Getting Ready for the UH LILT Opening Party

Tasks:

1. Sending notecards

2. Decorations

a. Theme = University of Hawaii.

b. Tiki statue, logos, colors (green, black, etc)

3. Activities (help organizing with Amanda)

a. Trivia

b. Treasure hunting

c. Both activities offer prizes for winners.

- What kind of prizes? – Linden dollars, stuffed animals, etc

4. Our meetings – Sunday 12^th @ 1:00pm, Sunday 19^th @ 1:00 pm

Questions for trivia:

1. There is an “M” shape statue by Art Building. What type of animal do you think it represents? – Crab

2. What are the five original campus buildings (Old Quadrangle)? – Hawaii, Dean, Gartley, George, Crawford

3. Hale Manoa is one of our on campus residence hall (it’s located across from University Health Services), What is the definition of Hale Manoa? – House of Many People

Meeting with Amanda on Sunday 12^th at 1:00pm

Our first meeting covered two tasks: learning how to put freebie into the object and how to move around the object (for our activities) and searching for Hawaii theme freebies for decorations. Amanda gave me flowers and popcorn. The skill I learned was combining two objects (putting popcorn into the flower) so when people click on it, they could receive the popcorn. First, we rezzed the flower and move around by right clicking it and choosing Edit. The process is similar to building objects. After that, Amanda gave me a script, which allows others to copy the object (popcorn). First, right-click the flower, then go to Edit, you will see the same screen as clicking the Build in your screen. You will see five tabs: General, Object, Features, Texture, and Content. Click the Content tab, then go to your inventory and drag the Hovering Text Script and popcorn into the Content window. After that, you need to open Hovering Test Script by double clicking it. Then you will see a window, which says Script: Hovering Text Script. Go to line 18 and change “Right-click Touch for Note and LM” to “Free gift”. This will add name right above the object for people to recognize there is something (popcorn) in the flower.

As for now, I am waiting on Amanda to put the dance floor, and then we could start decorating the courtyard. I found couple of signs and objects, which fit the theme. We’ll be meeting on Sunday 19^th to put everything together.

(Picture Above: Script Hovering Test Script window (left) and Build window with Content tab left open (right))

Amanda recommended me to some of the freebie places that has more than clothes (e.g. vehicles, decorations, plants, etc). I collected some decorations that might be useful… but it’s hard to find things that fit into our theme. We both ended up in Hawaii. We found some Hawaiian style outfits and leis. At this point, it is hard to imagine what Amanda is picturing for decorations… so I decided to post some welcome signs and few other things. Hopefully they will stay until Amanda or someone actually sees them.

(Picture Above: What I decorated on Sunday 12^th at 11:21pm Hawaii time)

Advanced Menu

Second Life Viewer’s Advanced menu is not visible. To display it:

PC - Ctrl+Alt+D or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D

Mac - Opt-Ctrl+Alt+D

What is this menu for?

- More optional settings

- Disable Camera Constraints

- Client and Server

Recommended Videos:

Second Life Wiki – need to scroll down when you get to the page https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=4338

Open the Advanced menu – Second Life Video Tutorial - http://vodpod.com/watch/763561-open-the-advanced-menu-second-life-video-tutorial

Some of the options I found…

· Distance Camera Constraints - Zoom out further

· Limit Select Distance – is on by default; you could turn it off to select far away

· Debug Setting – a control that changes a specific thing, access preferenes, more accessible places. Examples:

- PlayTyingAnim and chose FALSE – this would stop your avatar to type in air. Your avatar plays the typing animation whenever you type in the chat bar.

- RenderFarClip – to raise Draw Distance over 512

- RenderGlow – to change Glow appearance

- DoubleClickAutoPilot – to make your avatar move by doubleclicking on the ground

(Picture Above: taken after turning on Distance Camera Constraints option)

Picasa

Dr. James has suggested us to work on our picture sizes. I decided to download Picasa. I’m a Mac user and every time I take picture with Jing, it automatically saves as .png or .jpg. I tried to crop the pictures to make the size smaller and easier for those who view it. Picasa is an awesome tool to organize and resize your pictures.

