More Free Linden Avies

Yesterday's Lost & Found folder SNAFU (Web) made me look in the basic Inventory today and, yes!, there are new avies in the Clothing > Initial Outfits folder. Looks like male and female versions in several styles: Average, Dancer, Explorer (very Lara Croft, but don't tell the copyright people at The Lab), Future Punk, Gladiator, Pirate (pictured above), and Steampunk. There is a Male Sport Avatar, too, but not a female version.

Free Avatars You Already Have

Animal series by Damien Fate

Robot series by Renn Yifu

Vehicle series by Xenius Revere

Linden Lab has officially announced the new avatar additions to the standard Library that other blogs have been buzzing about lately (like the Poultry Report). Read the announcement here or just dig into to try them on:

Inventory > Clothing > Initial Outfits

Drag the folder onto your avatar in-world (or onto your name tag) and wait. Depending on sim lag, it can take up to 3 minutes for the new avatar to appear. You will then find a folder for it in your Inventory's Clothing folder. Don't right-click > Wear them piece-by-piece as you'll have bits scattered everywhere.

New "Linden" Avatars

What? Did I stretch out my Loco Pocos tiger avie onto a "regular" avatar shape? Nope. It's an avie from Inventory > Clothing > Intial Outfit > Animal Avatar Tiger. Along with a snot-load more avies, many furries, made by Pocos creator Damian Fate. Theres a bunny, a cat, a dog, a dragon, .... The list goes on, including several robots. Other creators are listed on some of the other avies, but Damian seems to have a lot. There's a post on my blog with more pix.

Over-using the word NEW

When The Lab initiated the new naming scheme it added new outfits for new residents. You can find them in the Inventory > Library > Clothing > Initial Outfits. One is pictured above. It is the new Female Action Outfit. They also have Cyborg, Average, Cosplay, and other new ones. Really new, huh?

On a related note: The shopping mall and getting aquainted area that new players visited after their orientation are gone. Now you click on a board with four graphics, one for shopping, one for meeting people, one for exploring, and one for getting help. I clicked the latter and was teleported to an empty private residential region at a spot well away from the intended coordinates. It seems my new alt's home spot is the corner of this sim, too. Earlier experimentation showed that each click produced random selections. I highly recommend that all new players visit the Oxbridge University Gateway (SLurl below).

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Oxbridge/92/198/28

New from The Lab

Not only is the standard viewer for Second Life new (Web) and the newbie experience revamped (from Damien Fate & Team; Web), but new things are showing up in your Inventory! I found these full-perm bags and shades from Adam & Eve here: Inventory > Accessories (more things there, too, like hair and jewelry!).Look for new avatars coming soon, too.

Inventory Organization Tips Part 2

Lots of discussion this morning in the group IM about using boxes to store your inventory to cut the over all volume. Linden Labs^® recommends that you rez a cube, name it, and stuff inventory into it. Then you take the cube into your Inventory which is now cleaner, sleeker, and prevents butt sag. Until you go to open the cube and find all your stuff (or a portion of it) "Missing From Database."

Nearly all my 2007 Halloween and Christmas items stored thusly cannot be retrieved by the usual recommend means (Web) or through the special intervention the Lindens (several have tried). Some items I bought but many I made so the support crew is really stumped by the loss though they admitted it happens.

What about commercially made storage boxes like those from THiNC (SLurl)? Some of my lost items were in simple cubes (well, nicely decorated and I added hover text so I would know what the box was without editing when it was rezzed) and some were in these Inventory Organizers. Like the cubes I made, these have hover text to describe the contents, but they actually show item names as you use little arrows to "scroll" through the box's contents. No more right-clicking and choosing Open from the pie menu. Golly what a time saver! When the item you want is shown, simply click the box and it copies the item you want into your inventory. Honestly, if you are used to editing the contents of a prim, you can save money and time over the commercially made boxes. Read more about the boxes on the Web and make up your own mind, though.

Regardless of the method you choose, though, take this advice:

(1) Keep the box contents to fewer than 80 items. THiNC recommends under 100. The more you have inside the greater the strain on the database servers.

(2) Regularly unpack and repack the boxes. Or at least look inside them. Inventory is based on UUID codes and those can be stripped off if an item isn't seen for a while. This could happen more often as new asset server protocols come into effect (Web).

