Help, I’m being threatened by my ex-sl husbands partner, she wants to get at me because I sent a few note cards telling her what a jerk he is. She said she has my IP address from SL and to expect her to show up in RL.

Ever have this happen to you? Here are a few tips to make sure you are protected.

Tracing your IP is possible if you listen to streaming music or watch streaming video in SL. Nowadays there may also be streaming images from web pages on a parcel. If you are worried about people being abe to capture or identify your IP address remember!

Any streaming audio or video will give your IP address to the stream’s external server. Some people have exploited that to create databases of IP addresses and associated names which are then used to identify alts. Because that happens outside of SL, it seems to be technically acceptable under the TOS, although it could (in theory, not practice) be a problem when that info is brought back in world and misused.

So the only way to guarantee the anonymity is to NEVER stream audio or video and to disable the ability of objects to turn your media stream on.

It’s like the rest of the internet. There’s always someone quite happy to be as sneaky as they have to violate privacy, especially if there’s money to be made or person to make miserble.

There are some selling a product to jealous types a system designed to identify alt accounts of griefers and such, but they all know how to get around the system. So all it really does is create false positives (different people on the same IP address) and give people a new way to f#@k about in other people’s business. Does not hold true if you do not let it! As these systems are worthless and cause more problems IE: region performance issues or repeated griefing due to the culprit likes to cause trouble and can not be stopped. Folks, If you do not respond they really do go away! Your MUTE button can do wonders!

IP tracing is not likely from the average Second Life user. However, when an avatar uses a note card or other scripted object, or by clicking on a link sent to you the IP address COULD be viewable, though these methods and are a little hazy at best.

BUT, if you’re like most users of Second Life, your IP address is not static. Furthermore, the IP address will only manage to tell them what ISP (Internet Service Provider) you’re using, very little else about you. But if you feel you are being threatened in this matter file a abuse report for disclosure to Linden Lab. This may or may not help.

Hope this can clear up some of your questions on the subject and relieve some of you when people tell you they have your IP and personal info. Just be careful do not give out your information outside SL. Yes, I have heard excuses: they were my BF and I shared with them my account or RL information on Face book and other social media. This would be your fault and you should be aware that anything that happens will be on your head! Want to get rid of that stalker or ex that can’t get over the fact they have dated a cartoon for a year?
Keep your information PRIVATE! Unless you plan on meeting them in real life.

Have a great day!

Deuce Marjeta
Operations Manager ZoHa Islands

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve introduced several new QuickTips video tutorials to help teach our newest residents the basics of Second Life. This week, we examine how to use the official unit of trade in Second Life, known as the Linden Dollar (or L$).

You can use Linden Dollars to buy almost anything inside Second Life or on the Marketplace — a new outfit, a new home or even a completely new avatar.

To learn even more about the basics of getting and spending Linden Dollars, visit the Knowledgebase.

Last week, we introduced the first video in a new Second Life tutorial series called QuickTips. Each of these tutorials aims to help newer users by introducing them to basic features, functions or activities in Second Life.

Our first QuickTips video focused on the simple process of changing your avatar in less than 60 seconds using the free avatars built into the Second Life Viewer. That’s a great skill to have as a newcomer — but many users want to stand out in style or perhaps just look a bit more unique. Why look like everyone else when there are thousands of fashions and avatar accessories to choose from?

This week’s QuickTips video introduces new users to the fundamentals of how to shop like a pro in Second Life. Watch this clip to learn the basics on discovering places to shop, as well as transaction tips and even unpacking your items.

Soon you’ll be shopping up a storm as you stroll through the many virtual shopping hot spots in SL or browse for items via the web on the Marketplace.

A new video was uploaded by Torley Linden on January 24th, 2013 on customizing your appearance. 

This new quick tip video is aimed at new residents joining Second Life explaining all of the basic editing appearance functions.  We know at times getting started in Second Life can be a bit difficult for newcomers which is why these “Quick Tips” videos are a wonderful idea – be sure to look for them over the next few weeks.  So whether you have a new friend joining SL…or are a new user yourself..these tips and tricks can be quite valuable.

The Second Life Blog released this info here:

Introducing QuickTips – Second Life Video Tutorials for Beginners

by Linden Lab 01-24-2013 04:25 PM – edited 01-24-2013 04:25 PM

New to Second Life? There’s so much to see and do in this vast virtual world — but getting started can be a bit intimidating for some newcomers. That’s why we’ve put together a new series of quick and easy tutorials to help.

Over the next few weeks, you’ll see several new “QuickTips” clips that are designed to help new and existing users learn the basics of Second Life. Forthcoming tutorial clips will help teach the basics of shopping, socializing, connecting with communities, finding interesting places and more.

The first video tutorial in this new series focuses on customizing your appearance in Second Life. One of the first things most Second Life users do upon arriving inworld is to personalize their digital identity to reflect their own style.

