/by Heidi Ballinger
It’s a big pleasure to inform you, that Claus Uriza in the future will blog here (directly from Second Life, and mostly about music). Welcome Claus! (the man who has listen to more than 20.000 CD’s) 
About Claus: Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Check this awesome video from Torley Linden.
Torley, we LOVE your videos!!
Copy from wiki.secondlife.com
Basic lip sync has been added to version 1.20 RC8, but it is disabled by default. To enable it, you first have to enable the “Advanced” menu by pressing Ctrl-Alt-D (all three keys together, but not to be confused with Ctrl-Alt-Delete). Then in the Advanced menu select Character, then Enable Lip Sync (Beta). Whenever someone uses voice chat and you see the green waves above the avatar’s head, you should also see the avatars lips move. When an avatar has an attachment covering its head, though, the attachment is not animated.
/by Heidi Ballinger
You can find thousands of freebie places in Second Life. Especially for new residents such places are nice to know about (free hair, skin, shapes, clothes, houses, cars, etc etc.).
/by Speedmaster Bing
Had some free time, and decided to do at bit of cleaning, in my always to big collection of LM’s (landmarks). While teleporting around, to see if the LM’s was still valid, I got caught in a IM chat, and “parked” Speed in a quirt spot, a bit away from everybody else.
While chatting, I got approached by this pretty, but rather pale woman, in a big red dress.
“Hi, Speedy. what are you doing out here in the dark all alone?”
/by Heidi Ballinger
I’m very proud to inform that my dear friend, “Josephine Planer” will be blogging directly from Second Life on this blog (mostly about “tiny-world” and she will keep us up-to-date).
Welcome to Josephine, we are happy to have you here, and we look forward to some good stories from Tiny-land.
About Josephine:
/by Heidi Ballinger
Win 25.000 L$ (linden dollars).
I have never liked the name “Power-Match”, and I don’t want to bother you with the story about this name.
We will still keep Powermatch for fairs (match-parties like jobfairs, productsfairs, educationfairs etc).
We are looking for a new brand, and the last months several names have been discussed (well 1000’s of names actual, lol - I’ve a long long list with names, but not the right one yet).
Two possibilities:
1) The name has to tell about our business. Words like:
Business, Virtual worlds, Metaverse, 3D, advisers for companies who want to join a virtual world (brand marketing, building, scripting, designing, events, e-learning, machinima, open-minded etc.)
2) A “new-name”, a word never used before, or a “funny-name”.
For both solutions we need a name we can use in the future.
The domain name has to be available in dot.com or dot.net.
Don’t post your answer in comments here.
Send your suggestion to:
heidi@power-match.com
(suggestions posted here in the blog will be deleted)
/by Heidi Ballinger
Just noticed this great interview made by Hamlet Au - click here to read the interview
A bit from Hamlet’s interview: Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
I’m happy to inform, that Speedmaster Bing in the future will blog here on this site : )
About Speedmaster Bing:
I have gotten to opportunity to bog here, so here is a bit about
Speed(master) and his puppeteer.
Origin is Danish, real name is Jimmy, born in ‘64 and now living outside Copenhagen.
Happy, open-minded curious thinker, and always friendly.
Got my first computer, an Atari 512, in ‘86, and have been hooked on IT ever since.
Been working as an IT consultant/salesman, WAP development, ISP Sysadmin and in a team of Sysadmin in a lager Danish company. Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
My friend hErbs Best participated in this event last night, and he has made this awesome article about “Relay for Life” - who has raised US$200.000 in Second Life (about 51 million L$).
Thank you very much for this article hErbs! : ) Very much appreciated.
HErbs, reports directly from Second Life:
/by Heidi Ballinger
The reason why some companies has failed in Second Life: Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
I’m still waiting for the options to build in Google’s “Lively”, but today I have created a new room:
“Second Lively”
A place from where to connect Lively to the awesome “Second Life”. The room are still empty (we can’t create our own objects yet). My intention is to make classes in there, educate people in Second Life. Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
This is a question asked by resident ”Dinohunden Paine” on Second Life forum.
“He would like to hear our opinion about the economy in SL. His idea of getting things on the roll in SL is, that the L$ should be devaluated, so instead of getting 1000 L$ you should only get 10 L$, and let the 2 zeroes disappear.” Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Loki Clifton gave me this awesome tip today. At the landing point on your Island, you simple place prims with all the textures used on your Island. Loki has tested this, and claim that this method speed up the texture rezzing with 60-90%. Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Well.. tonight my gadget hero, Anthony Hocken and I went out car-racing at G-AXIS (a place I visit often in my “younger days in SL”! *Awesome place* Haven’t done that for more than year.
