Nalates' Things & Stuff

WordPress & Flickr Tip

2009/05/06 by Nalates Urriah

Flickr requires one to link to the Flickr site if images are used in any site other than Flickr. Our free accounts are paid for by traffic to the flicker site. So, this is understandable if annoying. This is a way to make placing these images in WordPress pages easier.

From Flickr they have an option to let one blog about a photo. They do up the page code needed to make it work and push the entry to your WordPress blog. My problem is I need an image to support my post, not be about the image. It just does not work for me.

What I do is write my post in Word and upload it as a DRAFT using the lower half of the Publish button. On the blog I move to the dashboard and select the post to edit. Most of us start out in ‘VISUAL’ edit mode. I flip the editing to HTML mode. The modes are two tabs at the top of the edit window. See the upper right of the first image. I read down edit window to find the place where I want to insert the image. I click and place the cursor there.

Uru-ite Creates Internet Music Site and Radio Station

2009/05/05 by Nalates Urriah

MusicMelee.com — New Internet Radio Station

Uru-ite Creates Internet Music Site and Radio Station

Reported as a “New Fun Website to See!” in the Uru community D’ni Refugees Group Notices, Sun Apr 26, 2009. Music Melee Online is now up and running. It is the newest place for musicians, people who like to blog about music, and people who love to hear great new music!

Quoting Thorson Hammerer, “We currently have our internet radio station up and running, playing some great music of all types, but we need more! If you are an artist, we need YOUR music! Sign up and submit your stuff, and possibly make some money in the process! We are also looking for feature music bloggers! We’re looking for you! Come and join us!”

Thorson is a DJ, as well as others, at Hunters Club (Club Siren Group) in Mayan Myst that rocks Monday through Friday with Happy Hour from 5-7pm SL and 7-9pm SL. Prizes (L$ Contests) and surprises galore.

Second Live Viewer 1.23 RC 0

2009/05/04 by Nalates Urriah

RC1.23.0b — RC Viewer Skin Problems - Using 1.23.0

I mostly use Release Candidate (RC) viewers. The new RC viewer with the Reported ‘appearance’ problems is 1.23.0 RC. Note that by June the 1.23 viewer will likely be mandatory because of the Adult Content change over. However the Lindens will change schedules or fix the problem rather than upset everyone, so not to worry. Do know that by default in the 1.23 viewer you are set to PG/Mature. You must change to PG or PG/Mature/Adult. (More info on Adult Content: SL Adult Content Blog)

Probably the more serious problem is the RC 1.23.0 triggering a false positive in some anti-virus programs. That has been a show stopper. The requirement for RC 1.23 to be required for RC-users has been lifted because of that.

Myst-Uru Guilds IC and OOC Part-IV

2009/04/30 by Nalates Urriah

This part of the series is about ways people have tried to make changes to Uru and/or the guilds. I have seen people take two paths to making changes. Both of these efforts center on an aspect of training people in world. I’m not sure the goals of the two are comparable but how they have gone about it shows comparable methods.

A European teacher wants to use Uru in a RL classroom as a teaching aid. She builds ages* for the coming open source version of Uru, no small feat. So, she is knowledgeable and involved with the guilds and contributing toward the open source effort. But the basic game engine does not really support what she needs. Someone will have to introduce new features into the game engine.

Myst-Uru Guilds IC and OOC Part-III

2009/04/29 by Nalates Urriah

AhraPahts05 — Uru Fan Content - Ahra Pahts 2008

Parts I and II cover the confusion regarding IC and OOC guilds in Myst-Uru fandom. Part II covers the challenges in changing IC guilds. Here I am considering the politics of changing the OOC guilds. If you have note read Parts I and II you may want to do so. (See the April Archive for the complete set of posts)

All of the IC and OOC is just people doing things in specific ways with certain mental constructs as models for what they are going to ‘say’. It is in the OOC guilds and RL that we can remove a layer of abstraction and get more done. When one is IC and talking about contacting Douglas Shaper (a special IC character in Uru) who are they really talking about meeting or is that just something said to shape the IC story development? It is difficult to tell. Moving to OOC eliminates some of that confusion.

Myst-Uru Guilds IC and OOC Part-II

2009/04/28 by Nalates Urriah

The guilds most people see are groups of people posting on forums. Behind that there are members building ages for the coming open source version of the game. Others are experimenting with the tools used to make those ages. Some are creating Blender tutorials on age making. Others are examining the older server software and even possibly running underground servers. The only possible Myst-Uru IC guilds are in THERE and Second Life.

In Part-I I wrote of where the confusion between IC and OOC guilds comes from. Here I am considering how that affects what people want to do and especially those that want to change the guilds. In the interest of full disclosure I speak from a biased and expert’s position as the current caretaker of the Guild of Cartographers. Guilds are usually run by Grand Masters. I only claim the rank of Guild Master, a step down.

Myst-Uru Guilds IC and OOC Part-I

2009/04/27 by Nalates Urriah

KI Image Photo #8 — In Game Image Guild of Cartographers Public Hall

Update (2/2010): MOUL (Myst Online Uru Live) closed in 2008. It reopened in February 2010 as a free to play MMORPG named MOULagain. To play visit: Download MOULagain

Original Article: In recent posts on the MOUL forum the idea of ‘improving the guilds’ came up, again. In the forum there are great ideas and plans and not a few sour grapes from those having tried such changes in the past. But the basic understanding of Myst-Uru world guilds seems to be missing. To understand one viewpoint, mine, for why some of these efforts at change fail, read on.

Cyan’s creation of the guilds is spoken of often in the forums, as is their encouragement of the guilds. I think these statements often create confusion around the IC guilds (In Character or in Uru; In Cavern – both are a role playing concept) spoken of by IC characters and Cyan. Cyan has written about their plans for in-game guilds, which adds to the confusion. Plus, there are the historic guilds of the old D’ni culture adding more confusion. So, at least three types of guilds.

Second Life Dynamic Shadows

2009/04/24 by Nalates Urriah

Not long ago I wrote about Second Life and Dynamic Shadows. They are a feature planned for the ‘next’ viewer. Well… that got pushed back because the Lindens had sex on their minds… well getting sex out of the viewer… mmm… how about eliminating sex from the viewer? Whatever, the Adult content filter has displaced shadows.

A Second Life resident, KIRSTENLEE.CINQUETTI, was tired of waiting and decided to mix up her own viewer form Linden Lab’s open source code. SL Photographers have been using her viewer to take some nice images in-world. Now that viewer 1.23 is coming as Release Candidate she has baked a new version.