Well, that lasted long...

Running around in SL, meeting people, having adventures and exploring is all well and good..

Until RL gets in the way. Since we last spoke, my life away from the computer has been filled with a new job, new boyfriend and an impending new year at University all fighting for my time and attention.

These are, of course, all good things, and I'm not complaining about any of them, though they have meant I've not been able to keep this blog up lately. Nor do I know when I'll find the time to.

I'm still finding time to enjoy some SL time (so if you want to come and say 'hi' any time, feel free!) though after I've finished unpacking various group gifts and freebies and catching up with my friends, I don't seem to have a tonne of time left for doing anything worth blogging about...even if I did have the time to blog about it.

Things will hopefully ease up by the time autumn is in full flow but, until then, expect blog posts to sporadic at best, nonexistent at worse.

Have a Seat..No, really, Take one!

I've been too ill to venture outside the house this week which, in the grand scheme of things, has been pretty rubbish.

Then again, it has given me plenty of time to potter round on SL and to do something I've wanted to do for a while; head down to the Ivory Tower and learn how to build.

In fact, I've spent the biggest majority of my SL hours there this week, getting stuck in with the first few modules and going over things again and again until I understood as much as I could ever hope too.

And I've still got a long way to go before I'm rivalling the scores of unbelievably talented builders out there, but after a few days I figured I'd give one of Lumiere Noir and build my first object, the wonderfully simple four-prim chair.

Ta-da!

OK, so it's hardy the greatest thing in the world, but at least it's a start.

I've been building these things over and over again all weekend, practicing until I've got the process nailed down and can build these things in my sleep. I know it's perhaps a tad obsessive, but at least people will always have a place to sit should they drop by Casablanca!

Oh and by the way, the textures on the chairs in the pic I believe are by the one and only Torley Linden. Sadly, I can't remember where I picked them up from, but I do know that they come in very useful and that I've used them for everything from photoshoot backdrops to bed spreads!

Radio Ga Ga - The Saga Concludes (I think)

The gripping story of my attempts to listen to Last Fm streams in Second Life reached an end last night, and sadly it wasn't the happy ending I was hoping for.

The Last Sound System is not currently pumping the skybox full of fantastic tunes, but rather finds itself consigned to the trash, probably forever.

How it got there is the focus of the final chapter in this nail-biting drama of girl vs. machine, a chapter which begins just a few minutes after posting Tuesday's blog entry.

And so it was that with said post going live to the world, I headed back to the skybox and resigned myself to doing the one thing I'd sworn I wouldn't; giving up trying to work it out myself and writing a long, rambling note to the clever man who created the Last Sound System and begging him for some help or advice.


Half way through, a nice guy called Miguel (I hope I've spelt that right, I can't log in to check just now!) sent me an IM to say that he'd read my post, was having more or less the same problem I was and now wondered if I'd managed to work it out and, if so, if I could help him.

Alas, I hadn't and I couldn't, so instead the two of us spent the next several minutes united in sorrow, pining for the day the music would come flooding gloriously from speakers and brighten up our SL.

Getting nowhere, I sent the note I was writing anyway, and trundled off to do other things.

Then, yesterday morning, I heard from Miguel again; it was bad news.

He sent me a link to an article written back in March (coincidentally on the exact same day that I first entered Second Life) from geek.com about Last.FM blocking access to all third-party, non-official mobile clients.

I'll admit I still didn't quite understand first.

Since I generally have no clue about anything, I naively figured this would only affect mobile phones and that it shouldn't be the cause of any problems in SL. Then, I read the official announcement from Last, researched a bit and came to the conclusion that the reason I can't listen to Last.FM stations in Second Life is not through my own technical incompetence, but rather because Last.FM won't actually let me.

Though that may be good news for my self-esteem (hooray! I'm not totally useless!), it's still bad news for the part of me that just really wants to enjoy, some good music.

So I gave up, consigned the Last Sound System to the trash, and cheered myself up by going to Paris with my best friend Lindsay and picking up a pretty new dress.

And thus concludes our story, unless of course you know something I don't, in which case please step forward!

Radio Ga Ga - The Saga Continues

Since my last post, pretty much all my efforts in Second Life have gone on trying to get Babbage Linden's potentially-wonderful Last Sound System to play in my skybox.

Of course I haven't succeeded yet, hence why the saga (God, I love being melodramatic, don't you?)continues.

I have, however, figured out what was going wrong yesterday though I'm almost too embarrassed to admit what it was.

Call it a newbie mistake, call it fatigue-induced stupidity, or be honest and call it 'Ruby Hasn't a Clue When it Comes to Anything Technical' but, in a rather silly move, I copied the script, config notecard and all associated gubbins into my inventory and edited from there.