I have always loved cars (also in Second Life), so this was pretty fun (and look at his hair on this pic) giggles
I’m a little outdated about good car-racing places in SL - please add more great places here. Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Today I took a day out of the calendar, and I’ve been watching almost 4 movies in Second Life.
I guess I’ll have trouble sleeping tonight (I’ve only been watching thriller’s) hehe, and right now SAW4 is running,
This is awesome, easier than rent a DVD, and you don’t have to download a movie before watching it, and Its only cost 800 L$ (well the videos I’ve bought has been at this price). 800 L$ is about 3,3 USD. Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Tonight a good friend of mine “Sky Light”, a researcher in SL, invited me to Tranquil Island.
A poetry event was going on, and I just find my friend in the middle of this cosy place, dancing like crazy - and the first thing I hear is Threik Wilkinson (the poetry guy) saying “oh this man really enjoy my poetry, dancing to the words”.
Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Today you can read an article in “The AvaStar” about last weeks burial of Second Life (a burial made by the Danish media “DR”).
Thanks to The AvaStar for writing this story : )
/by Heidi Ballinger
Today I had an interview with the king of animations in Second Life, “Vista Barnes”. The one who took my standard “SL-duck-walk” away from me, and gave me a nice walking in SL.
To find the UUID of the group, just use the “search” in the “all tab” and when you open the info-window you can see the UUID in the bottom, like here:
/by Heidi Ballinger
Every monday at 1 PM SLT Jeremy Hunsinger invites us to join a Lessons in Second Life (an open table forum centering on what can be learned in sl in both formal and informal settings).
In Second Life Jeremy’s name is “Buridan Simon”.
It was a very interesting meeting, and I had the pleasure to meet
the cutest professor ever, Professor Pick:
Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Today I’ve sent an e-mail to the Danish “Press appeals committee”, with the headline “DR need to retract their story about “Second Life is dead”.
I received e-mails from the two DR-journalists today, Jes Højen Nielsen and Torsten Egesten (the same message from both of them) ~translated to English:
“Thank you for our application. We will consider this if we are going to make a new article about Second Life”
One rule: To sent your message to the Press appeals committee, you need to have sent your compalin to DR at first - e-mail the journalist behind: Jes Højen Nielsen
Please follow up - contact the Press appeals committee - clikc here.
/by Heidi Ballinger
Today I attended the game “Primtionary” at Raglan Shire. This “Primtionary” is really a AWESOME game (you should try it out).
Tiny Olympics
The reason I attended the game at Raglan Shire was because of Tiny Olympics 2008 (yesterday a big opening ceremonies was going on at of the Raglan Tiny Olympics in Second Life). And it was very popular (the entire sim was full to overflowing)
/by Heidi Ballinger
Is it legal to call it an obituary?
In the news they say “Second Life only became 5 years old” while we watch a priest bury Second Life with the word “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” – with the sound of church bells.
A story made by a journalist with a poor knowledge within Virtual Worlds, a story backed up by “experts” who are not the real experts in this nexus. A story broadcast online by DR Update .
An “expert” saying “Seond Life is dead because it can’t be used for anything“. Read the rest of this entry »
We decided to arrange a GHOST-party because the media claimed that Second Life was dead!! 
and within 3 hours, Asp & PowerMatch had arranged this big party at Research Island DK, and built up a ghost city, and invited people.
/by Heidi Ballinger
UPDATE: This is getting out of control. In the news we see a priest bury SL, and the journalist say “Second Life IS dead” - they only became 5 years old).
Just when I thought the prejudice was over with Second Life, I read an article from the Danish media, DR.
/by Heidi Ballinger
Twinverse beta
Twinverse is a peer-to-peer system, since it needs no servers to run its virtual world. The hardware that support the virtual world is the mesh of users’ computers, tightly interconnected and running Twinverse software. The users do not merely sign in and connect to Twinverse system, they run it. To take part to Twinverse, you need to download and run the Twinverse software.
What is Twinverse? Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Linden Lab is pleased to announce results for Second Life the second Quarter.
Land mass grew over 44%. The total number of regions owned by residents increased 44.2% over Q1 to just over 1.5 billion square meters virtual space! Wow that’s LOT.
I have taking some snapshots of the 1.5 billion sq.m virtual space from the map (just to give you an idea of how big it really is). Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Believe it or not, this is a real life drama taking place in the virtual world “Second Life”.
