My inventory is jammed full of items that, should they be eaten by the asset server tomorrow, never to be seen again, I would lament over for a few moments and then set about the task of starting over. They are just “things,” you see. Beautiful things, most of them. But still only pixels and code that, truth be told, I could live without…if I had to. There are a few items, though, like my Exodi and 5th & Oxford skins, Truth hair and photographs, that I would be devastated to lose. However, should my CalendarCog HUD from MechanizedLife ever be taken from me, my world would come to a screeching halt.

I keep myself pretty busy in-world, and I always seem to have a few projects and a couple dozen deadlines on my plate. My CalendarCog HUD allows me to keep track of my calendar and my commitments by bringing my Google Calendar into SL.

Here’s how it works:  Once set up, which takes only a few minutes, the CalendarCog HUD polls my Google Calendar and displays all of my upcoming appointments, events and projects in an easy-to-read HUD.  If I need to look at a date further into the future, I can just use the arrow keys to move through my calendar. Adding new events to the HUD couldn’t be easier. I can either add the event directly to my Google Calendar from the web or I can use a few simple chat commands in-world.  And just like that, both my calendar and my HUD are updated.

And there are reminders! This is really great for me, as I often get engrossed in a project and lose all track of time. But once I set a reminder on an event, I am alerted with a tone and an on-screen menu that tells me what event is coming up and gives me the option to request another reminder in a few minutes. An in-world snooze button, if you will.

Once I’ve checked my calendar and have a grip on what needs to be accomplished, I just click the gear icon at the top left and the HUD slides neatly to the corner of my screen, saving valuable monitor real estate. Need to check the calendar again? I just click the icon and it slides back out. What could be simpler?

For me, the CalendarCog HUD is pretty much all that I need to manage my time. But business owners, event planners and venue managers will find added usefulness by adding the CalendarCog SuperBoard and Kiosks which, once configured, will display your events in-world for all to see.  And because all of the products are integrated, your customers and patrons can simply click on either the board or the kiosk and sync selected events into their own HUDs.  This diagram is a very simple illustration of how the products all work together (click the photo to see the large version):

I could go on and on about CalendarCogs, and sure, I’ll admit a little bias here.  But, in all honesty, this is the best calendar and time management system in-world, in my opinion.  And, as I said in the beginning, I would be lost without it.

Where to find the CalendarCog HUD and other CalendarCog products:

MechanizedLife Main Store on Rouge

XStreetSL

For more information about CalendarCogs and MechanizedLife, visit the MechanizedLife website.

Tags: Calendar, CalendarCog, Gabby Panacek, Gadgets, MechanizedLife, Second Life

When I first was introduced to fishing in Second Life a little over a year ago, I loved collecting all of the cute fish, clams, crabs and sharks.  Back then you could fish at the 7 Seas headquarters, or at a handful of public and private fishing areas around the grid. These days, however, content creators have gotten into the act and have not only added fishing areas near their shops, they have created custom prizes that you can win.

Destination shopping areas such as Sn@tch, Katat0nik, Exodi and Locos Pocos, just to name a few, provide their customers with a fun and interactive activity, and the opportunity to catch a prize that, in most cases, is not otherwise available.  At katat0nik, for example, in addition to custom fish (merkat lovers, anyone?) you can catch the blueprint and required pieces to make your own Whale Hooker dress in one of three colors, depending on the items you catch.  At Exodi, Ryker changes the prize periodically, and right now you could reel in some glittery bikinis.

So, why do I enjoy fishing? Two reasons, and the prize doesn’t count (that’s a given, right?). First, it is enjoyable. Okay, it may not be for everyone, but with the right group of people it is a downright pleasant way to kill an hour or two. Sometimes, I’ll pick a fishing spot, settle in and activate my hour-long auto-cast gesture and sort inventory, listen to music or chat with friends.  And at the end of the day, I have a few goodies to enjoy.