(3) Try to avoid putting items into boxes then boxing these boxes or more. Like making a photocopy of a photocopy, degradation can occur.

(4) Don't empty your trash then purge your cache, especially if you switch between viewers often (like the official viewer, the RC viewers, the OnRez viewer, or others). They don't necessarily share database information on your computer though they are supposed to do so. Empty then purge during different sessions.

(5) Get some land and rez all your stuff there. Or at least a copy of your stuff. Economically, not the best idea, but if something disappears from your land the Lab has a much easier time recovering it. Maybe rez your storage boxes on that land. Premium accounts can have up to 512m² of land without paying extra. Think how much stuff you could store in 117 prims on such a lot. Talk about a frickin' huge closet! Can't afford land but you work for someone that has some? Ask to use 100 or so prims instead of a portion of your pay. Odds are they can spare some space for well-thought of employees.

(6) Seriously consider an Alt avatar as I mentioned in a previous post (Web). The ultimate storage box and they can wear the clothes you send over.

Inventory Organization Tips Part 1

Another Kitty shouted out in the group IM for me to post inventory organization tips so I rattled off a few quick ones. Here they are, expanded for the blog:

Don't accept half the freebies you get. You won't wear them anyway. (Okies, this was snarky, but I'm always hearing about people who seem to gather stuff just because they can.)

If you don't recall what it looks like a month after you get it, delete it. Better yet, donate it to a noob if the item is transferable. Tell them it's a gift from The Lucky Kitty Crew and create some goodwill.

Put dates on folders for the last time you wore something. Haven't worn it in 6 months? Delete it or give it away.

Open the map and use the Landmarks drop-down to see how many duplicate landmarks you have. Then delete them from Inventory. I almost never keep LMs anyway as I use Properties* to find the maker of the object and get the latest location for their shop from their profile. Done with LMs? Do a search for all things you have in duplicate. Gilly Wycliffe suggested scripts like Hover Text and Giver scripts. Also search for Object. Do this in a sandbox so you can rez the item to see if you should keep it. Rename it if you do keep it. Got more suggestions of things to search for? Leave a comment.)

Whether you have someone on your Friend list or not, when you have a person's Calling Card your inventory is scanned and that can cause your avie to freeze for a moment. Delete all the Calling Cards you have for folks NOT on your friends list. Maybe delete them all? I have a note card full of names from cards I've deleted and when. The few cards I have are from folks I've known for a very long time or have passed away in Real Life.

Many folks suggested using multiple inventory windows (Click File in the Inventory pane then New Window) to make moving things easier. Many suggested multiple folders. As you can see in this pic (click it for a larger view) I put folders inside Clothing to separate types of outfits. Then I marked outfits with (FAV) for a favorite set so I can search for just them and some say w/pic because I'm adding pictures to each outfit so I can see what it looks like before I wear it. That contributes to inventory bulk and can cost L$10 per image, but its often faster than constantly changing outfits. Think of it as looking through your closet. It balances time and inventory size. Starting today I'm going to add the date idea that I mentioned earlier. I also have folders for Separates: Shirts, Separates: Pants & Shorts, and the like for items that are not part of outfits.

You may have noticed a sub-folder called **New Stuff at the top of my Clothing folder. I put any new clothes, packed or unpacked, in there until I can try them on or otherwise sort them. This builds on Bewkie Effingham's advice to sort things right away. Otherwise everything ends up in the bottom of your Objects folder. I do much the same with other folders such as Note Cards, Landmarks, Objects, etc. And I have an Objects (Storage) folder to put my copies of everything (yes, that adds to bulk, but if I delete an outfit from Clothes and I have a copy .... see?).

Last big tip: Transfer everything you don't use regularly to your backup Avie. What? Don't have one? Even Linden Labs^® recommends you have one. Anything that is transferable doesn't go to my Objects (Storage) folder, it goes to my backup avie (so yes, I have two alts, but one doesn't "play" ... he/she/it just holds things). The item doesn't have to be copyable, just transferable. And I don't mean an Alt that you regularly use in SL. They have their own inventory problems.

