Please Linden Lab, Might I Have An iOS Mobile Client?

Crossposted from my main blog, since I follow a few people from here:

Recently, several bloggers have reported that Linden Lab is working on an official mobile client and they’ve sent emails to people (I assume the sorts of people who update their blogs more frequently than I do).

I would really, really, really, really love to try out a mobile client in beta, if only I were cool enough and less invizibul. But I would only want to try it on an iOS device. Currently I use the pretty solid Pocket Metaverse client, which is non-graphical but useful for sending IMs, group invites, and payments to other AVs. I can send inventory from it, too, but it’s kind of hard to navigate too deep in my inventory tree.

It was reported by several well known bloggers, such as the Hamster (sorry, I’m a Top Gear fan, it’s my mental nickname for Hamlet Au), Daniel Voyager (I got to meet him at SL9B), Inara Pey, and Ciaran Laval.

As I’m not prolific enough a blogger (let alone prominent enough), I’ll have to languish in my obscurity and wait for the Second Life mobile client beta to go public later (if it gets to that point).

Drat.

If only I had some Google-juice, but I’m just not that interesting. ;P

Post: Chameleonic Nouveau Top Hat – Acid-cut Velvets for DINKIES avatars

I’d been wearing a resized version of the velvet hat with my DINKIES kitty avatar and having so much fun, I had to put it out there for other Dinkies to enjoy.

Also, check out my “Chameleonic Possessions” group on Flickr – I’ll upload preview images of products I’m working on there, and also the best images of some of my existing products. I’m hoping that if people join it they’ll upload photos of themselves having fun with the stuffs.

Redonkulously cute on Dinkies Kitty avatars, too

Redonkulously cute on Dinkies Kitty avatars, too

I even added an arty style photo.

Dinkies Kitties Chameleonic Velvet Top Hat

Now DINKIES Kitties can has a texture change top hat!

The textures on this versatile antique hat for year-round style. Add your own if you like! Just be careful to edit linked prims, and add textures to the contents of the hat body or band only.

Sized and rotated for Etheria Parrot’s DINKIES kitty avatars, will fit tinies too with some adjustment.

via Second Life Marketplace – @LC@ Chameleonic Nouveau Top Hat – Acid-cut Velvets for DINKIES avatars.

Dhughan Froobert, Shy AV, has some new products #SecondLifeMarketplace #Caspervend

Yes, I’ve been motivated lately – not only did I just list this at the Marketplace:

An antique rug for sale. Non-flying.

An antique rug for sale. Non-flying.

A simple antique rug, well worn but carefully kept, enhances any decor. This one has paler, more subtle colors and more vertical lines and angular designs in the corners.

via Second Life Marketplace – @DF@ Antique Rug Egyptian Revival.

But I also have this for sale in my NEW SHOP in Steelhead City, as well as in the Tweddle outlet shop:

A dramatic DRAGON in relief. With free lantern

A dramatic DRAGON in relief. With free lantern


Currently I’ve only had time to load it in inworld vendors, but will add it to the Marketplace presently.

I have some exciting plans cooking around in my brain. Do stop by.

My Special Gift from The Firestorm Viewer, by Dhughan Froobert, Socially Inept Avatar

I have been absent of late bumbling around in the typist’s life of so-called “reality,” but I happened to log in to deal with a customer service issue yesterday, and resolved to log in today to get more chores done.

I missed the 3rd Birthday gift for Firestorm, but I had a different special gift in my trousers when I logged in.

Mr Dhughan has a rock in his trousers and he's not ashamed to say it.

It’s certainly a conversation piece.

Special Gifts
Firestorm Kitty
As a token of our thanks and appreciation, we teamed up with KittyCatS!, who have put together the most amazing custom collectible pet to give away to you as a gift. The Firestorm Kitty is a fully functional, non-breedable, non transferable pet for life meaning you don’t have to feed it, and it will never die. There is a rumor that this is the kitty that ate the Phoenix, but whether it’s true or not is up to you to decide. There is a limit of one per customer, and they will be available inworld for free purchase for a full week starting 9am SLT September 3rd until 9am September 10th.

via Happy 3rd Anniversary! « Firestorm Viewer – The Phoenix Firestorm Project Inc..

I had also seen the item in the SL Newser by Bixyl Shuftan about the Firestorm birthday celebrations, and had updated the viewer accordingly. I stepped inworld yesterday without issue, and today this… which would also leave me without issue in an entirely different sense.

