Saturday, August 10, 2024

Taking a leisurely horse ride in the Rocca Sorrentina Region (Video)


I take a brief but pleasurable horse ride in the Rocca Sorrentina & Bay of Naples sim (The Campania Level) in Second Life. It is an old-school designed Sim and was created long ago, and it is still there and as beautiful as ever. There is a lot to see and do and experience in this most marvelous region.

They have horse rezzers available. 

Destination Information: 


Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Omega Prime (Closing at the end of March 2024)

My Travel & Coffee and Occasional Gas



    During one of my recent SL Grid explorations, I discovered a wonderfully designed Private Region by the name of Omega Point. It is a dark dystopian science fiction theme, with elements from several different sci-fi and fantasy genres, including some from the Alien and Riddick universes. Omega Point had previously been located elsewhere on the Grid (different map coordinates) and had been moved, perhaps scaled down to a Homestead Sim, at some point. It is no longer an active enterprise, but it still remains — at least until the end of March of 2024. It will cease to exist on the Grid at the end of this month. 




Omega Prime




    There is still time as of this writing to visit and explore this amazingly beautiful place. Even if you are not into dark and dystopian, or science fiction, I still recommend going and seeing this end product of so much work and heart and effort of the designers of Omega Prime. You can see what can be achieved in a Second Life development in a way that other designers might not even conceive of or be capable enough to achieve. 


Omega Prime - Alien Elements

Omega Prime - Main Courtyard



I do recommend using the shared environment settings to get the best look and feel of Omega Prime and what the designer intended. 



Omega Point
[SL Map URL] * [InSL Link]


You can see my travels and coffee and occasional gas as it happens on [My Second Life] feed. But for more detailed information and commentary, please subscribe to this Blog. 


Markham Weatherwax

Monday, December 25, 2023

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Happy Rez Day to me!

 Yesterday was my Rez Day in Second Life. 16 years for this account. I received an e-mail showing some stats for the last year. I am not sure about that 27-day thing, but the rest I can believe. LOL


My Yearly Stats


Saturday, November 25, 2023

SLetiquette: My SecondLife Settings: Followers


 On the my.secondlife.com site, the privacy setting "Post on your feed" (Controls who can post on your profile feed) has 3 options: Second Life, Friends, Nobody. If you select one of the latter two, people who follow your feed and those just browsing the site cannot comment OR love your posts/photos on your feed. 

This is an often-misunderstood setting. People who have followers on their feed change that post setting to friends or nobody because they don't want random people posting comments on their content, and then wonder why they are receiving fewer reactions (love) to their photos/posts from friends and followers.  

Loving (reacting to) a photo IS posting on your feed. It adds their "love" to your photo or post data, so it is indeed posting on your feed, the same as posting a comment. 

Followers are not the same as friends. Friends are people you have friended in Second Life and are on your friend-list. Followers are simply people who follow your posts and photos on the "My Secondlife Life" website. 

If you do not want followers on your feed, you can change the setting "Follow info" to just friends or nobody. You can also change the feed so that only friends or nobody (just you) can see your photos/posts. 


Markham Weatherwax





Monday, June 5, 2023

SL Marketplace - Review Notifications

SL Etiquette


One of the things that has always bugged me about the MP is that when a seller or other buyer comments on a review there is no notification sent to the reviewer. Unless that person goes back to check their review, they won't ever see the comment. It used to be that other purchasers could reply to a review, but that is now limited to the seller. That's fine. I did used to comment to bad reviews to let the person know they are not correct about something, but I understand that is best left to the seller because it is too open to abuse. However, unless the seller contacts the reviewer directly in SL, that person will probably never know the seller commented to their review. 


So, really, the only point of a seller being able to comment on a review is to add information for other potential buyers - especially for poor reviews. This needs to be clearly stated in the MP documentation. People need to understand that to deal with a bad or poor review on a product, the seller needs to attempt to contact the buyer directly. Then it can be addressed, and the reviewer can choose to delete the review; If they do not delete the review, then the seller can comment to it stating the problem/issue was addressed and the person chose to leave the review there. That will be for potential buyers that see that review. It is probably not actually going to be seen by the reviewer.


Like I said, it has always annoyed me, but thinking about it as objectively as I can, it is probably best this way. Sellers should address the issue directly, not use the MP to comment and debate with a reviewer. 

Premium Plus? Not for me, yet.

I have been a premium member for most of my Second Life. I paid in mostly to support SL. Some benefits I do enjoy and use. But I did not upgrade to premium plus because I learned the hard lessons over the many years to wait and see.


Promises, promises, promises.

Coming soon...

We are planning...

We have an idea...

We are working on...


If all I want was a 2048 Linden Home, I will wait until they are readily available. I will wait until they have them ready, finished, and the rush is over. Sure, I could buy mainland if I wanted to, but I don't want to. I will not pay more while I am waiting in my 1024m parcel home for a 2048 parcel that will be available... eventually. 


Exclusive gifts: They are rare and no longer seasonal. 

Premium Areas: Eh! You mean the sandboxes? There used to be feature-rich premium areas. No more.

More group slots: That's good, but I have enough groups notices and chats already. *grins*

Expanded Support: No, they took that away from us premium members and gave it to Plus Members. Concierge support is also available for Private Island owners (and my partner and I have some), but the office hours are never during the hours we need the service. What support office closes at 3pm? Not mine. Not anyone else in business I know. 


We each have our own needs, requirements, and times that we can be online in SL. Some Plus benefits are worth it for some people, but I will hazard a guess that most people just want a bigger parcel of land, a bigger house, and more group slots and money. Very active content creators will benefit from Plus. Sim owners probably won't. People who just came here to live their Second Life, Plus might be a bit too much to pay... and then have to wait and wait and wait for the promised land. 


I will wait until what is stated as part of the membership is fully available before I will even consider upgrading. I don't want to hear "coming soon" or "In the planning stages." No. I've listened to that for too many years. I've waited for too many years. 


Despite how this sounds, I love SL. I cannot imagine what my life would be without it. I DO love it. But like with anything or anyone you love, there is sometimes disappointment. 


Fix the roadways, LL. Fix the ski lifts. Fix the feature areas and quests that are broken... or remove them all from the grid. Promises and lip service is not going to grow SL or retain existing members. All those pitiful things out there they just remind people of how SL used to be way back in the golden times. Live up to what the expectations of SLers are. Most people will no longer bank on promises. We expect what we signed up for. Now, not later.