Category Archives: HINTS & TIPS

Covenants And Other Helpful Information

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When you purchase land in Second Life from an estate such as ZoHa Islands, one of the things the salespeople often say before you purchase the land is, “Be sure and read the covenant before you purchase to make sure you can abide by the rules.” Much like when you install a new app on your phone, you must agree to the TOS (which most of us never read; because you can’t have the app without agreeing, so what does it matter,right?). However, in Second Life, when you purchase a parcel, you must agree to abide by the Covenant, and often people will just click yes without reading it, purchase the parcel and go on their merry way.

This is all well and good until a resident bumps up against a violation of the covenant. Then they get upset when contacted by estate managers to correct violations such as large buildings, screens, items that shout, when asked to reduce scripts, or when their land is reclaimed and their items returned due to non-payment of tier. Outraged residents will then kick up a ruckus and more often than not, the EM points out the covenant that they have violated. What we end up with is an unhappy customer, and all of this could be avoided simply by reading the covenant.

Unless you rent a whole sim (either a full prim region or a homestead, which have no covenant other than you must abide by Linden Lab’s Terms of Service), you must abide by the covenants of the estate. The covenants are essentially the rules of the sim. Much like RL, we must all get along when we live side by side on a sim, and in order to make sure everyone is reading from the same playbook, we have a set of rules that everyone must follow in order to have a pleasant living experience for all.

There are different covenants for different types of land. To see the covenants, please click on the links below.

• Residential Only Sims
• Residential and Commercial Sims
• Commercial Sims
• Business District Sims
• Adult Sims
• Gorean Sims
• Full sims (Homestead and Full Prim)

Residents should note that our covenant provides both a building code and a conduct code, among other useful information. Please take the time to read the covenant carefully for your type of parcel. Knowing your rights and what the rules are goes a long way towards good neighbor relations. Should you have a problem, please contact an EM by asking for help in the ZoHa Islands group chat. We have 24-hour staff available to help you resolve your issues.

Vacations and Tier Payments
As we ease our way into the summer months (at least in the northern hemisphere), one of the things that always crops up is tier payments while people are gone on vacation. When planning for a vacation, please plan ahead in SL the way you do in RL. If you’re going to be gone, please make sure your tier payment is paid up ahead so you do not go into arrears and come home from vacation only to find a vacant lot and all of your things returned in a bundle in your lost and found. Plan on paying your tier far enough ahead so that if you are delayed in returning from vacation, you don’t have to stress about whether or not you will lose your land. Make note of the date your tier will expire, and if something happens while you’re on vacation that delays you beyond even the cushion you paid ahead on your tier, then please file a support ticket on this website to get help with your situation. Bottom line is this: In order to avoid losing your parcel or full sim, pay ahead on your tier when you will be out of Second Life for any period of time. People work very hard on their parcels to make them exactly like they want them, sometimes paying a landscape designer a lot of money to landscape their sim. Please don’t take the chance that it will all be returned to you. Always plan ahead and pay your tier ahead.

Rez Boxes and Lag
One of the worst culprits for lag in Second Life are rez scripts. Often when neighbors complain about lag on a sim, and the EM comes over to investigate, someone has left out their rez boxe s for several builds. Residents often leave their rez boxes out when they rez their structures, gardens or whatever item has been packed into a rez box for ease of placement. One of the tricks people are told about is to leave the rez box out, edit the box so it is phantom and invisible, and that way if something happens to your build, you can simply re rez another copy of it. While that makes things easier for the resident, it creates a significant amount of lag on a sim. Those rez scripts in the box, when not deleted after the structure is out, continue “talking” to the structure, and this script chatter is what causes lag.

A better idea is to delete the rez script and take the tier box back into inventory, or delete it if it’s copiable. Let me give you some tips on an alternative solution to leaving the rez box out that will help you should you accidentally delete part of your house or need to re-rez a structure for some reason.

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers, ZI Blogger/Social Media

The Bots, The Whole Bots, and Nothing But The Bots . . .

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ZoHa Islands's Greeter Bot

ZoHa Islands’s Greeter Bot

There is a lot of controversy and questions around the use of robots (“bots”) in Second Life. Obviously, bots used to steal content are not only illegal and against SL’s Terms of Service (TOS), but they are unethical and undermine the very thing that makes Second Life so amazing — user content creators. For the most part, Bots can be very useful to shop owners, roleplaying, and the fashion industry, to name a few.

