Rediscover SL

My journey through SL has been long and shaky. When I was a newbie, all blueeyed and amazed over everything I saw. I remember setting up goals about what I wanted to do in SL. I’ve done what I set out to do, and more. I’ve created clothes, built houses, bought land. I even discovered the live music scene and that was really cool. I don’t get out much in RL and SL gave me a chance to do that.

Then I started to loose interest in the virtual world. I think it was a combination of problems in RL and that a lot in SL got “old”. I had a lot of “been there, done that” and I also started to get irritated about a lot of things, the money fixation, the sex focus and the techical problems in SL. So I stayed out for long periods of time. Maybe got online every other week. Friends disappeared and that contributed to my lack of interest in the virtual world.

Then a while back, I got to think about what I used to like in SL when I still was all blueeyed and amazed, before all my problems began. I’ve decided to rediscover Second Life again. I’ll start a new journey, with fresh new eyes. Stop by at all the best places, listen to the best music and find new friends to hang out with. Apart from that I’ll decorate my house and stay close to the friends I have left.

When I come across the real jems of SL, I’ll write about it, take snapshots and post it here. I invite you, come and experience the new Second Life with me! The journey has just begun?

Blog sites

Next lesson in my computer/internet school. This time I thought I’d cover blogging sites. When I first heard of blogging it seemed alien to me. Then I tried it and couldn’t make it work, but eventually, I got the bug. Now I can’t imagine not blogging when I feel inspired. Of course, blogging requires a blog site, or software and a website and most of all a blog platform.

My favorite blog platform is WordPress. Yay! I absolutely adore WordPress. WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

The difference is that WordPress.com is a sort of web hotel, where you get your WP blog hosted for free. It does mean you get fewer choices in blog themes, plugins, widgets etc. You might also have trouble directing your domain name to your WP blog. Domain name – well, properly that should be covered in a separate post, one about homepages, webspace and, well, domain names. I’m not going to do that though. This is it. Blogs and homepages covered in one single blog post.

The reason for that is that today, most people hardly know what a homepage is and have trouble creating one. Even as late as a year ago, I was stubbornly sticking to my homepage and wanted to program it myself, using an editor, naturally. I’m not that good with html programming. Then it hit me – why should I do all the ground work, when my ‘thing’ is writing, primarily, and to some extent, photography?

I have come to the conclusion, that while I would love to make a blog theme 100 % as I like it, there are so many themes out there, that I can be pretty content with one someone else made.

Anyway, back to the domain name. It doesn’t have to be that expensive, if you want one. There’s no reason why you should need one, but if you do want one, it’s easy to get and won’t cost you too much. Unfortunately, there’s a catch. When isn’t there? It could be a bit tricky, configuring it. I’m afraid I can’t help you there, but there should be help available online.

You can also get a domain name for free. It won’t be a ‘real’ domain name, but it will shorten your URL and make it easier to remember. Uni.cc and cjb.net are the ones I’ve tried. Both work fine.

For a homepage, you’ll need webspace and if you don’t mind ads, you can get some for free. If not, there should be web hotels that have reasonable prices. My family and I are lucky enough to have found one that doesn’t charge much but offers a lot of space.

You’ll also need a web editor. There are some available online for free. I can’t tell you how good they are, because I haven’t tried them, but I’ve been told they’re quite good. Finally, you’ll need an ftp program, unless your webspace offers a web based file upload option.

Let’s get back to blogging. You’ll still need webspace if you decide to get your blog software from WordPress.org and if you like, a domain name. The upside is you get to choose any theme you like and you can get plugins and widgets.

The main advantage of both WP types is the ease of updating, editing etc. It’s a breeze compared to editing in a web editor. That’s why I decided in favor of a blog, rather than an old-fashioned homepage.

Social networks

I thought I’d continue my computer/internet “school”. This time I’d like to get into social networks, the ones I like best.

Since I’m a vegan, animal and human rights advocate and so on, Care2 is one of my favorite sites. It’s a social network for people who ‘care’. Features include free email, messaging, free e cards that help save rainforest and free donations. There are also groups that you can create and/or join. There’s even an instant messaging service. You also get a personal profile page that you can customize, where you can add photos, movies etc.

There are several veggie related communities – CrueltyFree, Vegan World, VegSpace. They’re all nice, but don’t feel very active. Maybe I haven’t really gotten to know them well enough yet. You get a profile page, messaging etc.

For other specialized interests I can mention LiveJournal and Vox. LiveJournal is a community that evolves around blogging/journal writing. Vox is quite similar to LJ, but here you get to upload media – photos, movies, music etc.

Speaking of media – Zooomr is a very cool photo site. You get unlimited storage space and hotlinking is allowed – that means you can store your photos, then link to them on your blog, profile page, home page etc.

If you’re into animals there are several different networking sites intended for animal lovers. Petster is for people with all kinds of pets. Catster is for cat lovers and Dogster is for dog lovers. There are others – BunSpace is another example, but the basic level doesn’t really allow you to do anything, so I can’t tell you much about it.

For those of us who are passionate about our writing, there are online archives where you can post your stories and poems and hopefully get comments. Naturally, you can also look for things to read.