Very awkward socially: “Oh, how do you do, I have an enormous rock in my trousers, pleasant weather for it, what?”

I was thinking of investing in some enhanced gentlemen’s bits (purely for research), as it would seem there’s a need for good quality men’s underfurnishings. It seems to me that designing a discreet “package” that might hint at the treasures awaiting a potential partner might be about as far as I’d be prepared to go in the “naughty bits” adult market.

In the meantime, I had logged in via remote aetheric device to answer a query; this has done rather odd things in the past.

And so this evening I arrive in my simple workshop to find this… geological erratic situated over the gentleman’s bits, and I did just wonder what Firestorm was thinking with their “Simple Gifts” promotion.

UPDATE: Miss Jessica Lyon, project manager of Firestorm, kindly stopped by with a fix for my dilemma. I had merely resized the bridge, but it appears I’m not the only one to be rocked by a Firestorm bridge, and she included a link for fixing the problem.

 

 

Finally, Something New For Men, Women, and Dinkies

Just listed at the Marketplace – as I thought, it took about as long to create the marketing textures as it did to create the original hat, although I spent a lot of time tweaking this one. It’s a unisex style again, and I’ve been wearing variations of this hat for MONTHS, so it’s high time I got it ready to release.

In the meantime, I discovered that it fits my new Dinkies Kitty avatar with a little rotating (no size adjustment necessary). Hurray, kitties in hats!

14 hat and 6 hatband textures, dozens of combinations

14 hat and 6 hatband textures, dozens of combinations

Brown blocked wool with gamboling Art Nouveau wild animals

Brown blocked wool with gamboling Art Nouveau wild animals

Redonkulously cute on Dinkies Kitty avatars, too

Redonkulously cute on Dinkies Kitty avatars, too

Change the textures on this versatile antique hat for year-round style. Add your own if you like! Just be careful to edit linked prims, and add textures to the contents of the hat body or band only.

via Second Life Marketplace – @LC@ Chameleonic Nouveau Topper – Wools.

Texture Change Low-Crown Hat – Humans and Kitties Deserve Fine Hats!

This was listed at the Marketplace a while back – as I thought, it took about as long to create the marketing textures as it did to create the original hat, although I spent a lot of time tweaking this one. And then publicizing and social-mediaizing it took even longer…

In the meantime, I discovered that it fits my Dinkies Kitty avatar with a little rotating (no size adjustment necessary). Hurray, kitties in hats!

14 hat and 6 hatband textures, dozens of combinations
14 hat and 6 hatband textures, dozens of combinations
Brown blocked wool with gamboling Art Nouveau wild animals
Brown blocked wool with gamboling Art Nouveau wild animals
Redonkulously cute on Dinkies Kitty avatars, too
Redonkulously cute on Dinkies Kitty avatars, too

Change the textures on this versatile antique hat for year-round style. Add your own if you like! Just be careful to edit linked prims, and add textures to the contents of the hat body or band only.

via Second Life Marketplace – @LC@ Chameleonic Nouveau Topper – Wools.

Ermagerd ZERMBERS! Ernd HERTS!

It’s been a satisfying weekend getting back into the swing of things.

I’ve worked on several variations of hats, getting them loaded with textures. These 2 batches are texture change, one based on “acid burnt chiffon velvet” textures, and one based on some jewel-tone wools and crushed velvets from a different texture purchase. Both hats will have texture change hatbands, and slightly different cockade decorations. Some of the hatband textures are Art Nouveau fragments that I was playing with last spring, and some are some basic suede or exotic leather-like ones. What had partly bogged me down was how to show all the combinations, or how best to show the variety of textures for body and band.

It’s funny, I’ve been wearing one of several variations of these hats for almost a year, it’s high time I finally put them up on the Marketplace, and start working on something really, truly new again. But the thought of doing the marketing images for hats with different textures made me want to play solitaire again (for the thousandth time).

I didn’t want to slog through a bunch of layer files, so I hit on the idea first of stacking some prims up and photographing them inworld. Then I remembered these funny little texture organizers by Solo Mornington that I’ve been using as project texture dumps. Actually, they’re these standard cube prims that you lay out in an array, and you put this script into the root, and WHAM, a simple rezzer-like organizer that can display in either texture or sculpty mode. I realized I could put the textures into them and arrange it so that I could display against my backdrop. Then later I decided I might have better luck against a plain white backdrop, because there are shadow and other issues (partly because I’m using placeholders to separate body from band textures).