The EVANE Models Contest - Catwalk Contest, which ended with drama, lots of intrigue and serious personalised threats.
I have never been aware such thing could take place in the virtual milieu.
Tonight I had an interview with one of the key figure from the “catfight”, resident “Maj Sommer” and I got her story (all other name from the interview are hidden).
/by Heidi Ballinger
Today I decided to try something totally different, and while searching the event-forum at secondlife.com I noticed this meditation at Stone Circle Meeting On Qoheleth.
/by Heidi Ballinger
Still testing “Lively”. Seems like you can create a room, and then people can visit it directly from your website. Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
bad - Heidi Ballinger was already token, and the same with different numbers behind (I don’t get this), Heidi Ballinger is not just a name you want to pick, lol
But well, I created an account here with “HeidiBallingerFromSL”
Create you own account on Lively here - click.
And forget it all other virtual worlds (we are not talking about gaming), but no other virtul worlds cant beat Second Life. “Lively” maybe reached Second Life to the knees
Didn’t you just expected something very awesome from Google?
(the one who could actually make the difference).
/by Heidi Ballinger
Today I’ve been testing the big MMO “Age Of Conan“. (in that game my name is “Ballinger”) so you can somehow say that a Second Life resident moves into Age Of Conan, hehe.
This is a AWESOME game, well I just have to figure it out, hehe (but I will).
Pictures from my first experiences and fights with crocodiles.
Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
“One small step for an avatar, one giant for a virtual world”
(citat Torley Linden)
Teleporting between different virtual worlds!!!!
“This is a historic day for Second Life, and for virtual worlds in general. IBM and Linden Lab have announced that research teams from the two companies successfully teleported avatars from the Second Life Preview Grid into a virtual world running on an OpenSim server, marking the first time an avatar has moved from one virtual world to another. Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Yesterday Robin Harper interviewed Mitch Kapor. Mitch is on Linden Lab’s Board of Directors.
Mitch Kapor:
“We bring all of ourselves to it, we bring the good, the bad and the ugly. What we choose to do with the possibilities is extremely important.” Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Sunday I attended a meeting about darkbot in Second Life, but I had problems and needed to logout (thanks to Sean Cinquetti (shawnsie from twitter) for saving the chat in a notecard for me.
This dorkbot session will be of interest to developers, performers, machinimators, animators, photographers, and just about anybody with an interest to bring more expression to avatars and more direct ways to interface with our embodied selves.
But, I just noticed this excellent site (rhizomatic) with a great info of the meeting - click here
/by Heidi Ballinger
Some weeks ago I created an account on “Twinity” Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
I have been looking for robots with Artificial Intelligence (not just the ordinary chatbots), and just noticed this very interesting post from Tom Werner.
Click here to read his experences with the “FreudBot” at Athabasca University in Second Life.
Well, I wanted to try the same, but no “FreudBot” for me! snif, hehe
/by Heidi Ballinger
Robert Bloomfield (Beyer Sellers) interview Bettina Tizzy at todays weekly meeting at Metanomics.
“Not Possible in Real Life (NPIRL) are dedicated to identifying and sharing well conceived and realized content creation in Second Life which would not be possible in Real Life:
architecture, landscaping, art, animation, fashion, particle effects, building tools and scripts.”
I have to agree with that Bettina. I don’t understand why we tend to pull real life down in Second Life (and somehow end up with a 2D-world). Funnier to explore how to use these new 3D worlds on the best way. Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Today’s meeting at Metanomics was opened by Yxes Delacroix (Producer/Director at SLCN.tv studios in Second Life).
Yxes told an interesting story about her upcoming wedding in Second Life, and how she swears only 1½ year ago that she never would be married in Second Life.
But times changing, and Yxes has another point of view today. Soon she will say “yes” to her coming hubby in the virtual world.
Wedding in Second Life are big business (from wedding planner, wedding dress, photographer, speaks, machinima, honeymoon, room/location, etc etc).
Congratulate Yxes : ) We hope you will have a wonderful wedding day.
Question
Are you married in Second Life, or have you attended a wedding in Second Life?
I would like to hear some stories.
A picture of Yxes at Metanomics today
/by Heidi Ballinger
Lars Pach (aka Pach Voom from PowerMatch) present this machinima with Jonathan Kazan:
Traditional artist has thrown over the virtual world of Second Life and the have seen the possibilities to promote there art to a broader audients. Following is the emergence of new forms of digital art as more uses the interactive and visual opportunities in Second Life.
/by Heidi Ballinger
In my beginning in Second Life, I used this tool to get more familiar with the different prim-shapes (and of course, watched many of Torley’s videos).
