Second Life birth date: October 11, 2007
This is currently the favorite avatar in my collection, and the one I appear in most. As you can see, elegance is my preference. However, you can see me slouching around the Metaverse just as often in a pair of baggies and a T-shirt from a university or Abbott’s Aerodrome. It all depends on the time of day and the setting. Raves aren’t quite my thing, but I wouldn’t turn away the opportunity to visit one if the music was good.
Music is a driving force with me, given my name. It’s very easy to find music, especially in stream-happy Second Life; finding good music can be another matter. I’m old enough to remember the great singer-songwriters of the Seventies and their hits, ranging from Carole King to James Taylor; and the other performers such as Barry Manilow, Melissa Manchester, even the Carpenters and the Captain and Tennille! Add to that enjoyment of folk, Celtic and classical, and you get an interesting ragout of musical taste indeed.
Art is a top draw for many to Second Life. As such, I have opened a store with OnRez, and I may take an actual storefront if I do well enough (or feel flush enough). Stop in to Harper’s Fine Art and Photographs for your framed art needs. (We also do commission work!)
Another interest in world is building. You have to admit that Second Life can often be breathtakingly beautiful, and I’m not talking about the fashion! This is due to the creativity of the Residents, and I would like to share in that creativity. I used to be a fair hand at designing homes in The Sims; why not here, where things are much more in my ability to manipulate?
Other things that I enjoy include chess, reading, writing (obviously), art, fashion (of course, in this world!), hairstyles (major!), history — and whatever strikes my fancy at the time (grin). What often strikes my fancy, though, is conversation. You must admit that Second Life makes a spectacular place for socializing — for instance, I’m sitting in a club in that photo above. I’ve struck up interesting conversations and acquaintances with all sorts of people, none of whom I’ve ever met in RL. While I’m slow to grant formal “friendship” status, I’m usually willing to exchange calling cards with you if you’re an interesting conversationalist.
And, of course, I hope you’ll find my thoughts here entertaining, informative and, occasionally, thought-provoking. Come on with me for the ride, and let’s see where this exciting new life takes us all!
Open Office IS much better solution.
About Photoshop… well, there are some reasons it costs that much. But give GIMP a try, or maybe better, give GimpShop http://www.gimpshop.com/ a try cause most of the transition problems is not in the functionality as much as in interface one got used to.
Thanks much for those tips. As for graphics, I already own Paint Shop Pro 9, but all the tips magazines I see on the newsstand at work are written for PhotoShop (frustrated growl). (They’re also almost all of them imported, it seems — which means they cost on the average twice to thrice the price of a domestic magazine, but that’s another matter.) I’ll investigate GimpShop and see what it can handle. (I’ll also hope it can open PSP native files, as some of my work files are in the native format.)
That won’t be the end of my update blues, of course. I write and maintain HTML Web sites, such as for my church; and I use HomeSite 5.5 for that. (Yes, I know; I’m a real troglodyte. The next time you see my avatar, I’ll be dragging my knuckles on the ground and going “Ook, ook!” and looking to snuggle up to Terry Pratchett’s Librarian of Unseen University.) I found my master disk, but I’m trying to remember if that needed an authorization code — in other words, an unlock — to turn off the “shareware” timer. I may end up having to update to Dreamweaver — which is owned by Adobe, as is priced on about the same level as PhotoShop!
eBay, anyone…?
([rant state="on" soapbox="visible" mouthfoam="0"]
(I place “shareware” in quotes here, incidentally, because having a timer lock on the program is not true shareware, it is nagware. I recognize the need and desire of program authors to get paid, but the pure honor concept worked for years for many authors.
([/rant])
Harper, it sounds suspiciously like heat may have played a part in the untimely death of your old machine. Your new machine should be fine for a while with new fans, but it’s good to keep up on checking them. I’m going to be doing a little heat-awareness tips post on my blog soon.
And as far as HTML editing, there are a lot of options for freeware and the like. Not sure if you need WYSIWYG or not, but one I used to use when I was on a PC was HTML Kit. I don’t do much HTML anymore but when I do these days I just handcode.
Windlight was probably the cause. I know 5 others who’s computers burned up after running the windlight viewer for extended periods. Then it happened to me. a $3500 dual SLI machine fried with a pop and cloud of ozone and damage to all components.
Now Harper too has joined the ranks of the burnt PC club.
Glad to hear your getting a replacement. Mine cost 800. quad core, 4GB ram, 8600 gt vid, etc. nice machine. in an amazing stroke of luck i had made a backup of everything important the day before the mushroom cloud arose from the poor old dead machine.
It was overheating over the long run — which also answers Ann’s point. It had nothing to do with the SL viewer in any way, shape or form; in fact, I’ve been running with the new viewer since I got the computer back from the shop the first time with no problem at all.
The situation was that I’ve had to leave the computer on 24/7 to keep from having to turn my monitor on/off/on 50 times to get a picture. The CPU’s heat sink filled up with dust and impacted, which caused the long-term heat damage to it. A cleanout helped about a month ago, but I’ve been expecting it to give up the ghost again within a year, and that I’d need to replace it completely then. At least, with my old hard drives harvested out, I should be able use my old data files with no problems for the most part.
It may be a new machine harvested from old pieces/parts, but I’m still jealous! My old machine shorted out and blew up leaving me no choice but to let it die. I have been operating on my laptop which is a bloggers dream, but takes some maneuvering to navigate the client. It works and I’m a patient person. See you back in the blogosphere and metaverse soon.