Pics: Second Life in virtual & Washington Sweden Embassy in reality (from http://www.saabvideos.com)

http://blogs.villamood.com/james/2008/04/07/245/

So how on earth do we make money in Second Life? Let’s think about why we entered this game:

1. Do you wanna make money in Second Life? Everything is just for fun? Unless the way to make money is just your fun. If not, I think you can directly spend few money on what you like, and do not waste your time and resources on “Camping” such money-losing business, besides in Second Life, we enjoy many funny things without spending any money.

2. If you thought about making money as to subsidize your income, I don’t suggest that you regard this as a game. Indeed you can make money in Second Life, but why people you heard really can made money in Second Life? Definitely it’s not because making money is easy in Secomd Life, neither Second Life provides any good way to make money. The same as our real world, it’s the result of supply and demand, you have to create your own chances or methods. Get familiar with Second Life first, then think about what is suitable for you. If not, you may waste your precious time.

Whatever, I can show you some directions and my opinions. Do you wanna make equivalent possible money in Second Life just like in real world? So far I think it depends on originality not on labor, if you simply wanna spend time and labor, it’s better for you to consider this as a game.
So why is originality? For example, you designed a very popular clothes, and you could rent a storefront or a stall to sell this clothes. If it sells good, you may find another place to keep selling, and keep designing clothes. Maybe finally it will become a well-known brand and even hold a virtual fashion show. Certainly, it never continues spending the time but you have constant income, maybe someday in real world someone would ask you for proxy..
The other things you often see are clothing apparel, fashion, cosmetics & beauty supplies, hair styling, life furniture, landscaping & gardening design, pet and aquarium, sound acoustics, building materials, vehicles, 3D textures, software tools and so on.. Are these suitable? Are there other ways you can try? I still wanna say, the only limit is your imagination.

http://blogs.villamood.com/james/2008/06/10/270/

Actually I never regard Second Life as a kind of game. I always say it’s more suitable to see Second Life as a “3D interactive platform”.
But since Second Life definitely presents a game style, so let’s reserch Second Life and other game types and codewords.

“MORPG” According to the meaning of word itself , it should point Multi-user Online Role Playing Game. There is another kind of abbreviation is “MMORPG”, a more “Massive” is in front, I guess probably it points at Second Life this kind of large-scale Multi-user role playing game. But what is role playing? I used to think it means acting a role in a game story, the game like Second Life without setting the action, shouldn’t be the part of it? Then I check and find out the way that ID-hiding groups or interactive games are both called RPG. By this Second Life undoubtedly is a kind of RPG. As for the fighting game we ofter mention should be the part of SLG.

In Second Life some people go to specific fun area, they accouter themselves and divided into groups to fight. But it’s absolutely not online first-person shooter game. Just like occasionally we go to paintball field in real world. It’s only specific time and place so just to become SLG at times :).

But eventually I wanna remind everyone we should take Second Life as a 3D interactive platform, not merely a game.

Here are some references about the contrast of game type abbreviation:

ACT = Action Game
AVG = Advanture Game
FTG = Fighting Game
RCG = Race Game
RPG = Role Playing Game
SLG = Simulation Game
SPG = Sport Game
RTG = Rhythm Game
STG = Shooting Game
PZG = Puzzle Game
TBG = Table Game
ETC = ETC Game

http://blogs.villamood.com/james/2008/02/25/186/

January 2007, began from England and USA, eBay had announced that they would crack down on all virtual goods sales such as currency, clothes and weapons except Second Life.. “Second Life”, a 3D interactive platform published in July, 2003, was developed by Linden Lab. The reason we call it 3D interactive platform is we really can not simply consider Second Life as a game. To the people who get used to playing online games, I think they would be at a loss as to what to do when they first face Second Life. In Second Life you don’t have to waste time on upgrading, and there is no target and mission inworld  ,either. It’s great for you to “game” your second life, but more and more people nourish a dream with entrepreneurial attitude to do efforts to Second Life. Some people even expand their Second Life’s fruition to their career in real life.

