So there are a number of different threads of my second life research that are all finally coming together now. Many of them parallel to my first life research :-)

Flying Around In Second Life

Education
One key theme is education. There's a lot of learning going on in Second LIfe, despite the system's inherent technical limitations when a bunch of people congregate in the same space and start moving around and doing things. (Oh, so much more on this soon!)

Software Development and Design
Second LIfe Utilities (SLUTs) - are all the little software applications being written for and to be used within and around Second Life. So far we have two different Twitter integration apps, for example, SL Twitter and Squawk.

Another cool site/application is Sloog.com - SLUT for tagging people, places and objects in Second Life. More on this soon, but for now, just go here and touch the display to add it to your inventory.

"Slogging"
Blogging about Second Life is gaining traction all the time. I blog about everything I do, so blogging about Second Life is just a natural progression of that. Now I see I'm not the only one (and hardly the first) - I look forward to learning more about the slogging community and will start an index for it soon like everything else.

More and more people are vlogging their Second Life experiences, but most of these movies still don't come out very well. I've been working hard to make some cool movies in order to share my experiences with you.

Art Galleries
I've always been the artsy fartsy type, although I never finish any of my art films to date, and haven't even bothered yet to get any of my arty shots or my rock and roll photography online. (I've been a photorapher/videographer since I was about 14.) I'm getting excited about all the opportunities for artists in Second Life.

Museums and Libraries
My original pet project in all this was connecting together all the Museums and Libraries in Second Life. I've been talking to a lot of cool museum curators and librarians and there seems to be significant interest and enthusiasm for my doing so.

Virtual Real Estate
Yup. You're right. This one's a new interest. I cared not about real estate until I wanted to buy some in Second Life and encountered obstacle after obstacle. Now I'm bent on finding a way to make the process easier for people, and starting to keep track of everything I'm learning about this space.

Summary: Here's how you can change your preferences to give you a chance to specify your "Region" ahead of time, before you log in. This way, you can still move around manually - logging in and logging out - until the teleporting functionality is fixed.

Second Life A-Z

Second Life Step by Step

Second Life UTilities (SLUTS) A-Z

So, as I'm about to explain in more detail shortly, all hell is breaking loose in Second Life today, for a combination of reasons (grid attacks due to the usual exploits, reaction to last weeks' gambling shutdown (displaced users needing somewhere to go), and the system still recovering from its shakeup after the power outage in San Francisco last week).

I logged in today to a bunch of users on my IM logging into a dark area and unable to teleport out.

Currently, everyone's having a hard time teleporting around because the system is so overloaded.

But I've been able to get around okay because, earlier today, Devlon Duthie (SL-Losta Hax) found this handy work around so you can at least teleport to the region that you wish. So I thought I'd better share it with you.

1. Click on the "Preferences" button on your web login screen.

2. At the very top of your "Preferences" window, check the "Show Start Location on Login Screen" checkbox.

(You'll also want to have the "Always" radio button selected underneath it, but that seems to be the default.)

Here's how the bottom of your login screen looks before you make the change, and how it will look after right after you've changed checked the "Show Start Location on Login Screen" in your "Preferences."

Before

After

3. Where it says "Start Location:" and currently "My Home," select the drop down menu and change it to "<Type Region Name>."

4. Select the text, type in the name of the region you wish, and click "Connect."

Me at the Second Life Salsa Party - They're line dancing!

Ok it just happened! Something I'd only dreamed of just a few weeks ago:

I was literally twittered in first life about a party going on in real time in second life. So I clicked on the slurl that was provided in the twitter post, and was teleported to the Salsa party.

(Well yeah, and I had to close SL first to get it to work, because that just seems to be the norm with slurls these days. The "secondlife://" links that go direct seem to work more often than the slurls, but still not often enough. And I find myself having to close SL for whatever doesn't otherwise take to take in the Mapping/teleport process. - That's why this goes under quick tips too.)

This kind of SL/web integration is what I've been waiting for for so many reasons...where do i begin? :-)

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Iladil/167/227/72

I'll put up a little movie I made of it tonight.

But right now, on a more personal note, I must work on some actual paying Second Life consulting work. The transition is complete..w00t!

That's why the a-z index is slow coming together...but it's coming. Don't you worry. It's coming :-)

Squawk is here - twitter/SL.

I've wanted this so bad I almost tried to do it myself a couple of weeks ago with a friend of mine -- but we decided to build some other sl stuff instead...

Note that I think the Facebook/SL integration is a result of the Facebook/Twitter integration. Which is just plain beautiful (though I haven't implemented it yet, several of my buds have, and all say it works great...)

But my point is that Facebook got Second Life integration "for nothing."
(Just from having open apis, i mean!) And look what it got them!

here's one post on it. I'll discuss in more detail shortly. Just wanted to start this "tidbits" category, so I can let you know about things in a more timely manner -- instead of waiting a day or two to attach a write-up to it.

I'll also go back through here every week or so and make sure I follow up on the tidbits and link to them properly from the a-z.

I have no idea if squawk thing works yet. Trying to get to it! Seems to be working for others though.