FanFiction.net is probably the main site for fan fiction enthusiasts, but there are others – FanWorks is another I can mention. There you can also upload artwork.
FictionPress is for original fiction.

Finally, I’d like to mention a language learning network – LiveMocha. I’ve only started using the site so I can’t tell you all that much, but so far it looks impressive. You can learn new languages or practice one you already know and get help from native speakers.

A break

As my regular readers might have realized, I haven’t written anything for a long time. First the reason was that my RL was taking a lot of my time. I actually had things to do for a change. Now, when things have slowed down, it might take some time until I can write something. And it might take even longer before I can enjoy SL again. And quite some time longer before I can enjoy RL again. I’ll answer if someone contacts me, but I won’t be Lila for a while. If I could, I wouldn’t be my RL self either. Wish I could take a break from life for a while.

Being part of a community

I’m an old internet veteran. Have been part of different communities, newsgroups and been making homepages since the dawn of the internet and now I’m an experienced blogger. This blog is only one of several. I’ve been having a really difficult time in RL. I got bullied at work, burned out, was cheated on payment from my old job, on sick leave for deep depression – these are only a few of the things that happened to me. In the end I got help and started to live again after a couple of years of not being able to do anything.

I’d been struggling at work for a long time, so one of the first things I did was to contact my old friends, both in RL and online. I hadn’t been paying attention to anyone and anything for ages. Some of them had disappeared during this time but the true ones were still there. Another thing I did was to join a few new communities. Some of the old ones I’d been part of wasn’t around anymore. That’s what happens on the internet. Persons and homepages come and go. One of the communities I joined was SL Universe. At first it seemed to be a very good community, friendly, fun and I thought I found friends there. I’d been part of lots of communities and on the surface it seemed one of the good ones.

But more and more I found out that the community consists of a small group of people who had been friends for a long time. They were surrounded by a big group of people applauding whatever they did. I admit there are a few truly good persons there, but sadly none of the ones I thought were my friends. If they are, they might be afraid to speak up or they will lose their place in the community.

What at first glance seemed like a good place to be while recovering from the recent events in RL turned out to be a small hell. If anyone wants to try joining this community, these are a few tips on how to get on there.

1) If you are part of a minority don’t ever admit it. They will smell blood and start to hover close to you. There will be lots of things about which you’re not even allowed to have views.

2) Don’t try to help anyone. The in crowd can’t do anything wrong, so there’s no use trying to help them. And if you try to help anyone else, you’ll be attacked.

3) If the in crowd decides you said something, don’t try to tell them otherwise. I know it’s a community and there will be evidence of what you said, but no one will read that anyway. Just keep quiet. If you want to stay, just admit you said what you didn’t say.

4) There are only a few things you’re allowed to post when you’re not part of the in crowd. Slutty pics of yourself in RL or SL are always good. Icons of smileys having sex is another one. Whate you post doesn’t have to make sense, the opposite is generally preferable.

5) Don’t care about anyone or anything, unless you are part of the in crowd. Then no rules apply except if you’re too close to the owner of the community.

6) Don’t ever admit you’re not into BDSM if you aren’t. If you accidentally do, whatever you say will be considered snarky. And if you are into BDSM, then make sure you’re a sub, that’s the only thing that is allowed if you’re not part of the in crowd.

7) If you are gay, then you’re more likely to be welcomed into this community. If you’re not, then the best thing you can do is to tell the in crowd how sexy they are, preferably those of the same gender as you.

8 ) If you want to post something, make sure you have read everything posted from the start of the community. It’s considered a crime to post something that has been posted before. Unless, yes, you guessed it, you’re part of the in crowd.

9) Don’t admit you’re not American, British might be ok, but everything else is considered ‘foreign’ and should be treated accordingly. No one will understand you and movies from your country are considered weird.

10) Don’t try to post anything there when you’re feeling down, unless you’re part of the in crowd, they thrive on weakness and will want to bite your head off.

11) Last, but not the least, don’t think that you’ll find friends there. Persons you have laughed with for weeks can suddenly stab you in the back if the in crowd decides it the proper thing to do, or simply start to ignore you.

What I experienced at SLU was new to me. I have never in all my years online seen this and I hope I never will again. I am not sad to have tried be part of this community since I’ve learned a lot about human nature. I’m more puzzled than anything else. What goes on there isn’t unique to the internet or to RL, but at SLU you’ll find it in a more pure form. The only thing I regret is thinking that I had found friends there. I feel stupid to have believed in them.

It was for them I got back that last time. Thought they were worth fighting my way back there. And even though I hate to admit it to myself, I do miss some of them. Miss them a lot.

Natural camping … bots…?

Natural camping

I came across these guys. All of them had the same tag on and they occupied all the camping spots there except two. Two avs with the same tag were waiting for the two only beanbags that weren’t occupied with members of that group.

I’ve come back a few times, and there’s always the same number of waiting avatars from that group as the number of beanbags in use by avs belonging to other groups. Why is that you think? Am I mean to suspect that they are actually the same person using several avs trying to beat the system?

picks

A lot of them also have the same picks. If they are the same person, or at least only a few, isn’t it unfair? I know I shouldn’t be mad, but I am. I hate cheaters.