A resident named Kermitt Quirk earned a great deal of money by creating a simple game called “Tringo” in Second Life, even Tringo was moved to real world to keep on making money. A Chinese descent person named Anshe Chung is the most famous estate developer in this virtual world. Anshe is not her real name, she teaches in Germany in real world. Because of fast expanding of business, Anshe also grouped a team for estate design of Second Life in China in real world. She made 250 thousand dollars in one year and that also made her become the magazine cover of “Fortune” and “business”.

Besides, many well-known enterprises including Reuters and IBM, they all station in Second Life 3D interactive platform. On one side they provided employees for cross-area interaction and video environment, on the other side they expanded their virtual route. Even Dior, before their new-season products being published, the products were displayed in Second Life first, and Dior followed up by a “real-life” show at the Orangerie Museum.  The group “Starwood”, who owned well-known hotels like Sheraton and so on, also moved a hotel from real world to Secomd Life. In fact this Aloft hotel willl be completed in 2008, Starwood wished to make use of this virtual hotel in advance to observe avatars how to use the facilities, at the same time collect the appreciation about Aloft.

“Second Life” is just like real life, there is no any scenery and story known and planed in advance, Linden Lab just provide a 3D platform for residents. All people, matters, places and stuff were created, built, developed by residents themselves. If you definitely wanna ask me what’s the limits in Second Life? I think that might be your imagination.

If you still hope that Second Life were a kind of online game you can play for fun, in that case what Second Life can provide for you is the same as real world can. The recreation services and products created and developed by players themselves are various. You could accouter yourself and go to battle-area for a fight. If you tire of those fighting games, besides recreation ground, you can go dancing, encountering, parachuting, surfing,
skiing, boating, vehicle-speeding or just drive a helicopter and fighter into the sky. As long as you have money, even Transformers could be your own. There are also people buying lands, building airports, gardens, villas in Second Life in order to atone the unsatisfied creature comforts in real world. It is also rife with many adult places here just like our real world, um.. that might make you lose your mind so let’s not pay too much attention to this part.

As a matter of fact, so far some area’s people who concentrates on Second Life is as little as you see. I think the most important reason might be its English environment. Although Linden Lab has provided language-selection, but some are still used in English(like the names of object and item), however it’s easier. Communication in mother tongue is common between friends and relatives(actually every language is ok as long as you both understand). Besides as a result of not knowing the opposite too much, so general conversation is mainly English. It’s great that conversation by “chat” needs no listening and speaking ability and you can make use of your electronic dictionary spontaneously. Sometimes you don’t focus to each other but never mind, that’s what always happened on me..

Whether English operation or conversation with foreigners might not cause any problem. But in the beginning, I think you may confuse with how to get clear of Second Life from those different words on secondlife.com. To know what’s this? How to start? What’s the fun? Otherwise who would be so silly to crazy about it(in face I’ m one of them..)? That’s the most important reason why I seted up villamood.com(for Taiwanese..). Alone in Second Life, I barely chated with people and made some friends, but still something lack when I get along with these foreigners. If you need Chinese explanation about Second Life, you can go around my blog. I will continue increasing the contents, if you have any question you can use the discussion area or reply the post, I will answer you as soon as possible.

http://blogs.villamood.com/james/2007/05/18/44/

Buildings on the island are so attractive that you can’t help going inside. The white gleaming peak in the distance is exactly the ski resort.

High quality internal decoration

This pond makes me feel good. There happened to be an artificial lake in Villamood, so I bought old trees and small wooden boat home.

When you close to ski resort, you can experience its high elevation.

It must be exciting when you ski? You can have a try if you’re interested in skiing and shopping.

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http://blogs.villamood.com/james/2008/04/02/214/

When you arrive at the island the first sight you will see is Galveston Historical Center.

Many old pictures and writing introductions are preserved in this center.