Some of the recommended website for you to check out on Picasa;

Picasa Effects and Tuning - http://video.about.com/graphicssoft/Picasa-Effects-and-Tuning.htm

Resizing Pictures Using Picasa;

- http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=13821

- http://www.latech.edu/tech/rural/website%20project/web_tutorial/articles/resize_pictures_picasa.html

Resize Photos for Web Display - http://www.compugoddess.com/resize-photos_picasa01.htm

How to easily resize a photo with free Picasa software? - http://42edimension.com/?id=15&cat=1

I put on some websites and videos to help you understand potentials and capabilities of picasa. I would highly recommend you to check out the last one. By following all the steps, you can resize your photo! The picture below, the original size was 659KB, but after resizing it, it is now only 88 KB J

Second Life Blogs:

One of the best ways to keep youreslf updated on what is going on in SL, SL knowledge, and events are from blogs. The most official one is by Linden (https://blogs.secondlife.com/index.jspa). But there are many other blogs that are from avatars and organizations. Alliance Virtual Library has their own blog (http://infoisland.org/), and Second Life: New World Notes (http://nwn.blogs.com/) is one of my favorites. I also get all of my freebies, lucky chair, Treasure hunting information from my favorite Japanese blog sites. As the semester goes on, I felt like I am always at the same place and almost felt like it was becoming my daily routine. It is hard to see what is happening as a whole when you are inside the in-world. When you check blogs or visit the website (if the island, place, or the organizations have one) you will be able to have much more detailed information.

Other useful resources to help you to explore Second Life:

Libraries And Second Life (http://www.slideshare.net/AlexandrianFreeLibrary/libraries-and-second-life-1511585): The site has a slide show, which has basic knowledge of SL (what is SL? What are avatars? What can they do in the in-world, History of SL, Who is Philip Rosedale? How do educator’s see SL? Educational institutions in SL, Etc), The slides answered most of the questions I had toward Library services in Second Life and what librarians do in Second Life. I wish I already knew that information before attending to the picnic party (held in Aug 15^th, 2009).

- Building Virtual Libraries

§ Providing Reference Services to Online Communications

§ Creating Online Collections

§ Hosting and Holding Events

§ Volunteering in SL Libraries

§ Marketing

- Providing SL Skills Building Workshops

- Networking with colleagues around the world

- Research and Development for future distance educations and exploring and integrating new tools for better information delivery

- What is information delivery? : reference, linked objects, information architecture, immersive learning, integration with existing systems: CMS

- Reference Service: Synchronous communication vs. Asynchronous communication

- Synchronous communication = local chat, IM, Group IM, Voice

- Asynchronous communication = info bots/chat bots, the bots impart information in the absence of librarian. Sometimes automated interactive games are used.

- The Sports Collection = example of teleport to subject library

- Libraries in Second Life: The Alliance Virtual Library & The Alexandrian Free Library Consorrtium

- What is AVL? : second life library project, alliance library system of Peoria Illinois, started with infoisland and evolved to 43 island archipelago, staffed by international volunteers 80hrs/week, partnered with non profit, educational institutions (SJSU), government agencies (CDC)

There are more slides that you can learn about the libraries in SL and some of the basics and general skills and information that can assist you with your SL experiences.

Group

I had trouble finding groups to join in the beginning of the semester. I joined Avatar Psychology, LIS Student Union, University of Hawaii, University of Hawaii System groups because they best described my purpose of being a resident in SL. I did not like joining random groups because I cared about what other people thought when they saw my profile and the groups I joined. I thought I am only doing SL for class purposes and not for socializing so I did not want to join non-psychology or non-UH related groups. However, I mentioned several times about my love for freebies (especially clothes and hairs). They often do Group only sale or Group gift, which only people in that particular group can buy or receive gifts. This is my only reason as to why I joined non-Psych and non-UH groups. I joined it for freebies. It might sound greedy or rude to the group owner, but I only wear clothes that I get from my groups so I am sort of helping the groups to advertise and promote their clothing. I think it is a great marketing strategy for the stores to set group only gift because more people would want to join the group when it is free, by joining the group you can get free gifts, and people begin to wear it… Once I joined the group, they kept sending me notices/notecards whenever they made new things or they add new free gifts. In the notices, they encourage you to come and check them out. As picture below shows, there are many people getting free gifts. The group is called SUGERCUBE and they make clothes and shoes. I took a picture of my avatar that is wearing the free gift. I liked the dress, but they do not always have good gifts. But once you found something you like, you are likely to go back and check for the next freebie, which brings many people to the store.

Another thing that I noticed while visiting the free gift places are that people do not make any social interactions. There are usually around 10 to 20 avatars in the same area but most of the time people are just there to grab the free gifts. People just go there to satisfy their needs and leave, which is what I do most of the time. People do not try on what they receive right away, which is what I do too. I like to go back to the places (usually home) and find places and time where no one is around. I do that because I do not want to see other avatars wearing the same clothes as myself. I know the fact that many people have the same clothes but as long as I do not see others wearing the same cloth as I do then I am okay to know that others have same things as myself. When I find a lucky chair, which not everyone can get his or her freebies. Usually they have alphabets show up in the screen every 10 to 20 minutes and if the alphabet is not your first word of your first name then you won’t get the gift. It all really comes down to good timing and your probabilities of luck. Sometimes I get it right after I get to a certain destination sometimes I never get it after waiting in front of the lucky chair for over one hour (most of the time I leave and come back to check). But when you win the free gift, you feel so satisfied and accomplished. Because group gifts and free gifts are often not that cute and does not fit in my taste, but lucky chair usually have the good and nice things that might be expensive to buy. I stopped driving myself crazy when I could not get what I wanted from lucky chair. I noticed that there is always another chance and I always think that the gift was not for me or would not match with my avatar.