What is a bot?
A bot is an avatar which is controlled by a machine, rather than by a human. This can have various uses, such as to perform group invitations (which isn’t possible via LSL), perform as a non-player character (NPC) in a roleplaying game, as mannequin in a shop etc.

An SL bot account can be created in the same way as a human-controlled avatar. The only requirement is to mark the bot’s account as a scripted agent. Bots are controlled by a program, and the owner has to choose the program from available alternatives. The program can run on user’s computer, or be hosted at Second Life bot hosting. With a hosted bot, it’s not necessary to have your computer running 24 hours per day.

Allowed Usage
The purpose of Linden Lab’s policy on bots is to increase fairness and reliability of the search and communications services. The Second Life bot account can be used in various ways, including user interaction, role playing and adding automation to a Second Life project or location. The most common usage of SL bots includes (but is not limited to):

• Direct group inviters – to effectively invite other residents to Second Life group (included closed and paid groups)
• Automatic group management – group chat translator, automatic antispam monitor, remote (web based) group chat access tool
• Mannequin (model bot), catwalk models
• Roleplaying NPC (non-player characters) for gaming and interactive areas
• In-world office greeter and/or autoresponder
• Security bot – as automatic sim manager to detect and ban greefers, spammers and abusers

Forbidden Usage
According to Linden Lab Terms of Service usage of scripted agents is forbidden for:
• Increasing the parcel traffic by camping (“gaming” traffic);
• Stealing an in-world content; violate the copyright
• Performing any other activity prohibited by TOS.

For more information on Linden Lab’s policy on bots, click here: Linden Lab Official:Inworld policy on bots.

Traffic and bots
Traffic is a numerical metric calculated for every parcel of land inworld. This score can be summarized as the cumulative minutes spent on the parcel by all visitors to the parcel within the previous day (PT). Bots, or scripted agents, are avatars controlled by computer programs rather than people. In calculating traffic scores, the number of visitors include bots, which has led to their use to increase traffic scores and boost search rankings.

Suzanne blogging_001

Here I am, sitting at ZoHa Island’s office, writing my blog. This could be considered “camping,” if I stayed here very long, which, as opposed to bots, is a way some shop owners use real avatars rather than bots to increase traffic on their sims. Sometimes, shop owners pay people a nominal amount (usually noobs) to camp on their sim a certain number of hours per week in order to drive up their traffic numbers, and thus boosting their position in the search function.

Communications and bots
Some bots are used to automate communications with parcel visitors, and to provide interactive services for human users. These types of bots can enhance the Second Life experience.

Every chat message, IM, inventory offer, group notice, group IM, and group invitation creates load on the Second Life communications services. There is an upper limit where bots consume excessive resources and threaten to decrease the quality of service for others.

Policy
Bots, per se, are allowed and have legitimate uses, but inappropriate uses are violations of LL’s policy. As stated above, using bots to “game” traffic is not allowed. Business owners or club owners or anyone else may not attempt to gain an unfair advantage in search results through the use of bots to inflate the traffic for a parcel. This policy applies to both mainland and private estates since both are represented in search.

In addition, using bots to send an excessive number of messages is not allowed. Bots cannot send more than 5,000 messages in a calendar day. Group messages are counted as one message for every recipient in the group. All bots operated by a single user share a common limit.

Violations of this policy include:
• Bots causing unreasonable load on search or the regions in which they operate.
• Bots causing a nuisance by regularly getting stuck at welcome areas or infohubs. This includes the use of large numbers of land bots to get around the throttling of search requests.
• Bots joining groups and sending group IMs or notices such that more than 5,000 individual messages will be received.
• Bots sending more than 5,000 individual messages in a calendar day.
• Using multiple bots to send an aggregate of more than 5,000 individual messages in a calendar day.

Using bots to purchase Mainland parcels is not allowed. The use of bots, autonomous software, scripting (manual or automated), scripted agents, or any systems or software internal or external to the Second Life service that circumvent, automate and/or remove the human interaction required to purchase a Land parcel within Second Life on the Linden Lab owned Mainland is prohibited.

Set scripted agent status
If you own a Second Life account that is primarily operated by a Scripted Agent (a “bot”), identify it as a bot on the Scripted Agent Status page. By identifying bots, you can help Linden Lab give you more accurate account statistics and in world search results.

