Nine newbie questions...

Hello Dianna and welcome to the forum *smile

I'm going to try and shorten your questions in my quotes, so hang in there



Take time, explore, find your bearings. You don't need a place to live right away. If you want a place to set your home location to, there's several locations out there that will allow you to do that.



Sure there is. Head for the texturing forums, read the sitckies and tutorials, get messing around and then ask questions if you have any. I'm in the same line of dummies, but I'm managing to make some stuff. It's time-consuming and at times frustrating, but if you like making things, it can also be great fun.



No comment .....



Sounds like lag to me, or in other words, things being slow to appear. It's also a frustration mentioned earlier here.



This forum is a good place to start
Seriously......... I would recommend searching groups for your own interests, or check out the live music scene



Meeting people and making friends are two seperate issues. You can meet lots of fun people by going to venues that spark your interest. Search for events, or even live music
Also, if the forum crowd appeals to you, you could check out the forum hangout. It's a pretty cool place on the whole. Ask Brenda Connolly or Chris Norse for an invite to join the group (or Trout with his new-found powers).



That would be a whole different thread altogether..... but if I were gong to mention two non-obvious places...... you could check out Ivalde for some nicely done outfits that are labelled "vintage", but IMHO very nicely done and not over-priced. Or check Oryx Temple's store for some gorgeous non-western outfits.



Where have you been hanging out????? Mute (via their profile), ignore, walk away, go elsewhere.



Say "no thank you I'd like to get to know people before I befriend them"

Hope that helps

I'm hoping someone will. Nice one Trout!

Thank you for all the info - so many replies in such a short time! And also thanks to those of you who sent me messages privately and asked me to contact you and hang out in-world. I really appreciate it.

What is a wind up? I really am new, trust me. I've just spent the better portion of the past three days in SL (which is VERY bad, because I need to be working on my research papers for law school in RL) and I've been teleporting all over the place like crazy to see what's out there. AND I've read of bunch of threads on here. I don't remember what questions 5-7 were, but I can't believe you don't think that 8 and 9 don't sound like newbie questions. I thought the pervs were targeting me precisely BECAUSE I'm new.

I'll get back to you with the hardware information. I think it may very well be the graphics card, though, as that was a problem (for other reasons) on the last two Dell laptops I owned. For the last one I found a really good driver to download for free that solved all my problems - if I can only remember what the name was or how I found it... but anyway, I'll try that first, and if I still have problems, we'll see. Could be overheating too. My father loves gadget-techie shopping - I'll ask him for one for Xmas.

One more thing. I wasn't very clear about the map thing. I can open the window itself, but only portions of the map show, and the rest of it is blue. Some sections have "opened up" as in started to show all of the time, but others where I have spent a lot of time in-world still show up as blue unless I'm zooming in all the way, so it's hard to find them without doing a search. I was just wondering if they are showing up as blue because I haven't spent as much time in that area - because that doesn't seem right - or if it's because a lot of the land around it (and interspersed throughout it) is undeveloped (or whatever else might make it show up as an "invalid location" if I click on it). Either way, I wanted to know if there's a way to see the whole thing. Some of the portions that aren't showing up for me yet regularly have a high population.

Thanks again!

I would disagree with that, but I suppose it's down to how you use an application. Both come with plenty of help files, and tutorials on the net are countless. I'd love to know where you find PS for $40 though



Except those of us who have. If you just wander round SL, you will find a lot of that - it's basically the same as just clicking random links on the internet - you'll find porn. But if you use the search function, look for groups and places that you might be interested in, then you'll end up in some incredible places. I think the gallery forum here might be a place to look if you want links to beautiful, impressive places in SL. But seriously, I haven't wandered into anything in the least bit offensive for months, because of how I explore.

It'd be lovely to just fly through sims and find beautiful places without landing in a puddle of porn every five minutes, but this is a world made by a lot of individuals, and so you get to see their interests - and they might not all be your cup of tea. Luckily, we have the tools to find what we want to see. Hit search. Look at places and groups. Ask, as you are doing, but more specifically - and people will be glad to give you landmarks to places that might interest you.

But no, I wouldn't search for events. Measures were taken to reduce the spam that ends up in those listings but were never enforced. Your best bet for finding events you might enojy is to find the groups you like first, and then show up to their events when they send out notices.

Hi Dyanna, and welcome!

The blue on the map is vacant. Each little square that you see is called a region, or sim. The vast vast vast majority of them don't exist yet. You can't enter them at all because you would *shudder* go into The Void, which is really bad for us avis.