 

The plain and Art Nouveau bands

The plain and Art Nouveau bands

The Acid Burnt Chiffon Velvets (plus one fractal)

The Acid Burnt Chiffon Velvets (plus one fractal)

The crushed velvets

The crushed velvets

For the actual Marketplace ads I’ll still have to choose from some of the hat photos I’ve already taken, just to show a few of the possible combinations. Then I’ll have to add the usual text and they’re done. The first one is from the wools/velvets, the next is a chiffon velvet that I added a plasma rainbow base color on, and the last one is a sort of brownish fractal flame velvet that’s going to be part of the “acid burnt chiffon” hat, although I switched out the cockade after taking this photo.

Black-on-rainbow plasma chiffon with peacock band

Black-on-rainbow plasma chiffon with peacock band

Fractal flame velvet with plain burgundy suede band

Fractal flame velvet with plain burgundy suede band

Brown blocked wool with gamboling Art Nouveau wild animals

Brown blocked wool with gamboling Art Nouveau wild animals

So that’s coming along, I think I’ll be putting those up in the Marketplace tomorrow, they’re done except for the marketing textures, which then have to be uploaded for my hats vendors.

Besides all that boring detail, yesterday I had the whole day to tinker with the new Dinkie kitty hair, and then I went off to the Tunaverse to get odd, and then I went to the Opening Ball for the Consulate of Europa Wulfenbach Game Day (whew, that’s a lot of capitalization). All as the little Arabian Nights kitty, wearing a resized hair and one of my “explorer” pith helmets (those are next on my list to get on the Marketplace). And then after that… I skipped some game day events, but decided to head over for an exciting treasure hunt, because ERMAGERD, ZERMBERS! There was a zombie hunt in a cursed Egyptian tomb, which had been rezzed in the sky in the next parcel over from me in St Helens. There’s a lot of joint membership between the Steelhead group and the Consulate, so it was convenient for Zanya, the game builder, to set up her tomb experience here. She runs DJ events overhead in the Charity Way airship weekly.

Let’s see… then today seemed to be a day to reconnect with old friends, so I started with a quiet hour over at the Anglican Cathedral, before encountering more blasts from the past than you can shake a prim stick at.

One other thing that I did on Thursday that I didn’t mention: I dropped by Carntaigh Green to listen to Audite Nova!, the monthly early music program on Radio Riel hosted by Diamanda Gustafson.

It was a lovely garden setting, perfect for listening quietly while working on something (the typist got caught up on a web page she administers).

A lovely summerhouse with the radio on

A lovely summerhouse with the radio on

Relaxing and listening

Relaxing and listening

And the day or two before THAT, Miss Bug went to class with the fabulous Toady Nakamura and made a thing. It only remains for Dhughan, the slacker, to get on the stick and make a new stick.

So the last few days have been pretty productive, and fun, and satisfying. And I ran across so many old friends – Cady Enoch, Mistletoe Ethaniel, Lukas Mensing, and more. Ert’s GERD ter ber BERK!

At Home in Steelhead: Shanghai is no more, but St Helens Rocks (with bonus MESH KITTY CUTE)

The typist was on vacation the last two weeks of August, bumbling around the real-life Pacific Northwest on foot, by bike, by car, and by ferry. Oh, and by air, in that weird, awkward, and slightly intrusive way they fly in “real life.” So she missed the excellent “Exploring Second Life” meme started by Strawberry Singh.

On her return, she was prompted to approve (or re-approve after an update, maybe) this old trackback about Steelhead by Inara Pey, which referenced this post about Steelhead Shanghai.

Steelhead itself is the commercial centre for the community. here you’ll find the train station, stores and wide streets and the town hall, wherein a weekly meeting of residents is held to discuss community matters. To the west of this is Steelhead Shanghai, a fascinating “Sino-steampunk” region which brought to mind photos I’ve seen of the Hong Kong harbour front circa the 1920s (although Hong Kong admittedly never had dirigible junks sitting on the waterfront).

via Nouveau steampunk with a rural seasoning | Living in the Modem World.

There have been a lot of changes in Steelhead lately, mostly to do with the complete rebuild of Steelhead City by TotalLunar Eclipse after losing the old sim to a previous owner, then purchasing a former Armada sim to repurpose.

