Second Life: Euro-Dollar Exchange Rate

by

Someone in the forum is thinking now is the time to cash out their dollars for Euros. It might be. But, it is not a simple decision. Both market and personal factors set when is best.

Today the exchange rate is US$1.00=€0.95. (That changes by the minute) January 1, 2015 it was €0.826. So, if you cashed out US$1,000.00 in January you got €826. If you cash out today, you will get €951. Is that a good deal? It depends.

Dollar to Euro Exchange Rates 2015
Dollar to Euro Exchange Rates 2015

According to the graph the trend is a strengthening dollar and a weakening Euro. So, the longer you wait the more Euros you are likely to get for your dollar. Said another way, euros are getting cheaper, losing value. The problems with Greece and the European banks is portending big problems. People are abandoning the euro in anticipation. 

Read more

Second Life Music Videos

by

Jo Yardley has written: Music videos shot in Second Life and why we need more of them. She is on about promoting the nicer side of Second Life. I agree with her. Drax is into such promotion too. His radio show (DraxFiles.com) and World Builders videos are evidence of his passion for the subject.

Jo thinks music videos have the possibility of going viral and thus are a good way to get a positive impression of Second Life out to the world. That is certainly a possibility. But the chances of any video going viral is slim.

There is a lot of amazing stuff out showing Second Life in positive ways. But, few people see it. The problem is getting the positive example into people’s faces. Think about that. What do I need to do to get my “information” in front of you and have you look at it? Remember. I don’t know you, your phone number, address, or email.

A music video that goes viral reaches a few million people. Most music videos do well to break 100,000 views.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf7Ie6PMZJk

The above video has just under 76,000 and was uploaded in 2009. 

Read more

Second Life is Looking Good

by

Flickr has different Second Life related groups. There are some awesome pictures there. The good stuff is easiest to find in the groups. One group, MOST EXCELLENT Second Life, requires an image have 30 Favs before it can be added to the group. Most have 30 or more Favs.

You’ll find many of the images have rights reserved. But, the Flickr license allows Flickr to use them. It appears they have classed SHARE as Flickr use for promoting Flickr. Click the images here and the click takes you to Flickr. One must change settings to specifically stop that sharing. Some people do. Others leave it open. Those below are ones from the later group.

**Stellagraphics**

The definition of natural is Second Nature
The definition of natural is Second Nature by **Stellagraphics**, on Flickr

Read more

Slink Updated Update

by

Today I got a new update to my recent update. This brings my Slink Hands to version 2.1. When you wear the hands you get an update shipped to you. It lands in the OBJECTS folder. You need to unpack it.

♫
♫ by Lana Quicksand, on Flickr

The hands, Utilities HUD v2, and the OmniHUD v6.1 update. I think the alpha layer remained the same. I can’t see a difference. I have noticed that the hands don’t fit the same as the previous version, at least with my shape. I’ll have to tweak my shape again. Or it may be SL acting up again. I’ll give it a day, may be two, before I start changing my shape. 

Read more

Second Life Bits 2015 Week 11

by

Servers

I’ve been missing User Group meetings. Yesterday I was finding a work-around for a business class HP Laserjet Multifunction Printer that kept forgetting where to send document scans. I decided HP has totally destroyed their driver & software download site. Frustrating. It used to be simple.

Daisa Daisa - Color Bust
Daisa Daisa – Color Bust by Nylon Pinkney, on Flickr

But, even if I had been at the meeting, there isn’t much news. As there was no package for the RC server channels last week there is no main channel roll out this week. 

Read more

Black Dragon Viewer

by

A new release of this experimental viewer is out: 2.4.1.9 – Feature Update.

dragon in the sky
dragon in the sky by Mikil Tiki, on Flickr

This version has the Volumetric Lighting. It also has a change to how video memory is used. Both of these changes are something people have been interested in for a long time. The memory change could reduce texture thrashing(repeated render sharp, blurry, sharp…). It may be a big aid to those with newer video cards and lots of video ram.

Niran warns at the beginning of his announcement that you need to pay attention to your video memory allocation settings to avoid excessive texture thrashing These are in-viewer settings so I suspect you can live with the defaults Niran has set.

The announcement: Black Dragon Update 2.4.1.9 “Feature Update”

Inara goes into detail about the viewer: Black Dragon 2.4.1.9: “volumetric lighting” and more. She has images of the new controls in Preferences and a video showing Volumetric Lighting.