Second, these are some really generous people and if I can pay them back with my traffic, I’m going to. Sure, I know there are some who think that traffic doesn’t matter, but I happen to think that it does. When you use the search function in-world, the results are ranked by traffic. If I like a place well enough to spend an hour or two fishing for whatever custom prize is being offered, then I like them well enough to want to see them do well. If the traffic I generate for them by fishing helps them to move up the search ranks, chances are more people will find out about them, buy their stuff and give the creator the income and incentive to keep creating. It’s a win-win situation, as far as I’m concerned.  And honestly, paid classifieds have gotten so out of hand the the average content creator cannot compete monetarily, so it is in traffic, REAL traffic, not bots, that the content creators can be seen the way they rightfully deserve.

I asked around and here is a list of some favorite fishing holes that offer custom prizes (thanks, plurk friends!):

• Sn@tch
• Exodi
• katat0nik & Lazy Places
• Loco Pocos
• Starlust
• Caroline’s
• FakE
• Silent Sparrow
• Lo Lo
• Petable

There are a ton more, just check out this list from the 7Seas website!  Now, grab your rod and I’ll meet you at the fishing hole.  Just remember to BYOB…bring your own bait!

Do you have a favorite fishing spot? Leave the slurl in the comments!

Tags: 7Seas Fishing, Gabby Panacek, Traffic

Tymmerie Thorne and Jerremy Darwin hosted a Halloween Party last night for the SL Bloggers group and their friends.  Inspired by the evil laboratory feel of the invitation, I found the perfect Mad Scientist costume at Schadenfreude.  Add a little botox and I was ready to party.

Style Notes:
Lab Coat and Beaker: Schadenfreude The Good Doctor
Botox Syringe: Clawtooth by Clawtooth Bubbles Botox (Inject yourself!)
Shoes: Schadenfreude Batwing Lucent Heels
Stockings: *blowpop* Seamed Fishnet Tights -Black
Hair: !lamb. Milk – Ink (After Infection)
Skin: []::Tuli::[] Hope (goth) 07
Eyes: :: Exodi :: Old Hollywood Eyes (Drk/Lg/V)

Tags: Clawtooth by Clawtooth, Exodi, Gabby Panacek, Halloween, Lamb, Schadenfreude, Tuli

Lost in thought and lost in time
While the seeds of life and the seeds of change were planted
Outside the rain fell dark and slow
While I pondered on this dangerous but irresistible pastime
I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life
-Coming Back To Life, Pink Floyd

Visit Eshi Otawara’s website and you will find, along with this oh-so-fitting song, a goodbye letter from one of Second Life’s most talented creators and vibrant personalities. At least, that’s the way I see her. To me, Eshi has always been larger than life…a force of creative genius, stubborn intelligence and biting wit. She has been one of my dearest friends and confidants and I will miss her presence in Second Life more than I can possibly put into words. But, as her friend, I understand all too well her need to “kill the past and come back to life.”

So, although I won’t get to see her random IMs filled with “AAAAAAAAAAAAAA” and “<3″ and “Gabbieeeees” any longer, she is still all around us. In the sim, Rouge, that she built for Codie. In the giant lotus that sits on my sim, Night Flower. In Flower Tower, a part of her one-hour sim series. In the pile of stunning Eshi Otawara and Chambre du Chocolat clothing that is so neatly stacked in my inventory. And in the countless other works of art that decorate the grid.

I admire her for being so forthright and honest in her leaving and I respect the decision she has made. I’m not sure it’s one I could face with as much clarity and sense of purpose. Eshi, I love you. I wish you only the best.

Tags: Eshi Otawara, Flower Tower, Gabby Panacek, Goodbye, Rouge

I can never decide on a Halloween costume. So, this year I’m starting a bit earlier than usual and have a few picked out.