Mouse Land (=Disney Land)

I was always curious to know if there was a Disney Land in SL. There are many famous architectures, status, and arts in RL that have been re-built in SL. I simply searched “Disney land” in Search, but nothing showed up so I typed “Disney” then numbers of result showed up. But there is no “Disney Land” and instead, there is a place called “Mouse Land”. When I teleported, it was just like Disney land. There are numbers of attractions that you can experience for free. I do not like Disney Land that much in RL, because I am afraid of speed and height, so I cannot ride roller coasters. Even small rides for children, I am too afraid to. So it was interesting to see my avatar riding on them and it was interesting to feel motion sickness even though I was not riding them. I could not try some of the rides because I was afraid of getting trapped in (because I was the only person riding it). I only picked the rides that I am comfortable with just like what I would do in RL. I did not even feel like riding anything crazy even though I am not riding them. Before I tried to ride them, I already have default expectations such as “it will be fast and scary”. But when I actually tried them, they all moved very slowly, which was good to me because I am afraid of speed and I have enough time to take pictures of myself riding. When I tried the train, which goes through the mountain, it was hard to have the right camera view. Because I do not like to have the normal avatar view (especially riding on rollercoaster), you are likely to get motion sickness). So I set my camera that I can see my avatar riding it from far away, but the road was complicated and sometimes it went into the tunnel and the rocks around the road blocked my view, which I got really annoyed by.

I do not think I am able to ride rollercoaster in RL, because I cannot do it in SL. I thought it would be a great place to break my phobia, but it was not that easy. I enjoyed the environment and cute freebies (such as ice-creams, balloons, chicken, etc). I was expecting the place to be crowded because Disney Land is always busy in RL but not in SL. The Mouse Land was almost like Disney Land and I would recommend people to go because I had a lot of fun (even though I went there by myself!). I recommend you to go with your friends and do some exercises in here.

Additional Tour Idea:

In report 10&11, I discussed some of my ideas about my Avatar Psychology tour. Here I found even a better idea! When I was searching in infoisland, I found a Balloon Tour. All you need to do is sit by clocking the sit ball and the balloon starts to fly around and visits to each sections of Infoisland. The balloon will move close to the area that you are receiving tours about so it easy for visitors to see and notice. A lot of the places have displaces in the sky too so when you get a tour from the sky, it is easy for visitors to see everything. If I adopt this to the tour I came up with, I will use the magic carpet. I am afraid that my controlling skill is not good, but it is easy for visitors to follow me that way than just walking tour. In order to use the balloon, I need to have a bigger space so the magic carpet will be the perfect size for the plarform. I actually saw people trying the tour while I was attending the Picnic party too. I think it is easy for the visitors to have their space and learn about things on their time. I will feel a bit pressured when I am receiving a tour from somebody (like I need to ask questions, I need to react to what the tour guide said, etc). I am sure when a person gives the tour there are a lot of benefits too, but a place like Infoisland, where many people from all over the country visits daily, the balloon tour would be very convenient. Most places have a map, information desk, or Asynchronous communication such as bots that are there to assist visitors but I have a hard time figuring out or have the overview of the places so I really like the idea of a self-serving tour because you can get an overview of the place with a good amount of information to begin exploring with.

Damage:

Lastly I want to talk about a situation where I have never been to and I did for the first time. I noticed this because right after I teleported to a Japanese Kenjin place, I saw a heart symbol with 100% sign right next to the advanced menu on the screen. Then when everything is becoming rez, I received a sign that saids “This land has damaged enabled (“not safe”). You can be hurt here. If you die, you will be teleported to your home location”. Right after seeing this message I teleported home. I do not know what was causing the sim to send such messages but if you do not leave then you could die. Later on I went to search about the damage in SL Wiki and it says that the heart symbol stands for our energy level and one it reached 0% you will send back to your home. You will die for that moment but residents cannot die permanently in Second Life. Also death is not a permanent one, so you do not loose any inventory and can return to the damage-enabled region. After finding out these information, I felt relieve and I could let myself even try to die to see what will happen… but I would not want to do that to my avatar!!