New here... with questions

I hope it is okay to ask here, but I am still a bit lost.

Every time I log on, I end up at the same place. Is there any way that I can start some where else? This place is is pretty empty.

Is there any way to change what my avatar look like? I look really bad, and everyone else I have seen is so much better.

I'm giving you a link to NCI = New Citizens Inc. where they have great tutorials, freebies and wonderful folks to help

http://www.nci-sl.org/blog/

SLurl = http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kuula/71/173/28/

paste the SLurl into your browser and then pick the Teleport there option.

Oh and we were *all* new once!

Thank you.

Happy to help!-)

Hey Arch, welcome to SL!

When you are logged in, go to Edit > Preferences and on the general tab make sure "Show Start location from login screen" is ticked. You will then see another box under your logon info the next time you sign in where you can choose My Home, last location you were in or a region name. I usually have it set to last location so if you found somewhere more interesting, you will arrive at the same place next time.

Yes, we all start looking pretty plain when we arrive first time but there are lots of freebie stores with clothing and better skins.

Are you in-world at the moment?

No, I crashed and it hasn't let me back in yet.

I second the NCI recommendation. But to answer the immediate questions:

In Preferences, on the General Tab, you have a choice of setting your start location to be your home or your last location. In addition, there's a check box for showing the start location on the login screen.

You always have a single home location. You can change it, but only to infohubs or to land where the land owner has somehow given you permission to set home there. Once you change it, it sticks until the next time you change it.

Personally I find last location to be the most convenient, but decide for yourself. Either way, I suggest checking the box for showing the start location. This will show you where you will login to, but it also gives you the ability to log in to any sim whose name you know (and can spell correctly), assuming it's up and you have permission to be there.

There's always a risk that either your home or last location or a sim whose name you type will be down, in which case you'll be moved to some other sim. This used to happen much more frequently than it does now, but it still happens. I suggest you get in the habit of making sure your avatar is properly dressed before logging out, just in case you wind up being moved to an unexpected location.

I can send you some links and other stuff if you like to get you started.

That would be great. I was really getting bored, there is not much to do at Waterhead.

@Kidd: Thank you for the information. I fixed the browser.

Hey Arch,

I sent you some stuff in-world.

Ok, some shopping and other cool places for you. Check for my IM - have more things but need to make sure they are useful before sending - lol.

You can set home at SL Botanical Gardens if you join their group.

Also you can change Preferences (from Edit on top of your SL viewer) so that you will reappear at the last place you logged out from. That might add some variety to your Second Life.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User%27s_Manual
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User%27s_Manual

This "User's Manual" provides basic information about Second Life Viewer in the style of a software manual. Click the links to the right for additional topics.

To Open this Manual from within the Second Life viewer, Click the bottom toolbar Search button, All tab, then enter "User's Manual" into the Find: box, and select the first result. You can stretch the search window to make it more readable.

To everyone that sent me so much stuff... thank you very much. I think it will take me a few days to sort through everything. You guys ar e great and again thank you.

My first week in SL i spent it going around looking for freebies - type freebie in search and tp to each and every place, while you will find a lot of junk you also find some really nice stuff too. I even found a fairly nice shape and skin during my hunting!!! Good luck! and have fun.

By all means, get yourself out of Waterhead. That place is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. One of the worst of the infohubs.

You can set your Home location to any Linden-owned land (or for that matter, open Linden ocean).

You can also set Home to any land that you own or rent.

If you are a member of a group that owns land, many of them will allow you to set your Home location there. The Forum Cartel is one such. You can do that at Caledon Oxbridge, too...plus Oxbridge University has a great getting-started tutorial and lots of helpful people. Yet another good place for the newcomer is GQ Start. They have a classroom and a freebie store on the grounds. IM me or kelley Griffith for a group invitation.

If you use the GreenLife Emerald third party viewer, it has a neat feature. You can log in at the location shown on the login screen with the "Visit This Location" button at the lower right. The particular location shown is different each time you log in. I've visited some interesting places that way. The Emerald viewer is available from Modular Systems.

This is a list for people less than 30 days old in SL:

http://slfreestyle.blogspot.com/2009/08/list-under-30-days-avatar-resources.html

I was suggested to get the AO first and then concentrate on shape and skin and then hair.

Now I am starting to look through the clothes.

Make landmarks of the stores you visit that you really like so you can go back!

Don't forget to visit the GNUbie Store http://slurl.com/secondlife/Powder%20Mill/120/144/34/ and if you're into victorian/gothic clothes check out Silent Sparrow http://slurl.com/secondlife/Silent%20Sparrow and get the package of freebies for newbies there.

I just bumping this thread to thank all of those who gave much so much assistance in over the last week.
Before

After

LOL

No question that "after" is better than "before," but those arms and shoulders!

Are you a lumberjack? A longshoreman?

Yeah, the shape came with the skin, I need to see if I can to tone that down alot.

Heh. Yeah, sorry Arch. I didn't mean to sound critical of you. It's just that that kind of shape is a sort of male version of the Frankenbarbie: all boobs, hips, and hair.

Hopefully the shape is mod, so you can do that; if not, it's not hard to learn to modify a standard shape yourself. And have fun with it!

* Open Srearch
* Go to the People tab
* Type or paste the name in search field.
* hit search button or enter
* Select name to get profile up.
* hit IM in profile's second life tab.

Just giving my little bit of help here

Maschienenwerk has different types of male shapes including a skinny guy. But Arch should wear what he likes. Unless you're planning on asking him out Scylla?

LOL!!

Yeah, of course Arch should wear what he likes. I was just giving him one woman's opinion of that particular look.

On a different note, I sent a guy friend, a noob, to Maschienenwerk the other day, and he said it was gone. And I couldn't find it in search. Is it still around for sure?