virtual communities

Are you one of those really really sick persons that after spending a day working online decides to go for a walk in Second Life? Does she, or he, is often asking to go out and have some fun? Would you like to have the best of both worlds?

A few days ago I invited Yesen... I mean, Cata Charik, to go with me and have some wild action in-world. We had a really good time. Word.

We started the night, it was night in RL anyway, in a disco with music from the eighties. We did as many ridicule dance steps from the decade as we could.

Then we decided to spend a few Lindens. Yeah, shopping time baby. First time in my life that I really enjoyed watching her choosing clothes in a store. I bought a few toys and then we went to the beach to relax.

Ah... relax is good.

Then it was time to go home and continue the party, obviously I can't publish those pics.

There you have it. Shopping, dancing and something more in a few hours thanks to Second Life.

We're thinking of new ways for enjoying our time in-world and are open to suggestions. Wanna share?

I'm enjoying World of Warcraft more and more lately. I recently started to play it with my Beatriz, I bought an account just for her, and it really kicks ass. Now we have to convince Yesenia to install it on her lappy for the whole family to be shouting for the Horde! all day.

It's a little hard finding time to play but I'm already planning my early retirement, super early, and dedicate my days to writing, making music and playing World of Warcraft.

What really amazes me is how after so many years, WoW was released on November 2004, a game keeps attracting so many users, a little more than ten millions as I write this post.

I'm still exploring Azeroth as the bad ass Zuska in Kalecgos so if you're around let me know.

By the way, if any of you, who's not playing it yet, want to give World of Warcraft a ten day trial just let me know to send you an invitation.

Some days ago some friends and I were talking about World of Warcraft in Twitter and decided to use the same realm to enjoy the massacre... er.. I mean the fun, together. Our always geek and good friend Slayer_X suggested Kalecgos, a place where there's a good population of Spanish speaking players, and I decided to start a new life, as a part of the Horde, of course.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to continue my quests with good 'ol Bartor in Baelgun but guess the change is worth it if I can find some familiar faces around Azeroth.

Now I'm Zuska, a good looking Warlock eager to crush some ugly Alliance skulls. And yeah, that three in my pic is my poor level, I had to start somewhere, didn't I?

Ok, invitation's done. I'm looking forward to meeting you in World of Warcraft, Kalecgos. If you're from the Horde I'm sure we'll enjoy some really kick ass raids, however, if you're some Alliance scumbag, I wish to cause you lots of pain real soon.

I was subscribed to Star Wars Hyperspace for one year, I didn't use it too much, maybe because the site was too crowded and slow but I'm still a big Star Wars fan and receive all their newsletters weekly.

Today I got one telling me about the World of Star Wars at Yahoo. A new site with photos, videos, a forum and many other things related to Star Wars. I like it so far and looks easier to use and enjoy.

Real geeks, or simply guys over 30, should take a look.

It was impossible to resist. After a few months living in Second Life, learning everyday and gathering lots of ideas for new projects in world, I had to start exploring Azeroth, the magical place also known as World of Warcraft.

I'm still downloading the 10 day trial but have already registered for US$ 19.99, so I have the next 30 days covered (they add to the first 10 days). After that it's US$ 14.99 monthly. Some argue that is a little expensive but I think many of us spend much more in other kinds of entertainment and I'm pretty sure the fun of World of Warcraft is well worth the fifteen bucks.

Important to notice: you don't need to buy the boxed version of the game, the big 3.16 Gb. download is exactly the same once you activate your account.

I've registered to the US based version of the game, for that you need a credit card with an address in the United States, if you have a Paypal account there your debit card, which is a Mastercard, would work too. I used that option.

World of Warcraft is the closest thing to a virtual version of Tolkien's universe and even if, unlike Second Life, there's no real economy promoted by Blizzard, creators of the game, a secondary market has appeared, just one example: millions of chinese are mining virtual gold and selling it for real dollars.

With more than eight million players, World of Warcraft is a huge virtual reality that many friends told me to "please don't enter, danger, highly addictive!" Cool, exactly what every geek needs.

Obviously I'll join the Horde 'cause there's nothing better than crashing some human bones after all that Drupal coding during the day.

Want to understand the world of Second Life? What could be better than learning from its creators, the founders of Linden Lab Philip Rosedale and Cory Ondrejka, in a March 2006 presentation at Google TechTalks?

Wow! I'm the new proud owner of a small lot of 512m2 in Second Life.

After being a little worried because many residents mentioned how hard was getting land I got my lot thanks to the First Land program for only L$ 512, an excellent price.

To get it, I joined a group of residents looking for land and we were waiting until Linden Labs, a few minutes ago, put some land for sale.

A great number of residents wait a long time for this moment, some of them for weeks and a few months. I was lucky enough to get my land in less than two days.

I was too slow in the first lot I visited and couldn't complete the purchase. After a few minutes and many teleports I arrived to one available lot and voilá! Mento Gamba turned into "Mr. Gamba", at least that's what one guy told me before asking me if I was selling my new land, just seconds after I had bought it.

What did I learn? You have to use the search function as often as possible to find First Land and you have to know how to quickly teleport, even using coordinates and the map. You must also be precise when handling your avatar, specially in flying.

The moment you arrive to an available lot don't think, just right click and choose Buy. Unfortunately at this price you can't stop to think about your options, just buy as soon as you can.

You can find my new headquarters, Ventanazul HQ, at Marybank (251,241,53). There's a lot of work to do, I plan to build a small operations center and receive all my webmaster friends over there very soon.

See you in world!

The ultra-rebel team at The Pirate Bay has started a campaign and is already receiving donations to buy their own island.

The place is Sealand, a man-made island where the Pirate Bay boys hope to be free of copyright laws and have access to high-speed Internet.

According to what the Pirate Bay boys do best, the island, if they can buy it, will be shared amongst their users, I mean, citizens.

Can you believe it? A real pirate island in 2007.

The Second Life for Linux client has been in Alpha state for some time and I couldn't get it working with my Fedora Core 5 box, which has an ATI x700 card.

Now I've just downloaded an updated version and it worked.

After you've correctly setup 3D rendering for the ATI card you just need to download the Second Life client for Linux, I'm running version 1.13.2 (5), I found the link in the Second Life forum for the Linux client.

At first I had some problems with ALT + clicking but these threads helped me to get the problem solved.

The first thread tells how to disable using ALT + click in Gnome. I use KDE, there you find the relevant options going to Control Center > Desktop > Window Behavior > Window Actions. I changed the modifier key in the Inner Window, Titlebar & Frame to Meta (which is the Window key in my keyboard).

I also started Second Life with:

SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0 ./secondlife

After doing that I still had some issues with my camera and ALT clicking so I went full screen (View > Toggle Fullscreen or ALT + Enter) and things seem to be working fine now.

I can't teleport right now but I guess is just a temporal grid issue.

I hope this helps all linuxers out there to get into Second Life. By the way, I'm Mento Gamba, shoot me an IM while you are in-world.

Update: Bad timing! There was in fact a grid problem when I wrote this article; however, after it was resolved, I still couldn't teleport. The problem was that I was using a preview version of the Linux client which uses the Beta Grid. I grabbed a copy of the non-preview client, the one the link above refers too, and now I'm back on business.