The above video only scratches the surface of avatar personalization options. Many people wish to further personalize their avatar’s look by shopping for unique clothing, hair and fashion accessories in Residents’ shops within Second Life. You can also browse on the Web for avatars and fashions at our shopping site SL Marketplace.

For more tips on controlling your avatar appearance, visit our Knowledge Base.

More SL related video’s can be found on the Second Life You Tube Channel.

Hello ZoHa Islands.

This week we are going to cover the Statistics Menu (Ctrl+Shift+1) .  We will be touching base on the most important sections of the Statistics Menu for you and what the numbers actually mean and when to alert an Estate Manager. Time to sit back, grab a drink and read on.

While standing on your land, select (Ctrl+Shift+1). This can be a bit overwhelming, so we’ll guide you through the relevant parts here.

Note: Sim stands for “simulator” and is another name for “region.”

Basic – Click on the word Basic to hide or display this panel.

Displays basic information about your Second Life performance.

FPS: The number of times per second your computer is redrawing (or refreshing) what’s on the screen. Higher numbers are better. A framerate between 15-30 frames per second (FPS) is about as smooth as broadcast television.

Bandwidth: How much data is being transferred between your computer and the Second Life world. This number varies wildly depending on what bandwidth settings you’ve used, where you are inworld, what’s going on, and whether you’re still loading some things (objects/textures/etc) that are in your field of view. If bandwidth is 0kbps, something may be wrong (you may be partially disconnected).

Packet Loss: The amount of data being lost as it travels between your computer and the server. Any nonzero packet loss is bad; packetloss above 10% is very bad. Packet loss might be caused by a dying server (in which case everyone in the region would be experiencing it), a bad connection between you and Second Life (possibly a bad router between your ISP and Second Life, or congestion at your ISP), or problems on your local network (wireless networking, or internet security or firewall software on your computer).

Ping Sim: How long it takes data to go from your computer to the region you’re currently in. This is largely dependent on your connection to the Internet.

Simulator – Click on the word Simulator to hide or display this panel.

Displays statistics for the region (simulator) you’re currently in.

NOTE: an “agent” is either a user in a given region (a “main agent”) or a user in a neighboring region (a “child agent”). Any user who can see objects inside a simulator region increases the load on that simulator. The nominal values below are for simulators running on a single simulator per CPU. On other simulators (such as water simulators), these number will be different.

Time Dilation – The physics simulation rate relative to realtime. 1.0 means that the simulator is running at full speed; 0.5 means that physics are running at half-speed.

Sim FPS – The simulator frame rate. This should now always be the same as the physics frame rate — 45.0 when things are running well.

To interpret the Sim FPS performance of your region:

• 45 FPS: The highest possible value. No action necessary.
• 35 – 44 FPS: This is quite good; you don’t need to tune if it never goes below 35 FPS.
• 20 – 35 FPS: This is slow, and should be noticeable. Adjustment is needed to improve your region’s performance.
• 10 – 20 FPS: This is not so great.
• 0 – 10 FPS: This is pretty much terrible.

If your performance of your region is consistently over 35 FPS at its busiest time, you can stop reading here. Fortunately, most regions are above 35 FPS most of the time.

Physics FPS – The frame rate at which the physics engine is running. This should normally be at or near 45.0.

Agent Updates/Sec – The rate at which agents on this simulator are being updated. Normally 20 updates a second, this will decrease if the simulator has a large number of agents on it.

Main Agents – The number of agents (users) who are on this simulator.
If this is exceptionally high, it is likely the prime cause of this region’s slow FPS. Avatars contain attachments and they Teleport in and out – each time affecting the regions performance slightly.

Child Agents – The Child Agents line displays the number of avatars outside your region that can see into it, which can also slow your region down if it’s a significant number. (This happens only on connected sims/regions)

Objects – The total number of primitives on the simulator. This value does not include primitives being worn as attachments.

Active Objects – The number of objects containing active scripts on the simulator. This value does not include scripts inside attachments, unless the attachment wearer is sitting on a scripted object.

Active Scripts – The number of running scripts that are currently on the simulator, including scripts attached to agents and objects.

Script Perf – Number of LSL opcodes being executed a second by the simulator. Note that this is the number of ACTUAL instructions executed in the last second, not the theoretical maximum opcodes/second. If your simulator is not running very many scripts, this number will be low even if performance is good.

Packets In – UDP packets being received by the simulator.

Packets Out – UDP packets being sent by the simulator.

Pending Downloads – Number of asset downloads to the simulator that are pending. If this is greater than 1, this means that you may see delays in viewing notecards or scripts, and rezzing objects.

Pending Uploads – Number of current uploads of asset data pending. If this number is non-zero, this means that there may be performance issues when attempting to teleport.

Total Unacked Bytes – The size of the reliable packet data sitting on the server waiting to be acknowledged. A large number may indicate a thin pipe or other possible problems between the viewer and the sim.