The structure introductions of Galveston breakwater.

You can choose any video podcasts whatever you want.

Then we arrive at Galveston Welcome Center.

There are also some related introduction videos inside.

After leaving Welcome Center you will easy to see three arresting building TX-Moody Garden.

This building is about marine animals, if you take a look at inside from outside, you will see a tunnel formed with enormous aquarium, just enjoy the pleasure of being surrounded by fishes.

Then you walk into another building, there are two IMAX 3D rooms and some program lists, you can watch them by your time.

When you walk out of TX-Moody Garden, to see Hilton hotel on the sea.

You should relax yourself after you check in, you can have a walk on the breakwater where we just talked about, and discretionally enjoy the scenery of island. If you distantly overlook the island, there are still many distinctive buildings there and you should go around if you have time.

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http://blogs.villamood.com/james/2008/04/02/199/

1. Second House of Sweden is located in two group islands “Swedish institute” and “Swedish Orientation”.

2. The airscape of Swedish islands, the first sight you see is sauna facilities. The embassy is in the most distance, total area is “65,536 + 58,352 + 6,992 m2″, available prims “15,000 x 2″, Swedish institute is mainly divided into two parts. First part is main building, it used 9129 prims / 58352 m2, the outdoor concert hall which is in front left of the embassy used 1441 prims, occupied 6992 m2. As to Swedish Orientation, total area is 65536 m2, contains sauna facilities and guide signs totally used 5556 prims.

3. Enter sauna room, you will see signs that tell Swedish sauna culture in brief.

4. Here provides free bath towels and swimsuits for visitors.

5. Before you officially look around this place, how about a sauna equipments for relax?

6. New members who sign up from Second House of Sweden’s website will be leaded here. The embassy thoughtfully provides guides for new avatars to tell them how to keep going.

7. The starting point indicates four steps. Step 1 Welcome speech, Step 2, 3 Use the arrow keys to follow the path, Step 4 Enter the embassy when you reach terminal.

8. Look toward the first stage.

9. Stage 1 Use “alt” key for better view angle.

10. Stage 2 How to chat with people and send messages.

11. Stage 3 You will get a Swedish flag shirt and taught how to wear.

12. Goal ! How to customize your look.

13. Walk or click the sign that you will be directly teleported to front of the embassy.

14. The teleportation of Swedish embassy.

15. Great lordly gate

16. Second House of Sweden is inspired by the real-life House of Sweden in Washington.

17. The reception seperately indicates the embassy(SL)’s service time and the real-life’s

18. Click the sign and see what’s coming soon from the screen.

19. They hope you provide valued opinions.

20. Hire new staff

21. Second House of Sweden construct team.

22. How to participate in groups to get news and events.

23. Click the sign and you will enter an airtight space like globe, it indicates the location of every Swedish embassy and consulate in real world.

24. Inside the sphere

25. Click the indication then you can run through all related websites

26. They introduce other Second Life places relate to Sweden in Second Life, Click it and you will be teleported there.

27. Vacancies available.

28. Three changing rooms here, They might provide some Swedish traditional costumes.

29. This bookshelf is just like website banner that introduces website information relates to Sweden.

30. Swedish famous IKEA, you can get some free virtual furniture here.

31. Sweden paint in the vestibule, click it and you will see related introductions and websites.

32. Photo exhibition room, the embassy bought 60 copyright of Sweden life photography works, click to Flickr and it’s free to take.

33. Raoul Wallenberg (1912-?), As a Swedish diplomat, in the later period of World War II, passed making false diplomatic passports, and successfully saved thousands Jews who will be jailed to Nazi concentration camps in Budapest. 1945 he was arrested to jail by Soviets, from that moment on he disappeared..? Click and you can enter his office.