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* Properties: Right-click any item in your inventory and choose Properties from the pie-menu. Then look at the Creator Profile. If they are bright they list their store location(s) in Picks even if they don't use Classifieds. This doesn't work with Objects sometimes so you may need to rez the item in-world. If you are wearing the item, right-click it and choose Edit. Is someone else wearing it or has it rezzed in-world? Right-click the item and keep choosing More... until you can Inspect. Then look at the Creator Profile. Inspect works only with prim items, not skins or the like.

n00bie frEEbie b0nanza

Have you looked into your basic, Linden Labs©℠®™-supplied inventory? Tons of new avatars there! A couple are from Grendel's Children! Check them out and read this blog post from Vint Falken.

update 18 June 2008: If you tried any of these avatars before today, check the folders again for updates.

Governor Linden Gives Freebies

So I popped into Bay City (SLurl) to grab the Freebies mentioned on the official SL™ blog and who did I find? Why it was Governor Linden! Sure, there is no "real" such person, but folks were pickled tink that she was there. Lucky Kitties Kira and Lerochelle begged to be teleported in to see the 'Supreme Overlord.' Also showing up was our 'Supreme Overlord' Serenity and Angela (not pictured below, but you can see her IM greeting to me).


Ms. Linden confirmed that the Mole avies used by the Linden Department of Public Works (wiki entry) were made by the very talented Wynx Whiplash. They got the avies free, but you can buy one at Extrovirtual.

Now if you are wondering why everyone is standing around, we were watching a Linden having trouble setting the box to be sold for L$0. Yep. The issue was mentioned on the official blog, too, but I figured it would be fixed by the time I got there. It wasn't, so I offered a free "giver' script. She declined my offer and put one of her own in -- then deleted it saying that a script showing her as the creator shouldn't be released in the wild. I choked back "But the script I'm happy to give you would deliver the contents in a folder without a copy of itself! And then folks wouldn't need to unpack the box!" Honestly, it is so hard to teach a Linden :::giggle:::

About the freebs ... some of the textures in the box are awesome! I look forward to using them. However, nearly every object that my wife rezzed from the pack was merely (oh! how can I put this politely?) ... Well, I'm sure that when I check the official work done by the moles it will be better than the mole-built freebies in the pack. Hey, I'm not a great builder (here's one), but get paid to do it by many who think I'm better than average. And these items were not quite up to being average.

Still, the freebs were generally nice and maybe I'm ultra picky. All-in-all, I do recommend heading out to get this Inventory-busting goodie (lots of stuff in the box). And if you see Governor Linden, say HI for me.

How Frickin' Wrong is This?

So I was investigating the Peugeot sim (SLurl) for my blog, a wee bit miffed that the car they were promoting was not free, nor was the bicycle there, when I ran across a freebie Peugeot Sport Race Outfit. Okies, not much, I thought, but better than nothing. So I scarfed it and toured the sim. After a few hours in RL I decided to try the outfit on and take my racing snail back to the Peugeot track when I ran across a problem with the helmet. Can you spot it?


And it took fo-evah for the shirt to rez. Thank goodness they put useless undies in the box.

"We're not your Mommy"

Directly from Serenity's "We're not your Mommy" notecard (2008-05-10 23:45:30) with my hearty endorsement.

Kies, kinda tired of saying have the LM show on map to guide you or punch in the coordinates.

Seriously, no one has the time to tp everyone to every exact location and SL LMs don't always bring you to the spot. It happens.

So what can you do?

You can open the LM, find it in your inventory, right click it. Choose About Landmark. Then click the Show On Map button.

But that doesn't always work. So what else can you do?

Click the Map button at the bottom of the screen. Search the sim's name that you're in. Then type in the coordinates that are written on the LM themselves.

What else can you do?

Well you can complain to the group about being lost and someone might be nice and go tp you there. But most unlikely and Sereni will just bang her head against the wall cause people don't listen. e.e

Hopefully this cleared up for the people who're lost. Keep supporting the group, thanks. XDDD

- Serenity

Sneaky Trick 1

Sometimes you run across a multiple-prize chair that doesn't show the prize to be won, like this one pictured here, or like the Santa's Lap timed chairs that pop up during the Holidays. It is pretty easy to check what the prizes are and here is how:

➀ Right-click on the chair and choose Edit.

➁ Right-click on the chair and choose Edit again!

You may need to click the More >>> button

➂ In the Edit pane, choose the Content Tab

There's all the goodies! Now make a list or just compare to what you have already won.