Enforcement
Linden Lab routinely looks at search results, and will treat use of bots to gain an unfair search advantage as an abuse issue. You do not need to file an abuse report for violations; Linden Lab monitors the search results. Initially, Linden Lab will send a warning message to the land owner. If the issue persists, then account suspension or removal from search may result. If you feel there has been an unfair decision in this regard, use the abuse appeals process. Linden Lab routinely looks at message volume, and will treat use of bots to send excessive messages as an abuse issue. You do not need to file an abuse report for violations; Linden Lab monitors aggregate communication volume.

Bottom line — don’t use bots to cheat or abuse. Use bots responsibly. And remember boys and girls — don’t drive and use bots! 🙂

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers, ZI Blogger and social media

Firestorm’s Tool Tip: Clean Install the Easy Way

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Here’s Firestorm’s Tool Tip Tuesday video. We all know how frustrating it is when a new version of Firestorm comes out, because as exciting as the new features are, we all dread doing the dreaded “clean reinstall.” Even if you follow the rather intimidating instructions on the Firestorm Wiki, we all worry about losing chat logs, preference settings, etc. It is probably my least favorite thing to do.

In this video, Jessica Lyon breaks down a clean install into simple, easy to follow steps. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gc0dBfVGJ0

Here is the link to the Firestorm Website: Firestorm Viewer
I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers, ZI Social Media

Firestorm Tool Tip: Command Line

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Who knew?? This short video shows some awesome tricks available simply by typing in a few keystrokes. This is especially helpful when being griefed, and you need to instantly TP to an altitude in order to rid yourself of the griefer without being crashed by the graphics crasher. You can instantly achieve altitude with a few keystrokes, among other tricks!

Watch and learn! And don’t forget to attend Firestorm’s Odds & Ends Classes to learn these and other tricks! Join Firestorm’s in-world group for more support and information.

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers, ZI Social Media

Improving Viewer Performance

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The Second Life Wiki has a wealth of information for Second life residents — from answering frequently asked questions, to how to manage private regions, to improving viewer performance.

For those of you using the SL viewer, I thought I would share some good information that can be found in the Wiki regarding how to get the most out of your SL experience by a few tweaks of the viewer. The full article can be found by clicking here: How To Improve Viewer Performance.

Linden Lab suggests always maintaining your computer to run at it’s optimal performance. This can be achieved by following these simple steps:

• Routinely removing unwanted files and programs from the system.
• Defragmenting your disk drive regularly.
• Using anti-Malware software to remove spyware, virues, and other malware.

Follow the recommendations here to improve overall performance of Second Life and to address many common problems.

THE BASICS
• Make sure your computer meets the minimum system requirements. (Click here: SL’s Minimum System Requirements). It’s best to exceed them to prevent bottlenecks, since they are the bare minimum required to run Second Life. A slower processor, older video card, or low memory can contribute to slow framerates.

• Make sure you have working drivers for your video card. Search the SL Forum for posts on your video card. The latest driver is not always the best. (See my previous post on AMD Driver Updates Wrecking Havoc with Mesh).

• Make sure your firewalls are properly configured. Click on the following link for firewall information: Using Second Life with a firewall.

• Check to see if your hard drive light is showing a lot of activity. If it is, your system may be running low on memory and using hard drive swap space instead, which is significantly slower.

Based on statistics collected by Linden Lab:
• If you are using Windows 8, make sure you have upgraded to Windows 8.1. Our statistics show that Second Life crashes half as often on Windows 8.1 compared to Windows 8.0.

• If you are using Mac OSX, upgrade to 10.9.3. Our statistics show that 10.9.3 crashes one third less than 10.7.5.

• Use a 64-bit version of Windows if you can. Even though Linden Lab doesn’t offer a fully 64-bit viewer for Second Life as of July 2014, statistics show that Second Life running on 64-bit operating systems crashes half as often as on 32-bit systems.

Important: Second Life allows but does not support wireless connections. Always use a hardwired connection if possible.

OPTIMIZE YOUR DISPLAY PREFERENCES
Optimize your preferences to help Second Life run more efficiently. Try the following:
• Choose Me > Preferences
• Click on the Graphics tab.
• Move the Quality and speed slider to Low.
• Click the Advanced button
• Move the settings on the Mesh detail sliders to “Mid” or “Low.”