The biggest recent change, though, is that Shanghai is no more: Mr Lunar announced about 10 days ago that the sim would have to be sent below the waves due to low rental occupancy. 2 major renters had had to give up their parcels in the last year, and even with a breathtakingly beautiful rebuild in the central plaza, new tenants never appeared. There’s now open water where all of this once stood:

Steelhead Shanghai Factories for rent

View of Steelhead Shanghai

View of Steelhead Shanghai

 

Dragonlands Hotel Interior with Buddha

I contemplate my future with the Buddha in the lobby of Dragonlands

The Dragonlands Hotel, Steelhead Shanghai

A clean room and exciting entertainments await you at Dragonlands

The celebration when the center of Shanghai was rebuilt for Chinese New Year 2013

The celebration when the center of Shanghai was rebuilt for Chinese New Year 2013

Dancing on the central plaza of Steelhead Shanghai. Year of the Snake, January 2011

Dancing on the central plaza of Steelhead Shanghai. Year of the Snake, January 2011

2-RedDragonDance_003
This was a dance from a few years ago – someone built a gorgeous sky junk and of course that was where the weekly dance was built. I took several different shots under different Windlight settings.

RedDragonDance_005

RedDragonDance_002

 

3-SteelheadShanghai_004

4-SteelheadShanghai_003

5-SteelheadShanghai_002

And finally, the Sharknado! Shanghai party, held on the docks nearest Shanghai, which included TWO (2!) sharknados, many sharks, and lots of fun, which ended up being covered by Bixyl Shuftan in the Second Life Newser.

This image is taken from the far side, looking back over Shanghai and towards the sharknados:

View of Steelhead Shanghai, with sharknados in the distance

View of Steelhead Shanghai, with sharknados in the distance

More Sharknado! images:

Lightning! Torrential Rain! Sharks! Tornadoes! also great music and dancing

Lightning! Torrential Rain! Sharks! Tornadoes! also great music and dancing

I suspect that barrel in the foreground went BEWM! later that night, long after I had to put the typist to bed.

I suspect that barrel in the foreground went BEWM! later that night, long after I had to put the typist to bed.

Meanwhile, At Home in Steelhead (which is the new group tag to replace the “Steelhead Settlers” one), last night’s Friday dance feature Men! In Kilts! and lots of great Celtic-inspired rock, courtesy of DJs Fuzzball Ortega and Willow Leafstorm, via Krypton Radio. The Friday night dances we’re always going on about in Steelhead are generally DJed by Marshal Fuzz, as he has a regular gig those nights on what I think is the only science fiction and superhero-powered Internet radio station in the ‘Verse.

Last night’s venue for the dance took place on an AVAILABLE PARCEL IN ST HELENS (SLurl HERE) located not far from Miss Lumina Elvehjem’s new shop location (she was relocated here after the closure of Steelhead Shanghai). Miss Lumi makes wonderful fantasy-based clothes – I own two of her yummilicious saris – and her shop is now located here (SLurl). For the party last night, she provided the mysterious ivy-covered stone circle on the otherwise empty parcel, complete with firepit, dance balls, and a couple of vendors loaded with men’s formal and informal kilts and a women’s “miniskirt” kilt, all in the Steelhead tartan colors. The vendors were still there when I stopped by on Saturday to do a quick photo shoot of me in my REDONKULOUSLY CUTE NEW DINKIES KITTY AVATAR, which I picked up on a whim.

I own a Wynx Tinies Siamese kitty AV that I’ve loved forever that I was wearing with a prim kilt. I’d retartaned it with the Steelhead tartan and noticed that some of my head prims were kind of weird looking close up. I started wondering what mesh kitties there might be out there, and behold, TEH CUTENESS OVERWHELMS:

My new Dinkies Siamese Kitty mesh avatar ROCKS!

My new Dinkies Siamese Kitty mesh avatar ROCKS!

I added a mauve “Arabian Nights” outfit with a flexi-prim skirt made for this avatar, which was the nearest thing to a kilt and not all that different from some of the sexxay ladies’ kilt outfits that were on display last night. And a little prim hair originally meant for a petite that I found in a hunt, which has a resize script that makes it about the right size for my adorably oversized mesh head. Then I realized that I could add any reasonably sized accessory, so I put on a choker that was a gift from my friend Cady Enoch.

