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SECOND LIFE INFO
 What
IS Second Life, anyway?- SL
Policies & TOS (Because I believe in full disclosure)
-
Quickstart
PDF (Quick reference for common things you do in SL)
- System
Requirements (Pay attention folks, they aren't kidding about them!)
Obligatory Statement:
Second Life™ SL™ and Linden Lab™ are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Linden Research, Incorporated. No copyright infringement is intended
or implied. No affiliation save as a user of the Second Life™ virtual
world is claimed.
BUT IT'S JUST A GAME, WHY IS THIS SECTION HERE?
Second Life is:
- Not a game, but you can play games in it
- Not an MMO, although it's certainly Massive,
Multiplayer and Online
- Not a chat room, although you can chat with people all over the
world
- Not a business platform, although people and companies (such as
IBM) do run business applications or PR outlets in SL
- Not the web, although it's connected to it and shares many features
It's a virtual world, things can happen in it that would never happen
in RL. People can use it as a form of therapy, exploring some of their
past issues and learning to deal with them more effectively. People
who are deaf can talk to people (via keyboard) on an equal basis. People
who are wheelchair bound, or have other pain or movement problems in
RL can walk, run and even dance in Second Life - for hours if they want.
Antisocial people can socialize on THEIR terms (i.e., when they've had
it with people for a while, they can just log off and take a break.)
This section is here because over the last year, a significant portion
of the online vampire community has been dipping their toes into Second
Life and discovering how much fun it can be (and, in some cases, how
long it's been since they last upgraded their computers...) Some of
us have gotten involved in DJ work, some in clothing design, and so
on.
And, there's even vampire community outreach centers available in Second
Life now.
OH REALLY? WHERE?
Here's a list - though you'll need an active Second Life account -
and viewer - to actually visit these links:
The Sanguinarius.Org Community Center can be found in the Netherfield
region:
(New location as of April, 2010 - hopefully the LAST move for a while...)
LadyCG's Vampiric Library can be found in the Lunitarium
region:
Taleisin Llewellyn's Liber Obscurum can be found in the Athan
region:
House Rosa's Sanctuary can be found in the Bagheera
region:
SOUNDS GREAT, SO HOW DO I GET STARTED?
Well, first you need to sign up for a Second Life account. You can
do that [here].
I would advise checking/ticking the box for "Choose a Community",
and in the following list, choose CALEDON. Their orientation center
is *THE* best out of what I've seen on the grid in the last four years,
and it's regularly staffed by members of the Caledon steampunk community
who can answer your questions about how to do things in Second Life.
Plus you get really cool freebies there that you can't get anywhere
else. :)
Once you sign up, you're given the option to download what's called
a viewer. This is special software designed to access and display the
virtual world of Second Life.
By default, you will be offered the [official
viewer client], however you may find this has an unacceptable amount
of lag or crashes, or you hate the big interface that gets in your way.
(Most people gripe about it, so you won't be alone!)
You do have other options available!
Since the viewer was made "Open Source" sometime in 2007,
there are a variety of third-party versions to choose from - you can
start with the [Third
Party Viewer Official Directory] page which has brief notations
of each, and a link to that viewer's home page.
My personal choices out of that list are:
EMERALD VIEWER
This is my current viewer-of-choice primarily due to stability (I really
*hate* viewer crashes...) with an additional bonus of many many unique-to-emerald
features. This is seriously the "power user viewer" here!
Emerald is available on  Windows,
 Linux
and  Mac,
and you can get it over here.
Support
Emerald developers (yes, there is a developer team) AND users support
each other - in Second Life, there is a group called "Emerald Viewer"
which functions as a "live help" feature - there are over
4,000 people in this group, and pretty much at any time of day there's
*someone* on who can help you with the basics of getting Emerald up
and running, and help you with any problems.
KIRSTEN'S VIEWER
This is my preferred alternate viewer when I'm running into an Emerald
bug, or need to use a Kirsten-specific feature. KirstenLee is the sole
developer of this viewer, so updates are sometimes a bit sporadic.
Kirsten's viewer is available on Windows,
Linux
and Mac,
and you can get it over
here.
Support
Kirsten expects everyone to read the documentation and understand what
they're doing.
There is
a forum for users who have questions, though, so you might be able
to find answers to your questions there at least.
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