendations/settings for Imprudence:

 Install Imprudence 1.30 or later
    http://imprudenceviewer.org/wiki/Downloads
   
Edit -> Preferences ->

    General -> check "Hide my name on my screen"
    Input & Camera -> check "Disable camera constraints"
                                 check "Disable minimum zoom distance"
                                 increase "Camera transition time"
                                                (when slow    pans desired)
    Network -> increase Maximum bandwidth to 2048
                                  (or as appropriate for your connection)
                     increase Disk cache size to max (1000)
    Web -> click "Use external web browser"
    Text Chat -> click "Large" Font Size
                        (never seems to do anything but I keep hoping)
                        uncheck "Play typing animation when chatting"
    Communication -> check "Vertical IM Tabs"
                                              (requires restart to take effect)
                                 I turn on logging of Local Chat
                                    (if you do this be sure to clean your logs
                                     regularly as Local Chat logs grow quite
                                     large very quickly)
    Skins -> I click the Silver skin
    Advanced -> check "Disable teleport screen"
   
Debug Settings
============

1)  Make sure View -> Advanced Menu is checked

2)  Advanced -> Debug Settings

3) In the Debug Settings window type in the following:

    EmeraldBoobFriction
    value 14.000
    EmeraldBoobHardness
    value 17.000
    EmeraldBoobMass
    value 83.00
    EmeraldBoobVelMax
    value 86.000
    EmeraldBoobVelMin
    value 16.000
    EmeraldBoobXYInfluence
    value 0.100

Make sure EmeraldBreastPhysicsToggle is set to TRUE
When setting these parameters it is not necessary to press ENTER after entering values, the settings take effect immediately when typed. Also, after initially typing in EmeraldBoobFriction the subsequent parameters can be easily found by clicking the little down arrow to the right of the parameter name in the Debug Settings window.
    
See http://imprudenceviewer.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=621 for a discussion thread on Imprudence breast physics settings.

Further Settings
===========

Advanced -> Quiet Snapshots to Disk
Snapshot -> click "Save to your hard drive"
                    check "High resolution snapshot"
                    check "Keep open after saving"
                    check "Auto-refresh"

Imprudence 1.4.0 and later (experimental)
=============================

Advanced -> Main -> check "Increase rez speed via draw distance stepping"

Advanced -> SpellCheck -> set Base Language and add additional dictionaries if needed; configure AutoCorrect Options

Quantum Matrix 3D Math Art

Second Life artist/builder Gingered Alsop has recently created a new device that automates the generation of beautiful mathematical 3D sculptures. Called the Quantum Matrix, these creations must really be viewed firsthand to fully appreciate. I'll attempt to present here a few snapshots, a video, and several links to view a demonstration of the Quantum Matrix. The Quantum Matrix will be on display at the University of Western Australia 3D Art & Design Challenge. Go see it!

This is a video I made of photos Gin and I took at her lab.

Parameters for prims and mathematical equations are provided via notecards to a sophisticated LSL script to generate these awesomely beautiful works of art.

Gin owns Phi Designs which runs an in-world store with demos. See my review of the Chamber, a particle lab by Phi Designs.

Many more photos of the Quantum Matrix (those used in the video above) can be seen at my Flickr photostream.

 The artist herself! Photo taken by Gingered Alsop. Gin is way super smart, funny, sweet, nice, and as you can see, cute!

Phi Designs' Particle Chamber

If you'd like to produce those pretty sparkly effects you see in art galleries and cool clubs but you are not a programmer then Phi Designs may have just what you're looking for. The Chamber is a particle lab & particle generator that comes in several versions.

The Chamber Versions

• The Emitter is a low cost (L$49) personal particle generation system that is attached to the avatar. It is a single particle emitter which can accept new patterns available as add-ons.
• Chamber Lite is a 19 emitter system of particle generators to create exotic visual effects. The Lite version can also accept new particle patterns as add-ons and costs L$499. Chamber Lite documentation can be found on the Phi Designs blog.
• Chamber Professional is a 19 emitter system of particle generators and includes all additional pattern add-ons. Additional emitters can be added to the Professional edition. Features include the ability to create additional spin devices, your own patterns, modify existing patterns, and a 26 page user guide. Cost of the Professional edition is L$4999.
• Chamber Pro Builder a version to support the use of generated particle systems in your build is currently in development.

The demonstrations of the Chamber are very impressive. It seems almost anyone should be able to use this product to produce dramatic visual effects without having to know anything. The availability of low-cost versions for personal use is a plus.

The Chamber's ease of use and availability in low-cost versions are two good reasons to prefer it over Jopsy Pendragon's Porgan.The Porgan is also an excellent particle generation system, has been around for a long time, and is built by SL's preeminent particle technician. Additional info on features of the Porgan are available in the Porgan user guide. At L$999 the Porgan is probably more suited for the programmer techie and less so for personal use.

For further information and demonstration of the Chamber you can view a YouTube video of the Chamber, visit Phi Designs demonstration store in-world, or visit the Phi Designs website.

Phi Designs products are also available on Xstreet.