34. Raoul Wallenberg, photographed in his office, 1944.

35. The entrance of his office, it looks dark inside.

36. It seems that you walk into a time tunnel.

37. The date on calendar stays on Jan 16, 1945, the day Raoul Wallenberg been arrested.

38. The spot out of window is 3D image, too.

39. The other corners in the embassy.

40. This picture announces there will be a restaurant opened here.

41. Click the sign and you will be sent to the roof of coffee shop.

42. Foods here are all free. You can take away the food you like and also can get the recipe of food for real world.

43. The roof is also used to introduce website information relates to Sweden.

44. To see the embassy from another angle.

45. Outside view

46. The embassy’s outdoor concert.

47. After you seat yourself, you can switch your view to full screen.

48. You also can switch left/middle/right three stage viewpoints. No matter where you sit, that would be a top table for you, it’s very different from real world.



The end … I hope that I could see a concert when I came here next time.

http://blogs.villamood.com/james/2007/09/19/54/

The bottom lifts are system minimum requirements and recommended announced by secondlife.com. If the computer specification is under recommended, it’s hard to play in fact. But let’s open preferences window to adjust it. Here are some suggestions:

1.Set [Disk Cache Size] to highest, if your moving range is fixed(for example while you are building), it works well and beneficial because compare to CPU or RAM or VGA, hard disk is much cheaper.

2. Disable all options in [Shaders]. The first option is [Enable Bumpmapping and Shiny], used to strengthen the surface details of objects and the metal reflection effect. [Enable Ripple Water] is used to describe the surface waves, [Avatar Vertex Program] is used to make your avatar look more detailed and natural. However, the last two options just not support old graphic card, so don’t request too much since our equirements are not good enough.. okay ^^;

3. There are three grades in [Avatar Rendering], it mainly used to adjust your clothes, needless to say, you should selection [Normal]. Second grade is [Bump Mapped], used to wrinkle your clothes, but this function has not allowed yet so jsut forget it. The highest grade is [Bump Mapped Cloth], used to avoid clothes looking like paint on your body, and your clothes will sway in the wind.. and Second Life warned that this option probably might result in a crash, feel well?

4. Two options in [Lighting Detail], [Sun and moon only] means the sun in day and the moon at night, all objects will not shine(like the light at night) except sun and moon. Since I can’t endure such sacrifice so I suggest to sellect [Nearby local lights].

5. [Terrain Detail]: If you select [High], would be more precise, cause the efficiency will decrease, so please select [Low].

6. The following are 4 buttons, default value is in the middle. Lowering [Object Mesh Detail] (pull left) the circle will become approach the polygon and the radian of ball will distort. [Flexible Mesh Detail] makes the river look not affluent. [Tree Mesh Detail] affects the amount that branches and leaves present. [Avatar Mesh Detail] affects the distance that accessories or hand-things present. For the sake of efficiency, pull left as possible as you can accept.

7. If you select [Anisotropic Filtering], it makes objects more quality, especially it’s more apparent if you change the viewpoint, but the exchange condition certainly is that you have to sacrifice your efficiency.

8. Finally there is an option you can select. Not all but most specification can increase efficiency through the option [Enable AGP].

9. If you don’t like going to crowded places but like misty views, the recommended one is okay. For me, I don’t like noisy places, either. But the most I care is the field of vision( “view” or “scenery”). The [Draw Distance] set(default value 128) makes game page look misty, there is no any scenery at all. Because my system is 64 D CPU + 1G RAM + nVidia GeForce 6600, so I tried to turn [Draw Distance] to 256, the page finally accepted. If I higher it, it’s not affluent while running pages. Anyway, if you like drinking coffee and viewing mountains and valley at the same time, you have no choice but to spend money on upgrading your VGA and RAM. If your system is under recommended you better turn to 64, it got another great..

http://blogs.villamood.com/james/2007/03/31/39/

The four pics are seted in different [Draw Distance], the sight from my viewing platform.