Re: men. I generally shake them off like dogs humping my leg and teleport away.

Re: Living. I've been here for a year now. Had a cute place, had a big place, now have no place. Am very happy being homeless. Once you learn all the tricks of changing clothes in public n stuff, you don't really NEED any place at all. It's not like you need to sleep or eat. Lots of people do, however, like to build or buy their dream house and fill it with all kinds of cool stuff. Just a matter of preference really.

Hi Dyanna,
There are folks here who are better suited to answering most of your questions then I am, but I will share some comments about my own experience realted to your first two questions:

1. During my first week on SL I was eager to jump into getting a house, before I really thought about why I wanted one and before checking into all of the options. If you really want a place to call home, I would suggest renting an affordable apartment in a nice hotel for a week or so - someplace you can furnish and decorate but that isn't too big an investment (or hold off on renting/buying at all for right now). Then, think about what you want in a home - a community to be part of? A huge estate that you can decorate? Just someplace to change clothes? A place for parties? let those answers help guide you to the right place for you. I'm a die hard renter right now, because I like having the freedom to move if my tastes or needs change.

2. My first few weeks on sl, I was sure that I had NO chance of becoming a builder. I'm a writer, so I am confident in my creativity, but I have very little experience or skill working with photoshop, etc. Then I started playing around with building. I downloaded and manipulated textures, came up with my own methods for designing shirts that work around my tech shortcomings, and eventually started building furniture. Now, months later, I've furnished my house with my own furniture and manage to make some $L selling shirts, furniture and art in my stores. All that is just to say not to sell yourself short yet. Play around with the building controls and take your time.

Also, there really are things to do in SL. I found that to find fun I had to work backwards. Instead of looking up things to do, I first had to think about what kinds of things i enjoy in RL (roller coasters, haunted houses, dancing, art, etc) then search for those things in SL.

Hope you find something in this long post helpful!

I want to know where non-pirated $40 Photoshop programs are, too! But no worries, as Conan says, you can your feet wet with the freebie GIMP program. PaintShopPro is a mid range alternative that you can get for less than $100 (it's what I use, actually).

Trust me, no one was more computer illiterate than I a year ago, and I learned how to use graphics programs and even script here. There's many incredibly helpful people here, as long as you show a willingness to roll up your sleeves and dive in.

NCI and the Shelter have been mentioned. The stickies in the Texturing forum also make for good reading. My favorite tutorial blog is here: http://slnatalia.blogspot.com/2006/11/build.html

Hope all that helps, and don't let some of the initial tawdriness put you off. SL has many fun communities within it, covering a wide scope of interests. I am a Victoriana obsessive, and off the top of my head, I can name five sims (or collections of sims) that cater to that, for example.

Conan probably meant Photoshop Elements, which goes for right around $40. So let's not get too excited

I'm going to address the "What do I do in SL and how do I meet non-humping people?" question because I think that is the most important--and the lack of an answer to this one is the reason the majority of people leave SL with an "I don't get it" look on their face.

Two things helped me. The first was that I joined SL with two friends. One of them had heard about SL and we all joined the same day. Having someone with me made it easier to explore, being kind of shy and unwilling to approach people. Plus it was fun to learn together and laugh at each other and our experiences. Naturally, we weren't together all the time, but having that comfort at least part of the time made me more willing to put myself out there.

The second thing was that on about my third day, I finally really discovered the search function. *blushes* I started doing what many people have already suggested--I searched for any oddball term that appealed to me and saw where it lead me. Very quickly, I found a roleplay sim I was comfortable with and immersed myself in playing that character and in the community. I made lots of friends there, found a mentor who taught me the SL basics (fixed up my avatar, building basics, tips and trips, etc.) and my circle continued to grow. Although, I no longer am a part of that roleplay community and have found an entirely different niche in SL that is more "me", I will be forever grateful to those that took me under their wing and showed me the ropes when I was soooo new and unfamiliar with SL.

So, that's my advice! Good luck to you.

Kick in the balls so it creates a vagina...he he he he.......That's getting used first chance I get. Maybe RL even.

First off, thanks again to everyone. This box of notes and stuff from Lucrezia Lamont is great.

I have two follow-up questions, and they both involve finding things...