You have many options with prims in Second Life, and it all about “prim-optimising”.
No need to use many prims, if you just know the technique of how to handle your prims (or have a PrimFinder).
PrimFinder is created by CrystalGadget - resident ”Anthony Hocken”
Price: 290 L$
SLURL – Click here to visit CrystalGadget in Second Life
I was looking for some music with “Gadget” - lol - just if you wondering about the cartoon music (this music bring up some memories from my childhood and “InspectorGadget”). he
/by Heidi Ballinger
Ever tried the wireframe look in Second Life?
I sometimes do that when I participating big meetings or places with many avatars, objects, etc. (wireframe runs very fast in your viewer) – and if you only need to chat, listen to voice or streaming, wireframe is okay.
Open Advanced (if you don’t have this option, then click “ctrl+alt+d” and you will see “Advanced in the top of the screen next to help).
- but open Advanced, Rendering and Wireframe (or the short key “ctrl+shift+r)
Here is a picture of my panda-avie in wireframe (almost art – I kinda like the wireframe view) hehe
/by Heidi Ballinger
Some weeks ago we got some new and very awesome avatars to choose about when people create an account.
Today I’ve been out mentoring at OI - and find this new resident in deep need, running around and asked “why am I so short, why am I so short?”.
Must have been a SL-bug, but we fixed it by changing appearance and detached everything (he was very easily trained). Hmm I might think it’s because of the new small avie (dragon or robot) - if the resident change avatar and forget to replace the shape or something like that, this will happen.
Poor guy, giggles - hope he is not scared away from SL
But it looked very fun! hehe
/by Heidi Ballinger
5:30 in the morning here in Denmark, and I have been out testing ballrooms in Second Life tonight. Feels like age since I last time “dressed-up” and visiting ballrooms in Second Life (kinda felt it was something stupid “after I grow up in SL” lol).
The past 1½ year has been more about business, build, design and scripting. But tonight I actually got a little sentimental on my little tour around to check out places (well all the romantic music didn’t make that better, heh). In some kind I miss my first months in Second Life. A helpless newbie, trying everything out and exploring.
I explore too little today - most of my time are earmarked a specific project all the time. Need to change that! — > Do you also sometimes miss your very first weeks/month in Second Life?
/by Heidi Ballinger
This is just a super super short short short video (30 seconds), made to illustrate how you also can use texture in Second Life.
I have previous used a script called “TextureAlign v1.6″ - this tool is awesome to more complicated and bigger buildings and designs. The script are developed by resident: Toomanytrubbles Colville.
/by Heidi Ballinger
I know it goes fast, but I hope it make sense in a short and quickly way.
(2 minutes).
lol and sorry about the strange music.
I was a little lazy so I looked for a music-file exact the length of my video, and I could chose between this and “My Boy Lollipop” hehe
The music is from an old Danish movie called “Olsen Banden”
/by Heidi Ballinger
Tonight I attended a meeting at Lindens Island (SL5B - the fifth year birthday island) with Dimitrio Lewis, Kate Linden, Torley Linden, Jeremy Linden and Mia Linden.
The meeting was about: Content creation, DMCA (Digital Models Not Subject To Copyright), Educational Resouces. Community Enlightenment, From the Knowledge Base to the Wiki to those Video Tutorials etc.
Click here to read the transcript from the meeting.
Pictures from the meeting
Torley looks cuter than ever
Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
This evening I attended an interview at Lindens Island (SL5B - the fifth year birthday island) with Tom Boellstorff about his new book “Coming of Age in Second Life” An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human.
Tom Boellstorf, Associate Professor of Anthropology (PhD: Stanford, 2000).
A very interesting interview – Tom has many deeper thoughts, and I’ve just bought the book last week, and can’t wait to read it. Read the rest of this entry »
/by Heidi Ballinger
Monday evening I attended the weekly meeting at “Metanomics” in Second Life.
Robert Bloomfield (Beyer Sellers); interview with Christian Renaud, and Cybergrrl Oh introduced Christian Renaud in a very interesting and personal way
Watch the video at Metanomics site and read the rest of this text - click here:
“Christian Renaud announced June 27, 2008 that he was leaving his position as Chief Architect of Networked Virtual Environments for the Cisco Technology Center. Host Robert Bloomfield explored Renaud’s experience in the heart of Cisco’s incubator for emerging virtual technologies. Find out why Renaud believes that “Second Life and its walled/closed ilk will fade into the sunset in the next 24-36 months.”
Pictures from the meeting:
Read the rest of this entry »
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