Autoplaying music and media can be very demanding on some PC equipment. Use manual play instead:
• Choose Me > Preferences > Sound & Media
• Deselect Allow Media to auto-play.

Review the rest of your preference settings disable any unused features:
• Choose Me > Preferences or press Ctrl-P).
• Try disabling settings such as Play typing animation, Name tags, and Arrow keys always move me.
• Even minor items can add up to significant improvements in performance.

For more information, click here: Setting your preferences.

DON’T DISPLAY EXTRANEOUS THINGS
Make sure your Viewer is not displaying unnecessary information that may reduce performance:
• Choose World > Show> Advanced Menu.
• Choose Advanced > Highlighting and Visibility.
• Select Hide Particles.

Also to improve performance by eliminating gratuitous visual noise:
• Choose World > Show
• Disable Property Lines and Land Owners.

MANAGE YOUR ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE
To prevent false cache virus alerts and improve texture cache performance, turn off virus scanning for the following directories and add them to the list of ignored (trusted) directories for Norton AntiVirus:
• The Second Life skins directory, C:\Program Files\SecondLife\skins.
• The Second Life cache directory. To determine this directory:
1. Choose Me > Preferences.
2. Choose the Advanced tab.
3. Look for the Cache location setting.

Click here for Technical overview of Second Life security.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS
If you followed the advice above and are still experiencing performance problems, try the following.
• Exit and restart Second Life. This often is enough to fix the problem.
• Clear the cache. The cache is where the Second Life Viewer stores data on your hard drive for later retrieval.
To clear the cache:
1) Choose Me > Preferences.
2) Click the Advanced tab.
3) Click Clear Cache.
4) After you’re prompted, restart the Viewer.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: FIRESTORM VIEWER EXPERTS RECOMMEND THAT USERS DO NOT CLEAR CACHE EXCEPT IN SPECIFIC SITUATIONS)

Check the Lag Meter:
• Choose Advanced > Performance Tools > Lag Meter. The lag meter breaks lag down into Client, Network, and Server lag, with corresponding indicators for each lag type.
• Click >> to reveal descriptions and advice for solving any lag problems you are having.
• Try teleporting to a quieter area or one with fewer objects, to see if the situation improves.
• Disable antialising.

Check your Ping Sim and Packet Loss values:
• Choose Advanced > Performance Tools > Statistics Bar to open the STATISTICS window.
The ping values are the time (in milliseconds) it takes to reach the server from your computer. If this number is high, it could indicate a problem with your network or internet connection. If Packet Loss is a nonzero number, your network or ISP may be having issues. See Using the statistics bar for more information.

• Check to see if there is anything blocking your computer’s ventilation ports, and make sure all the fans are working properly. Laptops in particular can get quite hot when placed on a flat surface, so you may want to try propping yours on a stand to increase airflow, or consider buying a cooling device like a “chill mat”.

• Finally, if you’ve overclocked or made other modifications to your computer, disable them until you can attain stability. You can use tools like Prime95 to stress-test your computer independently of Second Life.

USING THE STATISTICS BAR
The statistics bar presents a detailed list of information about the performance of your computer and Second Life. While the sheer amount of information can be confusing, knowing what to look for can tell you a lot about what’s going on in Second Life.

To view the Statistics Bar, choose Advanced > Performance Tools > Statistics Bar.

Please keep in mind that some of these tweaks may improve performance (i.e. reduce crashing, reduce lag, etc.) but they also may affect the visual look of Second Life. By lowering graphics settings, turning off antialiasing, etc. it will affect the quality. You will trade performance for sharp visual quality. Play with the settings until you can get a balance of performance and visual appeal.

FIRESTORM VIEWER USERS: I strongly recommend joining the in-world Firestorm Users Group. There, you can get instant online help from FS staff as well as users. Also they frequently hold in-world classes on the viewer. I highly recommend these classes. They are extremely helpful.

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers, ZoHa Islands Social Media

Firestorm Viewer Contact Sets

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Did you know you can sort, list, categorize, organize and colorize your friend list, and even non-friend lists? This is especially helpful for business and region owners, group moderators, people with big friend lists, or just folks with lots of friends! The folks at Firestorm posted this video for their Tool Tip Tuesday this week. The video covers the basics but if you would like to learn more, Firestorm offers a contact sets class! Click on this link for more information on their in-world classes: Firestorm Viewer Classes

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers, ZI Social Media