First, about a place to live. No, I don't need one, I just want one really bad, and almost entirely for the purpose of decorating it. I love decorating, but can't really afford to do much with my tiny apartment in RL, so this would be enormous fun for me. The question is, how do I search for land in-world? The map says that land for sale is marked by a yellow box, but there are never any yellow boxes on my map. Also, how do I search for a place to rent? I have come across a few apartment buildings before but they were all full.

Second, how do I find other places, groups, etc? The search function on the map only works by region name. I can't search for, say, a business by its name. Is there some other search function I should be using? As for groups, I can find those on the SL website, but that only gives me the group name and number of members, and no way to find or contact them. In other words, it only tells me that they exist somewhere, and that's it.

And then one separate question that's not really important but I'm curious. What's the deal with SL time? Is it set to a particular time zone? And what about the light and dark - does that depend entirely on the location, or does it change in some places depending on the time? I know at least a few that I've been to stay either light or dark all the time. Just wondering. Oh, and my profile says I was born November 30. That's strange, because it's only the 28th today... what am I missing? Thanks!

Dyanna if you're online now I can walk you through Search. It's sort of confusing at first but quick to learn...

Re: SL Time: It's set to Standard Pacific Time (US) which means that right now it's 8:24 pm SLT. The days are roughly, from what I remember, 4 hours long with one hour of night. Sunrise and sunset sort of squeeze in between.

There's a Search button at the bottom of the viewer screen which gives you multiple options. Second Life Time (SLT) is comparable to the Pacific time zone, since Linden Lab is in San Francisco, CA.

1) place to live - there are tons of rentals out there and NCI should have a list of places that offer free rent to new residents. Learn about prim allowances before you spend even 1L on setting up housekeeping.

2) The real search is found via a menu button at the bottom of your screen. There is a tab for places, people, groups, events, etc..

3) SL time runs in cycles of something like 4 hours of daylight, half hour of dusk, one hour of night and a half hour of dawn. You can override the time of day by going to the World menu and down at the bottom you will see an option to "Force Sun."

If anyone knows the answer to the "November 30th" as birth date in profile, I'd also want to know. Until now, I just thought a few of you had the same birthday as me LOL. I hadn't really looked at many profiles so I just thought it was a huge coincidence that the few I did look at were of people who were born on the same day as me. I guess it's not that important - probably just borked. Anywhoo, it's not just you Dyanna...

Perhaps the hardest question you asked was where to find non-prostitute clothing. I guess it must be in demand judging by the shops I see but try Panjen, Awesome Designs, Tuli, Preen, CMFF and 3 Cupcakes for some everyday causal wear. The non Fredericks of Hollywood shops are out there but it takes some time finding them.

Others pointed to the proper "Search" function, which should help a lot. One tab on the Search window is "Land Sales" which will list the parcels that show up yellow on the Map. But those won't include pure rentals, so you'll probably want to try the Classified tab of Search for those.

(Gosh, land is really complicated: What is and isn't a "rental" is like a whole epistemological Dead Zone that I just blithely oversimplified in hopes of some coherence.)

Isablan's advice is especially apt about understanding prim limits. Then look around at how many prims are in different items. (E.g., you can have a 45-prim sofa, or a 1-prim sofa plus 44 other 1-prim things consuming the same amount of your prim allowance. So it's helpful to get a feel for that before buying very many items.)

And I really want to again recommend doing a rental for a while, first. You can have a lot of fun decorating your own place, without having to actually *own* the place. And you don't have to rent a place in an apartment building if you don't want to--you can just rent bare land and put up a freebie house and start decorating that. Or experiment with building your own house, if that would be fun. If after a few weeks you find the dream location to buy, then you can just move everything to the new spot.

Nobody wants to discourage you from having fun with your own place, and it wouldn't be the end of the world if you were to buy the "wrong" land. It's just that knowing what's the right land for your SecondLife kinda takes a while: the meaning of "your SecondLife" may develop pretty rapidly for a while. That process of development is pretty exciting--enjoy it!

I like Jonquille Noir's store, Little Rebel, for nice casual clothes (and LOTS to pick from, too!).

As for getting men off you, I don't have a clue. That's why, to this day, when I walk around SL, I have two to three guys attached to my body.

coco

The Gnubie Store in Indigo is a fantastic resource to find decent things for 1L.

Textures, clothes, tattoos, furniture - it exposes you to some of the best creators in this game.

I would hang out at The Shelter - it's very newbie friendly, fun, and has great 80s music if you're into that. And they have fun events like Building Shelter which is a building contest where you can see others' creativity and challenge your own.