Vendors are standing by to serve you with kilts, this offer won't last!

Vendors are standing by to serve you with kilts, this offer won’t last!

Miss Lumi’s partner Thadicus Caligari is the maker of the men’s kilts, while Lumi is the maker of the sexxay ladies’ one. As I was already tiny I didn’t want to go hoomin again so soon to wear the ladies’ one, so… I went shawpin’ for the mesh kitty AV and an outfit, and this was the result.

1-StHelensStonehenge_002
As I said, redonkulous. I notice that the maker has made simple templates available for making mesh outfits, and there aren’t any historical ones at all by her or the other merchant who’s making cute things for Dinkies Kitty avatars. So I may play around with that!

That is, if I can stop dancing. I clicked on Miss Lumi’s Huggles attachment, which is loaded with an awesome assortment of group dances (and even a “mark time” movement for when the music isn’t playing), and no matter how I click on “stop animation” or remove/turn off other AO’s, I simply can’t stop dancing. Which is no bad thing, since this little kitty LOVES TO DANCE apparently, though it looks a bit weird to see myself as a winsome little kitty with my grownup lady stands, walks, and dances. So I may have to play with other AOS to load up the onboard AO with appropriate walks; the AV comes with a simple attachment that has a special walk and groundsit. I have a clockwork geisha one from Curio Obscura that has a pretty cute little walk, and the turning animation is clocky good fun, too. So I’m playing around with that, too.

Finally, I ended up back with Firestorm after several weeks with Kokua. I did dip a toe in the “export prim linkset as mesh” last week with Kokua, but couldn’t figure out what to do with it once I got it into Blender in order to optimize it. Meanwhile, I missed the Windlight settings button, and the photo controls, while I didn’t care for the CHUI-based chat functions in Kokua much at all. So I’ll stick with Firestorm, and I did end up getting one of their 3rd-birthday special celebration gifts from KittyCats.

1-PettingEmber_001

1-PettingEmber_002

Because like I said, redonkulous. His name is Ember, and I never have to feed (or breed) him. I got Dash out of inventory and set them to running around together; Dash is a permapet now and a bit creaky, but they seem to be good company.

I’m working on some older texture change hats that I never got uploaded to the Marketplace before I lost momentum last spring, so I’m now getting some product display images of them and thinking how cute they’d look on this little cat. More on that later.

Dinkies Kitty Avatars Are Redonkulously Cute And I Want To Make Stuffs For Them

These are redonkulously cute, as I blogged earlier at my main site.

Redonkulously cute Dinky Siamese Kitty avatar. Outfit by Kamasa Kutanaga of KaoSome Inc.

Redonkulously cute Dinky Siamese Kitty avatar. Outfit by Kamasa Kutanaga of KaoSome Inc.

The maker is Etheria Parrott, and they’re available on the Marketplace as Dinkies Kitty Avatars. She provides simple templates for making squee li’l outfits for them. Makes me want to dust off my workshop and make hats and stuffs.

There are some extremely cute outfits for them made by Kamasa Kutanaga  at the Marketplace.

Second Life Endowment for the Arts Goes To Crap (And Other Fine Builders Besides)

My SL acquaintance Mr. Crap Mariner is going all artistic-like, along with other builders and creators, in the latest LEA (Linden Endowment for the Arts) round.

I expect great Crap art, and lots of creative Crap as well. His builds for the last few SL Birthday celebrations have generally centered around the literary and spoken-word performance genres, but who knows what Crap we’ll see with an entire region to play with.

He certainly gives away loads of Crap to members of his announcement groups for readings and such, mostly fun scripted attachments or things you can display that are reminders of dates, times and all that Crap.

On Friday August 2nd, the Linden Endowment for the Arts announced the successful applicants for the 5th round of the LEA’s Artist-in-Residence AIR programme.They are: Marx Catteneo , Joey Aboma, Giovanna Cerise, Asterion Coen, Aloisio Congrejo, Gnupf Gufler, NaTaS Janus, Scotsgraymouser Janus, Karkassus Jigsaw, Gracie Kendal, Livio Korobase, Crap Mariner, Johnas Merlin, olgastr63, Takni Resident, Eupalinos Ugajin, Azwaldo Villota, Winter Wardhani, Kimika Ying and Newbab Zsigmond.

via LEA announce AIR 5 selection | Living in the Modem World.