Request to Second Life Vendors

Dear Second Life Vendors,

Please, please, please, whenever possible, make your products "Modify/Copy/No Transfer". Many products are set "No Copy/Transfer" or "No Copy/No Transfer" making it impossible for the consumer (me) to make a copy of the item(s) in my own inventory. This has a few deleterious effects:

• I cannot make copies of an item for inclusion in other folders. For instance, I like to create "outfit" folders containing all the items worn/attached for a particular outfit. This makes it relatively quick and easy to change outfits. Items that are "No Copy" have to be hunted down in whatever folder they reside.
• No Copy items that contain scripts like a resize script either must continue to contain the lag inducing scripts after use or the No Copy item can no longer be modified after the scripts are deleted from the object(s). The owner of the item must make a difficult choice between being able to continue to use the scripts or reducing the resource consumption of the No Copy item.
• The owner cannot make a backup copy of her purchases in case they become damaged or lost.

The first of these (making copies for inclusion in outfit folders) is somewhat alleviated by the My Outfits feature of Viewer 2. Residents who use Viewer 2 now have the ability to create symbolic links to items in their inventory and these links can be used in various folders. However, many of us do not use Viewer 2 and do not yet have the ability to create symbolic links.

The second and third objections apply to all viewers and are really the most important reasons to make your items "Copy/No Transfer". Lag inducing scripts should really not be left in an object after it has been modified/resized. Of course, in some products the scripts are really what makes them valuable - here I am talking about stuff like hair and shoes which usually come with resize/color scripts which, once used on a copy, can be deleted. This reduces lag and should be a high priority for all residents, vendors included.

The ability to make a backup of your inventory items should be a right, not a privilege. I've had many items simply disappear due to server or sim weirdness and through no fault of my own.

Some products may reasonably need to have Transfer permissions. Items typically purchased as gifts need to be transferable. In these (relatively rare) cases, if the vendor does not want to allow their product(s) to be freely redistributed/resold, then they must also make them No Copy. I understand this and I am not suggesting that ALL products be sold "Copy/No Transfer". However, the vast majority of products are used strictly by the purchaser and not subsequently transferred to another resident. Even items which are frequently given as gifts can be released in two versions - "Copy/No Transfer" and "No Copy/Transfer" so the buyer can select which is preferable.

As for the Modify bit, I just do not understand why some vendors sell products like a skirt that is No Modify. Do you think all our butts are tiny like yours? Maybe you are trying to protects us from ourselves? Unless your product requires No Modify for some reason, please make it Modify so that I can resize or alter it in other ways to suit my particular needs.

Some vendors may believe that setting Copy permission on a product makes it more likely or easier for CopyBots to illegally copy and redistribute their product. This may have been true in the past, I do not know. However, currently, I know of no evidence to support this belief. My guess is this is an erroneous belief carried forward from years ago. If you know of any factual evidence or technical support for the fear that Copy items can be illegally copied please let me know. I cannot believe this is the case since most of the reputable and successful vendors in Second Life sell their products "Copy/No Transfer".

I do occasionally purchase No Copy items but, if I am aware in advance an item is No Copy it does effect my buying decision. Basically, a product that is "Copy/No Transfer" has higher value for me than one sold as "No Copy/Transfer". So vendors, simply by correctly setting the permissions on your products you can increase their value and thereby increase your sales.

Thanks for listening,

Missy Restless

Ferd's Free Google Translator

One of the things I love the most about Second Life is the international flavor. There are people here from literally every part of the world. Unfortunately, we don't all speak the same language so communication can sometimes be difficult.

In order to chat with my non-English speaking friends I use Ferd's Free Google Translator. This little free HUD makes it easy to converse in any language almost automatically. It's really a genius device and I recommend it for everyone. I don't wear the HUD all the time but if I find myself in a club or area with a lot of "foreign" languages being spoken I don it and dive into the banter.

Ferd's translator doesn't only translate outgoing messages into the recipients language, it does so for up to 16 recipients within 20 meters (normal chat) or 96 meters (shouting distance). Any incoming message to local chat that needs translation will be displayed in your native language. For local chat this thing is totally automatic. If you need to use it on other chat channels there are easy-to-use commands.

Features:

•  Free!
• Super-easy to use.
•  Auto-detect 150+ and auto-translates in up to 52 languages.
•  52 Language pairs are fully mapped both to and from
•  Totally Automatic 2-way translation
•  Private, no-spam Instant Messaging
• 18-way Parallel operation for incoming and outgoing operations.
• Super fast and mono-compiled. 
• Built-in Avatar, distance, and language scanner. 
• Works in no-script zones ! Other translators will drop dead or only half-work.
• 16 different avatars can hear any of 52 translations at the same time
• Spam-free - won't translate messages that are already in the target language
• Won't translate messages when translation is identical to original
• Translate Objects or/or Avatars
• Attach to any HUD position with Auto-adjust
• Supports all Unicode fonts, including accent characters
• Super Tiny HUD

Ferd's Free Google Translator is, in my opinion, one of the finest devices available in any world. I wish we had such a thing in real life! You can pick up your free translator at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Phaze%20Demesnes/218/217/24 or visit the online free translator site to learn more.