Latest Second Life Adventure

[tree_lady]

Latest Second Life Adventure

I am always saying I'm going to keep these blog entries short but I really am going to try tonight. Just spent over an hour and a half either trying to get into Second Life or eventually lounging around with Frank Creed and Cynthia, Terri Main, Grace Bridges, Caprice Hokstad... Ooh, shouldn't have started this. Who did I

Comments

Sigh. wish I could get in

[cathikin]

I have a name and account with SL, have for a couple of years and three rebuilt computers, but my video card has never pleased them. I suppose I am committing the sin of envy because I want to get in on the fun. I also tried downloading a new video card, the one the computer info said was correct, only to be told (after wasting many minutes and effort) that it wasn't compatible with my machine. Argh! There is apparently some kind of orientation island to learn how to do stuff, but I never got there. X, I hope you get it figured out. IF you do, maybe you can advise me! Sherry, I hope you didn't give up after the first night.

I guess I like hotmail (comparing to AOL email) more all the time, especially since they have made so many changes and do a lot better with spam any more. I found myself wanting to hold on to so many of my messages that I now have quite a few extra folders, but my mailbox will hold 5 GBs! I need to go back and clean out some really old messages just to get rid of clutter, but I don't really worry about stuff getting left out anymore. I think gmail is around the same; I just don't use it much. I get lots of daily stuff and Yahoo group stuff, too. In fact, when I missed two days back in November, when I was away from home, I had over 400 emails waiting for me in the box at the time I opened it. That took a while.

Even though I am green with envy, I thank you for a delightful description of your foray into SL. I enjoyed reading it.

Re: Sigh. wish I could get in

[tree_lady]

Hi, Cathikin!
I remember you writing on LGG about your video card. did you see someone's comment that if the SL software objects to your card, you should try to sign on anyway? Whoever wrote that post added that sometimes, the software will give in so to speak and let you sign on.

Whether that works out for you or not, I wish that oyu could take my place! I have actually gone into SecondLife three times now -- all for the purpose of meeting with LGG'ers at Terri's virtual home. I liked the concept. I enjoyed hearing people's actual voices because I might never hear them any other way. But, frankly, that is/was the extent of my pleasure in the experiences. Maybe I've been a bit too upbeat about it here on the blog for this to come through, but mostly I've felt a LOT of frustration.

Why? Because I don't have the time to invest to learning how to navigate in SL. As I wrote, I seemed to have regressed this third time when I couldn't even make my avatar sit down without help from two people -- and even then it popped right back up.

I don't think that your twinge of frustration about your video card counts as the actual sin of envy. I don't have a camera (thank God) on my monitor. I also don't have a built-in microphone. Do you have one? Now, that lack gives me a twinge of frustration. I'd guess that two thirds of the people during my third visit were using their mikes to communicate. By the itme, I would type in my comments, the subject had often changed to something else -- sometimes with comical results when it came to what I had written.

I hope & pray that you get into SL if that is somehting that oyu really want to do. I also hope and pray that you find yourself enjoying it when you get there.

emails

[tree_lady]

Cathikin, a mailbox that holds 5 gigs sounds huge, but then I don't have much data with which to compare it.

If AOL provides information by mb and G, then I've missed that. I do know that AOL will allow only(!) up to 1000 "new mails" in the inbox before it refused delivery on any more. I have never seen many pieces of incoming mail thanks to this rule and the fact that mail sometimes comes in spates from a couple of different lists simultaneously.
On the other hand, I have saved at least a couple of 1000 emails in AOL's files. If there's a max for that, I've yet to hit it.

I don't want to have that many emails laying around any more than you want to. It's just a case of finding the time to deal with them. If I had extra hours in the day... Well, I'd write. But if I had extra-extra hours in the day, I would go through these a delete or else save important mails to WORD docs.

Like you, C, I don't use gmail as much. I just checked and I am currently using 3% of my 7293MB. I find it more difficult to find recent email in gmail because -- like Verizon -- it breaks them up into screens of 50. (Verizon does screens of only 20.)

Naturally, I can do a search but there are times when I just want to scroll down and see if I've forgotten to read something or act on it. AOL allows fairly fast scrolling up and down through everything in the inbox, so I can often catch emails I need to work on but have forgotten existed until I see them. It's a bit hard to use a search algorithm for an email you have forgotten existed. ;-P

I used to have a hotmail account. Technically still do. Don't even know what it is after a couple of years of none use. I bet it's full of spam.