Time – Click Time to hide or display this panel.

The following are the different times listed in the Time section of the Statistics bar.

Total Frame Time – The sum of all time values listed below it, this measures how much time it takes the simulator to run everything that the simulator is trying to do each frame.

• < 22 ms - The simulator is healthy, everything is running as fast as it can, and more scripts can be added without reducing the performance of individual scripts.
• approx. 22 ms – The simulator is healthy, but there are probably a lot of scripts and agents on the simulator, meaning that script execution is being slowed down in order to maintain the simulator frame rate.
• > 22 ms – The simulator is experiencing severe load, either due to physics or a large number of agents, such that even by slowing down script execution it is impossible to compensate. The simulator frame rate has been reduced as a result.

Net Time: The amount of time spent responding to incoming network data.

Sim Time (Physics): The amount of time that frame spent running physics simulations. In general, this should be less than 5 milliseconds.
If this value is over 5 milliseconds this is when I get the call to restart a region which is an iffy temporary fix at best. This is when the ZoHa Estates Managers come into play and notify the owners of the scripts or return the objects if they are significantly impacting the performance and immediate action needs to take place.

Sim Time (Other): The amount of time that frame spent running other simulations (agent movement, weather simulation, etc.)

Agent Time: The amount of time spent updating and transmitting object data to the agents.

Images Time: The amount of time spent updating and transmitting image data to the agents.

Script Time: The amount of time spent running scripts.

Spare Time: The amount of time that is available or unused. (Higher the better…when this dips to a lower number your region may be experiencing lag)

Inefficient, poorly written or very busy scripts in your region can also slow it down.

So what can you do to help?

Lets cover a few things to help sim performance as a whole –
Once you know which scripts are consuming your region’s resources, you can remove, replace or optimize them. Also, note that reducing the total number of scripts in your region can improve performance. You can ask for us to test your region but from now on top scripts will be addressed as follows. When we test a sim region we will send a message via NC on which scripts are lagging out the region to give you a chance to either remove or optimize them. If you do not fix this issue we may return the object in question! Usually these are REZ scripts – which are scripts in your builds that remain in each linkset if you do not save/freeze your builds after rezzing.  Because we want these regions to run at top performance this is necessary and will be enforced! Remember its not fair to make the whole region pay for one person’s faulty items.

Examples of problematic scripts include:

• Scripts that are constantly active without sleeping; for example: Sensor scripts with less than a few-second sleep interval.
• Temp-rezzer scripts that allow a slightly larger number of prims at the expense of region performance.  << big lag monsters

Physical objects can potentially slow your region down. Specifically, physical objects that are often moving and collide with each other can contribute significantly to the time your region takes to perform the physics calculations. In the Statistics Bar, the Sim Time use ctrl + shift + 1 (Physics) line shows how many milliseconds your physics calculations are taking. If this value is over 4 milliseconds, then it may be worth check to see if this can be reduced. Again you will be sent a warning on these objects and be asked to correct them or they will be removed.

Remove Excessive Large Textures –
Excessive use of large textures can slow down a region. In general, it’s a good idea to avoid using textures greater than 512×512 pixels. In the Statistics Bar, the Images Time line tells you how many milliseconds the handling of your region’s images is taking. If this value is over 2 milliseconds, it may be worth checking to see if it can be reduced: When a person’s avatar views a large image or numerous smaller images for the first time since entering the region, they’ll automatically download the image to their Second Life viewer. If a number of avatars are doing this simultaneously, a significant load is created on your region, slowing down its FPS. If you can’t remove these large textures, the following strategies might be useful for increasing your region’s performance:

• Reducing the number of unique textures
• Reducing the size of textures
• Reducing the resolution of textures
• Optimize Scripted Texture-Changing Objects

Scripted objects that change textures can also slow down a region. Each time a new texture is displayed, it must be downloaded to each avatar looking at the object. If you can’t remove these objects, then reducing the number and size of unique textures in these objects can increase your region’s performance

Large numbers of objects will slow your region down, especially if they’re of any of the following types:

• Moving
• Rotating
• Flashing
• Scripted
• Shape-changing sculpties

Reduce Visitor Attachments:
While this is harder to do, some regions have been able to see some improvements by having visitors remove attachments, especially high-prim or heavily scripted ones.

Region Optimizations for Improved Viewer Performance

The following region items can slow down viewer performance:

• Large or numerous textures, when an avatar first comes within sight of them
• Overuse of sculpted prims, twisted tori, and other geometrically complex objects.
• Particle effects (which includes bling and poofers).

Keep in mind some of your visitors may have slow graphics cards or PCs.
<---- In Most Cases, you figure the average SL user buys an off the shelf mid grade PC. Well I hope this helps and I hope you will do your part in making your region run top performance. And if you still find your region is lagging you could always try CTRL + Q, this seems to help me when I'm frustrated with SL. *whistles innocently* Have a great week ZoHa Islands!