Draw Distance 64: Daybreak looks misty..	Draw Distance 128: A kind of misty beauty
Draw Distance 256: My seted value	Draw Distance 512: Highest value

1. The following is the first page you will see, it provides many groups in Second Life. If you are interested in a group, click [Join Now] and you will enter that group’s website. If you complete the registration flow on that website, you will start at the place that your group planed and designed for you as your life beginning while you enter this game. Because every group has it’s own flow page, in order to avoid troubles, let’s click [Skip This Step] to enter Second Life’s registration flow. Anyway, you can join a group any time as you like.

2. At first you have to decide your account name, what different is the accounts in Second Life are made up of names, you must fill in your First Name. Be sure not to use multiple character in your name, cause you might not enter this game. Besides Second Life provides Last Name for you to choose. While it’s chosen you can click [Check this name for availability] to check if your account had been used or not in case of wasting your time.

If your account had been used you will get this page, keep your Last Name and try other First Name, or directly click [x] to turn it off to choose again.

Congratulations! Your account is available. click [Choose this Second Life Name] to keep going.

If you see this page, it means you are too young to play(must be 13 years of age or older).. Registration Notes

If there are so many blanks need to be filled, that’s because you are below 18, you must fill in adaut’s credit card information, and have to play with family’s company as your guardian.

The word on the Birthday field turns red, it means you missed this option or it’s wrong.

Don’t worry, this window page appears to remind your name’s opening is a small letter. If you wanna change, click [Cancel], if it doesn’t matter, just click [Enter] to keep going.

3. The third step is to select your avatar. Although Second Life had told you that you can change your type casually, in order to have a similar appearance before you get everything clear, I suggest choosing a type first in case of regret.

4. Then is your profile, the three options in [SL News and Updates] don’t have to be checked, you can also neglect the option [Promotion Code], as regards the option [Who Referred You], you might fill in “James Yiyuan”(if you upgrade to Premium, I’ll got L$500 ^^), all other fields are needed. The red frame is [reCAPTCHA] code, you must key in the code showed on the field. If it’s not clear, you can click the refresh icon near by to ask a new code, or click speaker icon just listen to the code(better not use this, if it doesn’t work, SL quite insist that you must install it). In the end there is an option [Terms of Service] down the page, don’t forget to check after reading.

If you see this page, it means your [reCAPTCHA] code was wrong(you must be far off, the checking is not so ad litteram).

It’s too bad if you see this, don’t think as a complete page, it means your registration was failed, you have to try again, because Linden considers that you are a trouble maker.

5. It was right to see this, asking you to become premium member or not, there are three terms on payment, click [Skip This Step] to jump it if you don’t want it currently.

6. Congratulations! You’ve finished all fields, but the registration is not complete yet. Remember to receive email at first because Second Life will confirm your email.

7. The mail subjected [Welcome to Second Life] here is the content, click first link back to Second Life website to complete the registration.

Do you see this? Congratulations! You can downlord Second Life now.

http://blogs.villamood.com/james/2007/11/08/146/

There are several points you should mention(basicly terms depend on Second Life):

1. Registration must be 13 years of age or older to access, below 18 not only have to register guardian and credit card information but also allowed in teenage area.

2. The same basic information and credit card can also apply an additional account, but each account will be charged US$9.95 since your additional account was built.

3. Premium members can choose three terms on payment(US$9.95 monthly, US$22.5 quarterly, US$72 annual), you can get L$1000 after you pay, you also can receive L$300 every week during member period.

4. Only Premium can own lands, you can’t create objects till you have lands. Free members can just go around, although free members can create objects, but can do nothing if they don’t get landlord’s permission.

http://blogs.villamood.com/james/2007/03/30/18/

Account Type:	First Basic	Additional Basic	Premium
Cost:	FREE!	$9.95	Monthly: $9.95/mo Quarterly: $22.50 - in full ($7.50/mo) Annual: $72.00 - in full ($6.00/mo)
Customizable Avatar:
Signup Bonus:	L$250		L$1000
Weekly stipend:			L$300/wk
Building Opportunities:
Land Ownership:

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