Posted in Fashion, Second Life

ANIKA by Utopia Design

The shoes and boots by Utopia Design generally fall into two categories; those which have ridiculous platform soles and those that I absolutely love and generally buy without question.

These boots have been available exclusively at Uber for the past month and are now, as of today (22-Nov-2021), available in the mainstore.

For some reason I missed them at Uber.

Anyway, this seemed like a ‘no question’ purchase.

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Posted in Phoenix / Firestorm, Second Life

Firestorm: Auto-unmute

When you see that the latest Firestorm has the ability to let you auto-unmute sounds when you TP away, that was me.
 
The only time I need to mute Ambient or Sounds is at a sim where I have gone to listen to live music, and I find it really distracting. But then I forget to unmute it again for days after.
 
So I submited it as a patch, and it was accepted, and it is now part of Firestorm.
 
Yay!
 
Posted in Fashion, Second Life

Angelic by Mossu

Angelic by Mossu

I absolutely love this bikini by Mossu. Ok, they say it is lingerie but I am absolutely convinced it works better as a bikini.

I was agonising over it for ages… should I buy single colours at L$398 per set (L$199 per top, L$199 per bottom), or get the 10 colour fatpack for L$1,199?

In the end I decided on the fatpack.

Marketplace:
marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Mossu-Angelic-Lingerie-FATPA…

In-World:
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mossu/152/121/25

Posted in Flickr, Photography, Site News

Flickr’s 1000 picture limit

I joined Second Life in 2006, and created a Flickr account for my Second Life pics in 2008, and up until Flickr’s new 1000 photo limit came in semi-recently I had photos going right back to the beginning. However, in order to fit in with the new limit I had to delete a few photos.

Not changed between then and now as I haven’t been in SL much, and hadn’t been taking a lot of photos. However, I’ve started taking photos again and want to upload them to Flickr so even more old photos need to go. So I took the brave decision to delete any photo older than 10 years old, no matter how many views, faves, and comments it had.

I now have 419 photos left. I guess I was pretty prolific in the first 2 years!

The photos aren’t gone forever, because they are backed up on a self-hosted gallery here on this domain. But all the faves, comments, and view counts are now lost… like tears in rain.

Flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/rebecca_ashbourne/

Backup, including old photos:
beccapet.com/piwigo/

Posted in Developer Zone, Phoenix / Firestorm, Programming, Second Life, Viewers

Compiling the Firestorm Viewer

Last updated 21-Jul-2023


Extended instructions, tips, and ‘gotchas’ on how to compile and build Firestorm, a third-party Open Source viewer for use with Second Life by Linden Lab.

Includes both Firestorm for Windows and also Firestorm for Ubuntu Linux.

First published in February 2014, and regularly updated ever since.

NOTE: This article assumes that you are a competent software developer who is comfortable with C++ build environments and command consoles. Most people will have no need to build their own version of Firestorm from the source code.


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Posted in Developer Zone, Programming, Second Life, Viewers

Adding new libraries to a custom Viewer

As part of my private build of Firestorm, the Open Source third-party viewer for Second Life from Linden Lab, I have added new library dependencies for something I am working on (adding metadata to snapshots).

This blog post details how I added them, making use of CMake and modifying various files.

I present it in the hope that it may prove useful to others.

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Posted in General, Second Life, tips

Show Me the Money! – getting more L$ for your US$

[First published 20-Mar-2012, updated 05-Jul-2017]]

You know how it is; you’re out shopping, you don’t have enough L$, so your cursor heads up to that familiar button in the top right of the screen labelled “Buy L$”. It’s so easy, it’s so convenient, and it’s so quick.

But, wait! That convenience comes at a price. You are buying L$ at whatever rate Linden Lab feel like giving you, and that’s not the best rate.

What do I mean by rate? Well, when you go abroad you often convert some of your normal currency into the currency used by the country you’re going to visit, and you are offered an exchange rate. In other words you buy some of that currency, just like you might purchase any other service or ‘thing’. And, just like buying anything, different people have different prices and it is a good idea to shop around for the best price.
It’s not just limited to people going on holiday either – there’s a whole area of Finance called “Foreign Exchange” (often abbreviated to ForEx or FX) that deals with this.

It’s a less-known fact that Second Life has its own little Foreign Exchange Market, called the Linden Exchange (or LindeX for short) which is accessed via the Second Life website.
Here people buy and sell L$ using US$. And it is here where you can get more L$ for your US$.

So, how does this differ from the good old in-world “Buy L$” button on your Viewer? Well, it’s way less convenient I will admit, although I find it kind of fun! But you have the reward of getting more L$ for your US dollars by being able to shop for the best price, which is what it’s all about.

Instead of just converting US$ to L$, you offer to buy L$ for a certain amount of US$. This is known as a Limit Buy which is a conditional purchase. You are offering to buy L$ from one or more people who are selling for a certain price or better. On the LindeX your offer will stay open until it is either ‘Filled’ (ie. the transaction completes successfully) or until you cancel it.
Depending on how aggressive your Offer Price is, how long it takes to fill could be measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days or never! Also, for larger purchases, you may get a partial fill, which is when more than one seller fulfils part of your order as no single seller is selling at the price you want to pay in the quantity you want to buy. The remaining unfilled amount keeps the order open until all of the order fills.

(If you’re interested in further reading, then some of the basics of ForEx are available here, although it is in no way needed and I only provide it for your interest because I think I’ve covered enough here already)

“Enough with the waffle, Becca. Just tell me how to do it!”, I hear you saying. Well, ok, if you insist.
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Posted in General, Second Life

The Art of Prim Reduction (and changing pictures with the click of your mouse)

[Originally posted on 14-Apr-2012, updated 20-Jun-2017]

Introduction

I’ve been trying to reduce my prim count at my home in SL, and one of the things I figured I could improve on is the pictures hanging on my wall. I’ve got 4 walls of pictures, and each has 3-5 pictures on it, each one on its own prim. So I could see some good savings there.

But how to reduce that number?

Well, a picture is just a texture on a prim. And a wall is also just a texture on a prim. So why not combine the two? Bake the pictures onto the texture of the wall itself.

However, unless you really are pinching every single prim, I think it is better to spend an extra prim per wall and create a transparent veneer onto which you bake your pictures. Think of it as a single picture frame prim that happens to contain multiple pictures. I will refer to this as a “veneer prim” or “veneer” for the rest of the article as it covers the wall just like a wood veneer. However, as I will shortly explain, it is actually preferable for it to be smaller than the wall itself but that doesn’t alter the fact that it is a veneer of sorts.

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