Renting vs Buying: I am going to chime in two ways:

1. Don't do it yet. You don't need to live anywhere in SL. Get out and explore, and learn how to change clothes without getting naked. Just have fun before imposing the burden of ownership or renting on yourself.

2. When you are ready to get a place (that is, after reading a bit on land and knowing the differences between certain types of land and how the general business works), I would suggest renting first so you can get an idea of where you would prefer to live, the amount of prims you need for your personal style, and see if it will match up with your budget for when you are ready to buy land WITHOUT committing to something that you may regret purchasing later.

Non slutty places to shop: First Impressions is great for business and more conservative wear, many decent and beautiful pieces at Last Call (RIP Ginny), $25 Diva has reasonably priced things, and many are not slutty. Nuclear Boutique has lovely and tasteful things (hi Ari!). Rufeena (hi Zazas!) also has a lot of nice clothes. All places (except First Impressions, for the most part) will have some racy gear, but if you shop well, you can find balanced, conservative pieces that are not short on style.

I also reiterate the plug to search for "favorite places" in the forum, but will put in a plug for Parrot Bay Rock Club in Borgatti. Very friendly place, great people who are very much like a family. And no cads trying to hump your leg.

There is a button on the map page that you press to show land for sale. Make sure thats pressed. Then you see all the yellow squares. If you are not seeing any when looking at a mainland continent, then you must have that switched off. There is ALWAYS lots of yellow on mainland.


Good Luck and Welcome to SL

I am sending you a private message Dyanna, so check your IM's when you come onto the grid.

imogen

Hi Dyanna, welcome to the forums and to Second Life

I just wanted to say hi, and If you ever need any help with anything please feel free to IM or PM me. I'm in-world most evenings and on the forums most days, so you shouldn't have to wait too long for a reply lol. I'm new but I might be able to help - or point you to someone who can lol.
I have plenty of good freebie places if you are looking for clothes etc - you may have to filter the junk, but mostly its worth it for the little gems you will find
As for buying a house - I would wait a little bit. read as much as you can about it (there are enought posts lol) and go in well informed. There's no rush and it will be worth it when you find that special place
I found this blog a very useful tool, I'm new myself, and this just made everything so much easier.
www.slnatalia.blogspot.com
Start on the right side of the page at the top. There is a getting started in SL guide, newbie tips and tricks, and tutorials on how to make things. If you want to make clothes GIMP is a must - I have it. Let me know if you need any more information.
There have been some great replies to this but you might also want to check out the top 5 tips for a newbie thread. Its the sticky at the top of the forum.
You can search for places and people and groups by using the search button at the bottom of your viewer. When the window opens, click on what you want to search for (e.g. groups) and type in the keywords in the search box (e.g. forum cartel). It will bring up a list. click the right entry, it will bring a preview up on the right. if it is correct, you can teleport to the place, view the person's profile or the group profile. you can also view the group profile by double clicking the correct entry. (I'm not sure what you do about land for sale search but people have already explained that.)
If you want to go to a group's land, you can view the profile, click the land and usage tab and choose one of the places to teleport to (double click then click teleport). Try it with the Forum Cartel's Hangout. i am not sure whether you need to be part of a group to teleport to their land. Or for an easier way, get someone in here to give you a landmark.
SL is a wonderful place but can be a bit bewildering if you try to go it completely alone. I hope you enjoy yourself and don't forget that most people are kind and willing to help
Good luck, see you at the hangout

xxClairexx

Originally Posted by Dyanna Mornington
1. I need a place to live.

Well this depends all on the amount of cash to want to spend, as much as how much your decorating will costs you in prims

As for me, I started buying 512, moved very soon to 4096, and spent way too much money on that. Now I rent a parcel on an Island, almost 6000 m2, no prim limit to worry about (yet).

Lets say you want an empty parcel, to put your own house down (lotsa fun to shop for the house ):

I'd say (like most here) start renting, not buying. You can easily move if you dont like the region you are in, without worries to have to sell your property. Renting I would do on estate land, where you should read the convenant very well. If you do not plan to start a shop, you can go for residential. There are huge differences in rent rates, so take your time.

Do not buy on islands as long as you do not know who you are buying from. I have done some buying and selling of island property in the past, but always knowing it was from a trustworthy island owner.

