Last day of the Second Life Mentor group

Today is scheduled to be the last day of the Second Life Linden Lab operated volunteer groups, the Second Life Mentor group, Second Life Mentor Q&A, and the Instructor group.

I’ve been in the Mentor group for years.  It’s kind of sad to see the groups go.

I’ve had a lot of fun explaining how to get a box off your head and telling people that they need to update their video drivers or perhaps downdate their video drivers and other such things.

There’s a new plan in place for Linden Lab to interface with resident run help groups.  There’s a bit about it at this blog post: https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/volunteers/rhn_guidelines/blog/2009/11/23/join-the-resident-help-network .

Best wishes to my fellow soon to ex official SL volunteers and to the staff who’ve dealt with us over the years.

Hipihi next version preview video

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There’s a preview of some of the features of the next version of Hiphi at http://www.vimeo.com/4057576

The next version appears to have cars you can ride in and doors that move, among other nice things.

There are dark spells in the video, presumably the result of Hipihi’s rigid day-night cycle, which I’ve felt all along is a serious mistake, both for average users who want to see the world around them, but also for making videos. Machinimatography without control of the lights – yuch, bad decision, Hipihi.

It appears that land editing allows for making caves or something similar; either that or you can deform a prim’s mesh.

There are fluttering flags as well.

There’s rain – I hope, though I don’t know, that if there has to be rain, it won’t be rain that goes through objects. Better no rain than rain that goes through objects.

The video shows a nice shiny effect, I don’t know if that’s new or just not something I can see in the current version very well owing to my lousy video card.

I don’t have an ETA for this next version.

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uWorld Architectural Tools help file with Google translation

I’ve copied and pasted and smooshed together a version of  another one of the uWorld help files, this time the Architectural Design Tools.

http://suezanne.freehostia.com/uWorld%20Help/16_2.html

It is my understanding that there are programs that can translate both html and pdf files that include images and leave the images in place.  I wish I had one.

Even better would be one that would insert the translated text following the original text and adjust the height of pages and page break locations such that the original pagination is preserved despite the insertion of additional text.

And then automatically put it into a wiki or other collaborative editing system.

uWorld Build Editor

I’ve added Google translations to the uWorld help system’s page on the uWorld build editor, in the event anyone’s interested.  It’s at http://suezanne.freehostia.com/uWorld%20Build%20Editor/16_7.html

In search of uWorld info in English

I have just sent an email to uonenet@uonenet.com as follows:

Hello,

I am in search of help information for uWorld in English.

I am also seeking a person, a contact, who can answer questions about the installation and use of the uWorld virtual world in English.

I don’t speak or read Chinese.  I know of several other people interested in uWorld who don’t speak Chinese who are also interested in English language information about how to register on the uwo3d web site and how to install uWorld and how to use the program, which is quite hard for those who don’t speak Chinese.

Possibly you might want to send a similar email if you are wanting to find out about uWorld.

There is a facebook uWorld group, which I have just joined.

If there are any bilingual Chinese-English speakers interested in uWorld who can help us English only people get the new version of uWorld installed on our non-Chinese-localized Windows and Vista systems please contact me.

If anyone has any further ideas on how to find uWorld information please reply.  Thanks.

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uWorld forums – why don’t my posts show up?

I’m registered with the forums for the uWorld virtual world, and I can sign in and make a post, and it appears to work except for one small problem: the posts don’t show up in the forum index.

It’s hard to deal with a website in a language you can’t read, and which if you are using a translated version, doesn’t work because you can’t be signed in on the translated version.

The url for the uWorld forums is http://bbs.uworld3d.com/mvnforum/mvnforum/index .

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uWorld upgraded, uWorld no longer works

I got an email advising me of an upgrade to the uWorld virtual world.

Following the link in the email led to a page with two choices, which Google language tools translated as a choice between a patch and a complete new install file.

I tried the patch first.  After installing the patch, I was unable to connect to uWorld.  The program starts, but vanished from the screen with no error message.

Then I tried the complete installation.  This will get to the login screen, but doesn’t proceed.  Clicking the big button which I believe means “log on” doesn’t cause you to connect and log on.

Anyone had any luck getting the new version of uWorld to work on English localized Windows?

Novoking .94 – no more flying or just a change of controls?

Is there really no more flying in Novoking version .94 , or just a change of controls?

If there was a English translation of the help files I suppose I might not be asking this here.

Www.novoking.com is the place to go the check out this virtual world.

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Tags: Novoking, Suezanne, SuezanneCB, virtual worlds

Hipihi and Novoking – why not normal resizable windows?

Both Novoking and Hipihi don’t have resizable windows that you can maximize and have them fill the screen minus the taskbar area. (Like the browser you are reading this in does.)

In both Hipiihi and Novoking you can make it full screen or not, when not, it doesn’t fill the screen, and doesn’t fill the screen minus the taskbar.

So with both programs, you can accidentally hit the area outside of the virtual world’s window, like some annoying add on the browser, or accidentally hit the close window X on the program behind the virtual world window.

These two programs are the only programs I use that have this flaw.

In my decades of computer use I have never once wanted a program to work like these programs do regarding the size of the program window.

It’s annoying.

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Tags: Novoking, Hipihi, virtual worlds, annoyances, Suezanne, SuezanneCB

Hipihi is open beta now

The indented section following is copied from the HIpihi forums English language forum, the Overseas Zone:

HiPiHi enters open public beta

We are very excited announce the debuting of HiPiHi’s open public beta test, beginning from April 18^th,
2008. From now on, our HiPiHi world will welcome new residents from all
corners around the world and join our existing residents on this
magical land created by yourselves.

During this period, feel free to invite your friends to become new residents through our new resident registration page

For our existing residents (who did not complete the name-change process during April 2nd -17^th),
we will kept your virtual assets on our server but your username runs
the risk of being over-ridden by new residents as their “nickname”. You
can still use your old username and password to take back your assets.

Here are some examples for you to understand your situation:

1. Resident
   “Happygirl” did not complete the name-change process during April 2nd
   -17th. From April 18th, new residents may take this name as their
   nickname.
2. If Resident “happygirl” trys to log in after
   April 18th, she will be auto-directed to the name-change page, where
   she may still use “Happygirl” as her username if it has not been taken
   by new users, or to change her name (e.g. “happgirl_me”) if her old
   name was occupied by a new resident.

We kindly remind you to enter our name-change page as soon as possible to protect your old username.

Note: Please download our 50021 customer side for your usage in this new period.

Download link: http://www.hipihi.com/download/HiPiHi_world_50021.exe

The start page for Hipihi is hipihi.com .

The English information page is at http://www.hipihi.com/index_en.html .

The English registration page is at http://service.hipihi.com/member/register/en/register.jhtml .

For help in English with Hipihi you can use the Hipihi OverSeas Zone forum, once you’ve registered with Hipihi. Note that the forum software itself is in Chinese.

Another place to go for help in English with Hipihi is http://www.ideashape.cn . Note that the forum software at http://www.ideashape.cn is in English.

There’s also a Hipihi group in facebook.

The downloads from Hipihi have always been slow for me, and they might for you. So – be patient. It’s not like you have to just watch the download screen it’s downloading.

I’m still waiting for the download to complete, so I don’t know exactly what to expect yet.

This is a beta; it’s not the finished product. One can expect to have some rocky riding during a beta.

I’m not sure about the language requirements for this version, or the degree to which the interface is available in English.

So – why not give Hipihi a try?

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Tags: Hipihi, Virtual Worlds, SuezanneCB