New section for community news

Are you looking for something to do this weekend?
What about a great place to visit or even to live?
Want to hear about those people in SL that make it such a great place to be?
Or maybe a community event you have heard of but don't know how to find?


Find all this and more in the new Community section from the link on the left.

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Relay for Life Music Event

Sat-Sun, July 18-19

RFL weekend covered 37 sims with multiple events and stages on four of them. Performers played from 2pm on the 18th through 10 am on the 19th. The list of performers is quite long, but some of the musicians showing their support included Quinton Whitman, ELiz Watanabe, Scarletta Roux, Shannon Oherlihy, Tone Uriza, Kim Seifert, Dominick Manatiso, Mike00 Carnell, Mason Thorne, Steely DeCosta, Dann Numbers and Buckley Moonwall, to name just a few. I was approached by the lovely Ms. Bourque Rau to put my hosting talents to work for an hour segment, and I hosted Tone Uriza.

I arrived early to catch Nad Gough on the Entertainment Bay Fest sim. Nad performed tunes by Burt Bacharach and Cole Porter, and sang with a voice and style that reminded me of Johnny Cash. Although he didn't quite pull off the Johnny Cash imitation, it was all for a good cause.

At 6 SLT, Mr. Blues himself, Tone Uriza, took the stage at RFL Shire and entertained us for an hour with soft, sweet blues. Tone chose to support RFL because of his mother's experience with cancer, and he can be found at many of the RFL events throughout the season. In speaking to the crowd about the experience with his Mom, his emotion nearly got the best of him, but he continued his performance with style and grace. Tony Uribe aka Tone Uriza is a 29 year veteran of the Tucson, Arizona blues scene. He has developed an eclectic style of blues drawing from the traditional & contemporary blues styles of the last century. He covers other blues artist only with the intent of bringing more blues and it's rich history to the world. An ambassador if you will, Tone loves spreading the blues wherever he can.

Following Tone was Kim Seifert, who opened with one of my favorite Alannis Morrisette's tunes. She sang beautifully with a resonant voice with a Southern lilt. Very nice indeed. Look for Kim in events, she is worth a listen.

At 7 pm it was back to Enterainment Bay Fest for Steely DeCosta. Always a treat, Streely is a great show to relax to, a very soothing sound and great guitar solos.

A guitarist from Kentucky, he plays a variety of covers, including CSNY, Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Ben Harper, James Morrison, Firefall, Jason Mraz, U2. Benny King, Eagles, Plain White and Sam Cooke. He also does original jams with a loop station and prerecordings.

Steely was followed by Buckley Moonwall at 8 pm. Buckley plays harmonica and acoustic guitar with a southern flair. He plays a blend of roots-rock, Americana, folk and blues. Buckley is always a pleasure to see. Make a point of checking him out .

Sunday, July 19th

7 am SLT

Dann Numbers performed at Entertainment Bay Fest. A great entertainer in his own right, Dann can often be heard on the IndieSpectrum stream [http://81.169.149.182:8016 (SL Artists Music)]. Dann is reportedly very shy at first, you would never know it when he takes the stage. He gives an awesome performance. At one point, he broke his G string (again!) and while fixing it, he did a song for us a capella. Who needs guitar??

Next up on stage was Soundcircel Flanagan, who played a mix of covers and original songs, with accompanying backing tracks recorded in his studio. He opened with a Michael Jackson tribute, playing several songs from his Thriller album. Sound does a completely electronic set and has a great sound.

CelticMaidenWarrior Lancaster performed at 9 a.m. SLT on the An Inema sim at Long Journey. What a cool place it was! The stage was a giant mushroom and smaller mushrooms were scattered about providing seating. I have had the pleasure of hearing Celtic numerous times and always thoroughly enjoy her. Celtic has a beautiful voice, loves her audience and is prone to giggling. She is a great performer to kick back and relax too. This was a perfect fit for a Sunday morning.

I split my time between Celtic and Mike00 Carnell so as to take in as much as possible. Mike performed at the RFL Courage sim at Buckshot Bend. He has played guitar for 18 years and has been performing in a RL band called Jazzmanix. He plays a Fender Strat USA Deluxe, as well as acoustic guitar. In addition to some original tunes, he plays classic and soft rock covers from The Eagles, Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd and Jack Johnson, to name a few.

The weekend event was successful in its fundraising, raising over 270,000. Congrats and applause to the Relay Teams for their untiring efforts to raise funds to support cancer research and the families of cancer victims.

Shellie Sands

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Exhibits for Your Body and Soul

Here’s more about the Fair!
At the entry to the Community Fair you can pick up a map that shows the location for each participant and some of the gathering points for places.
I was amazed to see the number or exhibits has grown to 53! Each booth is numbered to indicate who is occupying it.
You can also grab a cute free clown avatar, either human size or tiny. Look for it.
The diversity of the exhibits is wonderful.
If you would like information on sign language it is there. If you need some bolstering up of your inner self you can find some words of wisdom and a place to go.
If you are a caregiver and are overwhelmed by your duties you will find comfort and a supporting shoulder.
One of the note cards has RL resources that will give you guidance on life issues you face as a care giver.
It is truly amazing how much you can learn here at the Dream Fair during this week.
Their concentration in the Dreams sim is on Autism and Stroke but this week is packed with information for every need. Breast cancer awareness, Heart issues, Aids and mental health to mention a few.
The Better World Island has a wonderful note card that you can pick up that will allow you to tp to locales that demonstrate ways you can make a difference in RL for some project going on in the world if you would like to do that.
I sincerely hope you will not miss this event.
My next story will tell you some of the fun events going on at the fair that might entice you to go see.
To make your entry easier go here to begin http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dreams/132/128/25

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Post Christmas Grid blues

Each year, after the Christmas gifts have been unwrapped and all those people who treated themselves or family to new computers/Internet access, Secondlife sees a surge of new signups and more people using it than ever - the problem with that?
Quite simply the grid cannot handle it!
Most of us who spend regular time inworld are aware of the issues and mostly what is behind it - basically once the grid reaches 75k+ online everything goes down the toilet - teleports, transactions, rezzing, building even dressing becomes problematic.

