Another Way To Join Second Life

Having a hard time joining Second Life? Tired of getting bizarre errors that you really don't care about?

Now that I have a decent amount of content on this site, I wanted to mention exactly how I got my avatar setup...and frankly, it wasn't through www.secondlife.com.

After futzing around for days, searching Google for alternative means, etc. I finally stumbled upon this website: http://sl.nmc.org/. Basically, if Second Life's main website is giving you too much hassle, head over there and click "Join" from their main menu. Feel free to enter "The Turing Group" as your organization, it's basically a reference to me...and I don't mind.

Beware, however, the error states you'll get from their Join webpage aren't exactly readable. If you get errors that simply consist of a bullet point, it means something isn't working and please try again. For instance, the name you chose is already being used, you have another account with the same e-mail address, etc. Same errors, -different- website.

The good news is, unlike Second Life's main homepage, this one you can keep trying on. Just try different names, etc. until the Join page likes you. You'll start off in a different area of SL than most others, but at least you have an account and it's actually a really nice place to start off.

Hope this helps. See you in-world. :-)

Snowglobe Viewer Graphics Optimization

Unfortunately, the default values for every SL viewer I've seen so far with regards to graphics are simply not that great. This can bog down your experience in SL, and I think it even slows down the sims you're connecting to.

This article will describe how to fix all that...or at least make it better.

Hardware: Apple Macbook 2.4Ghz w/Intel Graphics

Here are my current settings:



Enjoy!

Other Portals

This section lists various websites that are a portal relating to Second Life in some way shape or form. As I discover more decent websites relating to SL, I will definitely put them here.

Directories:

SecondPages - Another directory, this one similar to Open Directory, with some content.

Second Seeker - Huh! Here's a site somewhat similar to mine, but advertises itself as a guide to the "no-sleaze" parts of Second Life. Ugh, and the colors are horrible. Still, it might be worth checking out...

YellowLanes - Another directory, this one similar to the Yellow Pages in real life. Not much there, though.

Information:

Second Life Wikia - A Wikipedia-like portal with all sorts of information pertaining to Second Life. Also has a really interesting history section.

Second Life Education Wiki - A Wikipedia-like portal, focus on education.

Second Life Furry Wikia - The same as above, but from point of view of the furry community.

Media:

Massively - MMO News - A decent source of MMO news information.

Treet TV Archives - Billing itself as "Virtual Television For Virtual Worlds" it appears to be a pretty vibrant community of television in and about the in-world experiences of Second Life.

World Of SL - A blog and news aggregator. It might be WAY too much, but there's a billion SL blogs that are all piled into one here.

Snowglobe Viewer Description

This section lists various options in terms of your Second Life experience, driven by a piece of software known as the "viewer". Unfortunately, the default options for the Second Life viewer are not exactly optimal. Nor is Linden's official release of the viewer always the best.

First, there are other viewers available other than the "stock" viewer. As it turns out, sadly enough, most of them are better than the default viewer. Sad. That said, after looking around a bit, I decided The Cool SL Viewer was the one I wanted to run.

Why? Here are my reasons:

- Cool is easier to use.
- Cool is faster.
- Cool has bugfixes that can't be found anywhere else.
- Cool has Restrained Life Viewer compatibility.

However, as it turns out any and all viewers based on the Liden Labs official viewer are sadly broken. So, for now, I run a viewer called Snowglobe.

Here are the sanest choices in terms of a Second Life viewer, for now:

- The Cool SL Viewer v1.22.x (if you can wait or -really- want RLV)

- Linden's Snowglobe v1.02.x (if you can't wait or are ignoring RLV until it's more useful)

Beginners Guides

This section lists various web articles, websites, etc. describing how to "get by" in the wonderful world of Second Life. I'm seriously hoping I don't have to write my own...for now I'm going to do my best to link to others'.

NOTE: On this site there's also a guides label with some pretty decent content. Check it out.

Second Life Guides(San Jose University) - Unfortunately, this is a somewhat advanced set of tutorials. But, as it is better than nothing it firmly sits here.

Second Life Guide(Unofficial) - Yet Another Second Life Guide. This one seems pretty good, and at least gives one an idea of basic concepts.

Second Life Beginner's Guide Podcast - No idea if this is any good or not but I'll give it a listen.

Beginners

This section lists various places of great use to beginners. There's actually quite a bit in-world that doesn't cost anything at all, in terms of money. Unfortunately, it's strewn around the world and there's really no place I could find that lists it all. Here is such a list.

Orientation Island Public - Another copy of Orientation Island, should you be like me and have skipped some or all of the official orientation to SL.

Welcome Area on Mainland - The starting point for every person, once you've made it through the orientation.

Help Island Public - A great place to hang out if you want to see people...all the time. Oh yeah, they also do help. In theory. :)

Help People Island - An amazing place to go for the new SL citizen. Tons of tutorials, tons of information. An actually -useful- place to go to learn the ins and outs of Second Life. Enjoy.

New Citizens Incorporated - Another new citizen-type island. Not quite as good as the others, but worth visiting for more information and a few freebies.

NMC Orientation Island - Another group's orientation island, chock full of interesting areas to visit and a decent amount of information. Hardly ever anyone there, but it's worth listing.