For your information: Mainland is the land with no convenant, owned by Linden Lab in the end (though you buy from other SL residents). Island or Estate is owned by LS residents, who may or may not kick you off their land whenever they feel like it. There are quite a few you can trust, raymond had a list i think ), just be aware of the fact. As for me, i prefer living on estate land


Originally Posted by Dyanna Mornington
3. Speaking of computers,

Try out the new windlight client. I was crashing often with the old client on my laptop, but the new windlight client never crashed up to now! My laptop does get quite warm though

As for the rest of your questions: Just follow the links people gave you already, ignore the humping newbies with the wooden dicks, have fun and explore. Soon you will find your way in SL, and find out what you like best. For me it is the building, for you it might be something completely different.

Last advice: Don't let SL absorb you A recent investigation in the netherlands showed that 10% of the SL users is addicted. Well, that whole 10% is regular writing on this forum. But not me. I am not addicted. No way.

Have fun, Marcel

do not buy your land from the auctions. you will be paying top dollar and bidding against experienced land dealers and ad cutters. if you want to look at land for sale open 'search' in the viewer then go to 'land'. select 'mainland' from the dropdown and enter >500 (to filter out tiny little plots).
you can buy a nice prefab house for $L500 - $L1000 (you can even find them for $L50 i suppose). until you get some practice building, a prefab is probably your best option.
i think you should rent for a while before buying. youre three days old and there is a bit to learn before you can really be confident youre buying a nice plot of land worth the asking price. just because a plot of land is the cheapest on the market that doesnt necessarily mean it is worth even that amount of $. rent for a month and familiarise yourself with the land tools, the concept of 'prims', the reality of devaluation (adfarms, junkyards nextdoor, etc). normally rents are $L250-450/wk for a smallish plot. if youre premium, your weekly stipend would likely cover any rental fees.

you wont know until you try. take a shot at some texturing, scripting, building, marketing, etc. you never know where your real talents may lie, and you might realise that one of these things might be very enjoyable for you.

the official viewers always run like crap on my computer. download and run the nicholaz client. you can have both the official client and the nicholaz client installed at the same time.

i dont understand the question.

secondlife search is much like google. those with commercial interests are far more motivated to achieving a high search ranking. try avoiding 'popular places' and high ranked search results and see where you end up. open up ppls profiles and check their 'picks'.

stick around these forums a bit and you will meet people that dont belong to the above 4 groups.

ive been wearing the same 3 outfits for the past 4 months or so. i am the wrong person to answer this question.

i repeatedly pick them up and slam them into the ground

accept the friendship offer, open 'friends' and make sure the eyeball is disabled (you will appear offline to them). let a week or so pass then drop them from your friends list.
or 'marry' your own alt and tell them that youre flattered but unfortunately committed.

re: not seeing the yellow for sale land on the map

i believe that the yellow is an overlay. it seems that once the map graphic loads then the yellow parcels begin to appear over the top of it. so wait a bit before determining that there is no land for sale.
also watch for the white pricetags with the green $ sign in the map.

ps: if you have no luck finding a rental i will give you a 300 prim 1024 plot for one month, no fee no strings.

I originally joined in 2003 during beta.
It was very difficult time for me so I didn't really stay for long.
I kept up over years with some of changes sometimes in SL but I didn't really come back until last year after months of fighting against returning.
There is lot to learn.
I don't recommend the new update if you have older computer, with low memory and video card because it lowers the FPS this can cause issues with your computer slowing down, lag and things just becoming difficult.
My friends who use Windlight it lowers their FPS considerably often lower then what I have and they have better computers.
One mistake I did when I returned is I went spent lot of money on Linden dollars on land and tier before I understood how to do this safely.
It was very expensive choice.
I am still premium but I have given all my land to my friend that I shared the sim and have cut back what I spend.
There is lot one can do clothing wise with right textures and exploring the appearance sliders but often most people feel they need to shop to buy things before they know who to shop from and often buy lot of junk they may never use.
Problem I had with being newbie and search was one I couldn't figure out how to get to locations I want to go.
I couldn't figure out how to see how to travel to the locations.
Part of it was my computer screen settings and then I realized I could move the lower tool bar through the menu option in view.
Once I could see the teleport option it made things whole lot easier.
I just created a alt few days ago myself for secret exploring trips and one of things I noticed is there is new hud device that explains the search and map.
Do you still have it?
Or did you have hard time understanding or seeing it?
I am guy I have never had sex here. I don't shop or try to sell people anything.
My closest friends are very nice people most of them are all female and they won't sell
you anything or try to hump your leg.
I tend to keep to myself and few friends but if you need anything you can message me via the forum private messages or look for me in people search.
Good luck.