Not surprisingly, it didn't work and only made the Last Sound System shout angry things at me about not being able to find URLs.

So, with the benefit of a good night's sleep behind me, I deleted everything, headed back to Ambleside (how I love the names of the places in that area; Coniston, Keswick..reminds me of family breaks as a kid off to the Lake District, but anyway, I digress), picked up a fresh Sound System and decided to start completely from scratch.

I edited the config card properly this time, put the Sound System in the skybox, set up the group deed and all that as per the instructions, checked my 'play streaming media' thing was ticked, hit 'reset', hit play and...

Nothing.

Not a thing.

Which was good in a way, because at least now it wasn't screaming things at me. Yet it wasn't streaming things either, which is kind of the entire purpose.

After her 500th Last Sound System failed to work, Ruby sat down and despaired; tidying up the skybox was going to be a nightmare.

I've checked, double-checked and triple checked that all my sound settings are working properly and they are (or were, I think I may have broken something along the way), logged on and off again, rezzed the system in at about half a dozen different locations throughout Casablanca, and still no music.

Then, out of curiosity, I brought up the Last Sound System dialogue box and clicked 'skip'. And you know what? It shouted at me again. Not as angrily this time, but still, a shouting object is still a shouting object, and I'm not all that happy about it.

So whilst I may have overcome the first hurdle in actually getting the system to recognise a URL, getting it to actually play music from that URL seems to be a different beast entirely.

Earlier this morning, I was talking with She Who Knows Everything about how people should at least try to learn things for themselves before getting someone to help them out or, in some cases, even doing it for them.

Well folks, I've tried. I've tried over and over again for the last few hours and I just don't get it.

Time to throw myself at a certain person's feet and beg for some help.

I'll keep you posted.

Radio Ga Ga

See that list of songs down the right hand side of this blog? The one that changes every now and again?

That's what I've been recently listening to on Last.Fm, a fantastic website which you've probably already heard of that streams your favourite music, helps you discover new bands and does all kinds of wonderful and interesting things.

I love Last.Fm, and quite often have it playing in the background whilst hanging out in the skybox or mucking around in the studio, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before curiosity got the better of me and I set out to see if I could actually listen to my Last.Fm station inworld.

Turns out there is, and has been for a long time thanks to Babbage Linden's Last Sound System which is all rather wonderful and brilliant.

But there's a problem in that despite appearing to be incredibly simple to set up, it's actually a little more complicated than it first seems, at least to somebody as techologically-inept as me.

For one thing, it requires something called an MD5 Digest which I've never heard of before and, even after looking it up, reading about it and figuring it out, I still don't really understand.

So I spent a good hour or so trying to work this thing out, and just when I thought I had it, and that everything would be good to go, I switch on the Sound System, and it yells at me.

It yelled loudly and it made me cry, so I abandoned it.

Here's what it yelled. If anyone knows what this means, or how to fix it, please let me know!

[9:44] Last Sound System: ERROR:503:http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">






The requested URL could not be retrieved

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


While trying to retrieve the URL:http://http////adjust.php?





The following error was encountered:

Unable to determine IP address from host name forhttp




The dnsserver returned:

Name Error: The domain name does not exist.




This means that:

The cache was not able to resolve the hostname presented in the URL. Check if the address is correct.
Your cache administrator is webmasterhttp://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

Casablanca, Your Own Piece of Paradise...

A while ago, I promised I wouldn't spend all my time promoting Casablanca Estates on this blog, and honestly I've tried not to, but with new land available on Casablanca and Casablanca Two, I don't see any harm in a little one-off promotional post; so here's some info on the new land.

Casablanca Estates is a nice, quiet private estate spread over two regions, with a 'modern tropical' theme and lots of stunning beach front property available.

To quote directly from Ansel's sales whatsit, "we place an emphasis on relaxed, island style living. You won't have high-rise condos or office buildings, or oversize castles popping up next door to ruin your tropical views!"

The estate has four resident managers to answer any questions, sort out any problems and help out with landscaping, terraforming and all that stuff. If English isn't your first language, our resident smart-arse, Ruby, is on hand to assist with translation, whilst a private security team are available to take care of any trespassers, griefers or other undesirable sorts.

For all the prices, info and to have a look around, you can follow the two IMs below.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Casablanca%20Estates/224/224/22 - Casablanca
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Casablanca%20Estates%20Two/192/192/2 - Casablanca Two

And thus ends this bit of shameless promotion. Now back to pictures of Second Life gone wrong, T-shirts with the Tardis on them and general musings on SL in general.

When SL goes Wrong 2

And no matter what I tried, I couldn't fix this problem until I relogged. Did ammuse me though!