Lets have a look at the last few days:

[RESOLVED] Logins and In-world Issues

Posted by Status Desk on January 6th, 2009 at 10:45 am PST

[Resolved 10:45am PST] - The database has recovered and all issues have been resolved.

[10:30am PST] - We are currently experiencing a problem with the database. There may be difficulties with logging in, rezzing objects, completing transactions, and searching. We are aware of this issue and our ops team are working to resolve it as swiftly as possible. In the mean time, please avoid making important transactions or rezzing no-copy objects.

[RESOLVED] Inworld Issues/Logins Disabled
Posted by Status Desk on January 6th, 2009 at 04:10 pm PST
[RESOLVED] Inworld Issues
Posted by Status Desk on January 7th, 2009 at 02:58 pm PST
[RESOLVED] Inworld Issues
Posted by Status Desk on January 8th, 2009 at 01:34 pm PST
[RESOLVED] Logins Disabled
Posted by Status Desk on January 10th, 2009 at 01:54 pm PST
[RESOLVED] Logins Disabled and Inworld Issues
Posted by Status Desk on January 10th, 2009 at 04:53 pm PST
[RESOVLED] Logins disabled
Posted by Status Desk on January 11th, 2009 at 11:20 am PST
[RESOLVED] Logins disabled
Posted by Status Desk on January 13th, 2009 at 03:39 pm PST

Each of these represents times when Logins have been restricted, a black week for any Secondlife business.
Some have called for allowing only premium accounts to log in at these times and yet others slam this notion as many who would like to go premium cannot do so, therefore making the idea unjust.
Then there is the question of bot activity, if as Linden Lab numbers suggest, 10% of those signed in are bots then surely shutting these out would allow real players more of a chance to log in?
But how do we or Linden Lab know which accounts are bots?
Age old question and one many have tried to answer - but to be honest our answers do not matter Linden Lab will do what Linden Lab chooses as always.
I am not technically minded but even I can see the grid is struggling - Linden Lab says 10% bots - most believe that is a very conservative estimate it is more likely to be around 25 - 30%. Now how about if the bots were registered? Then when the Grid is struggling bots are logged out? Wouldn't that make more sense than locking out paying Residents? Even those who run bots would rather have paying Residents inworld than their bots surely?
Hopefully with all the grid issues Linden Lab will finally make a move on the traffic scam that causes most to use bots - once the reason for them is gone it will make the need for bots redundant. But for now Linden Lab have chosen to chase their tails and deal with issues as they arise rather than dealing with the root cause (as always).

Dana Vanmoer

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What a week!

Actually its been pretty quiet all around, not helped by the fact so many friends have been hit by illness this week.
I have spent quite a lot of time on Skybeam as they changed from winter to spring thaw and had fun rebuilding Breezes and Glitters houses, its nice to be there and actually be made to feel like part of the community even though I don't actually live there - you will often find me at their events as they tend to be at a good time for me - but what was I saying, oh yes community; I expect there are quite a lot of communities in SL now and as it grows larger there will be many more, it must be a challenge in a virtual world to try to keep a community working together, just like in RL, you will find the bad apples in the barrel but I find in any community a good core to it can help to strengthen ties and its a great way to make friends.

Coming up soon is another community project I always get involved in that of the RFL clothing fair, I have had some inside info on the plans and this year the clothing fair will be absolutely mindblowing - I can't wait. Of course you will be able to get all the up to the minute events right here and we will do our best to talk to as many involved as we can, but knowing the sheer size this time around, it will a real challenge for us and one I look forward to.

We are still looking for some new writers so if you love events in secondlife or are determined to show the world what there is in SL pick up an application from our main office HERE just drop it to me inworld.
We also love to hear your stories and experiences from newbie days through to love and heartache, these go under our reader submissions banner in the appropriate section. drop us a snapshot too with a line of text - we want to show everyone what wonders there are to see and do in secondlife and for that we need your input - SL is so large now keeping up with all the places to explore is impossible but every now and then we all find a gem worth visiting or telling others about, Bixyl and Gemma are really good at hunting those out and letting you know in the explore section, why not tell us about somewhere you have found?

Dana Vanmoer

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Second Life Residents Participate in a Health Care Community Discussion

By Nazz Lane

In cities and towns across the country, citizens of the United States have been engaged as part of President Elect Obama's transition project to participate in community forums to discuss health care. On Monday evening, the 29^th of December, one such community meeting occurred in the virtual world of second life where thirty people gathered at the Port Spinoza Café in a session moderated by Siri Vita. In an e-mail sent prior to the forum, Ms Vita explained to invitee's that the session is, "part of the President-elect's continuing effort to reach out and directly involve the American people in their own government. Health care is a top priority for President-Elect Obama, and he wants your help in designing a system that provides quality, affordable health care for all Americans."

Continued in the PEOPLE section

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