Reasonable Desires‘ Cigarette Girl costume gives cigarettes on touch, or you can drop in your own treat to hand out. I added Blowpop‘s Fishnet Stockings and Tesla‘s sky-high, six-inch Vixen Desire heels. The Abyss MarionetteDoll, Mystery, one of a trio released last year, is a complete avatar with shape, skin, hair, shoes, and a couple of different texture options. The Ancient Tree Kimono Shop makes some of the finest kimonos and obis on the grid, in my opinion. Each one is a work of art. I particularly like the Blood Angel kimono with the Dragon obi.

My favorite costume this season, though, comes from the Ray Ceasar art exhibit held at Hotel Dare a couple of months ago. Descent was designed by Marie Lauridsen of Milk Motion and is inspired by one of Ray Ceasar’s works of art. The costume replaces the avatar legs with tentacles and the custom skin and shape complete the look and the hair was specially created by Curl Up And Dye.

How will you dress up for Halloween? Happy Costume Hunting!

Additional Style Notes:
Skin: 5th and Oxford Audrey, Exodi Shiloh
Gloves: 5th and Oxford (formerly Tete a Pied)
Eyes: Vetro by Exodi
Hair: Truth and Tiny Bird

Tags: 5th and Oxford, Abyss, Ancient Tree, Costume, Curl Up and Dye, Exodi, Gabby Panacek, Halloween, Milk Motion, Reasonable Desires, Tiny Bird, Truth

Which of these three looks like the most effective and efficient method for safe-guarding your oh-so-meticulously dressed pixels from desperate wannabes? *snort*

If you picked C, the Anti-Inspection Shield on the right, you’d be absolutely…WRONG! Yet, some fashionistas (and, in this case, I use that term loosely) will pay upwards of L$500 to protect their signature copybotted personal style.

I’m not going to lecture you about the disservice you are doing to the designers and content creators whose styles you wear and who, more than anything, depend upon old-fashioned word-of-mouth advertising to grow their SL business. We all know that you paid for the clothes on your back, you didn’t sign on to be their personal sales force.  Though, I’m sure, more than a few would be very appreciative if you told a few people about your favorite shops and didn’t come off like a pompous ass when someone asks where you found that cute skirt. But, I digress…

What I am going to tell you about is the massive effect you have on everyone you come in contact with, from both a practical and a technical standpoint. First, the practical. Imagine shopping in a relatively small store.  Some holier-than-thou primtard struts in wearing a huge, egg-shaped, 255 prim behemoth of an anti-inspection shield and stands right in front of the vendor you wish to purchase from. Two things will happen. First, depending on how small the store is, your camera is going to go all wonky causing a tunnel-vision effect because it can’t “see” around the prim.  Secondly, without some serious camming maneuvers, what should be a simple right-click-buy shopping experience becomes an exercise in camera gymnastics as you try to maneuver around the huge shield just to get to the vendor.  Who has time for that kind of frustration?

From a technical standpoint, anti-inspection shields cause lag.  The image below illustrates Codie’s statistics when I was wearing the shield and when I took it off.  We only measured client lag for this test, but look at the change! When I was wearing the shield Codie experienced a 90% drop in performance as measured by FPS.  Just to make sure we weren’t losing our minds, we invited Jacek Antonelli, the mastermind behind the Imprudence Viewer project, to visit and confirm our findings. She did. She also told me what hair I was wearing in under 2 seconds, I’ll share her protip for making the inspection shield completely useless in just a bit.

While discussing the reasons the camera goes crazy, my brilliant friend, Caer Balogh, mentioned the bounding box, so we dug a little deeper into that subject. According to Caer, “The bounding box is the first crack the system has at finding collisions and visible stuff, if it sees the bounding box it has to do more work to tell what it needs to draw/bump into.” See the photo below.  Look at how the bounding box further expands the size of the shield. “Bear in mind, it’s all like ARC,” she continued, “you may not cause lag with a large bbox, but it may be an indicator that you’re making things work harder.” Caer has a couple of great pictures of shield failures on Flickr in her Anti-Inspection Shield Theatre set.

I’m going to put this request out to sim and store owners: Ban these devices from your businesses. They do cause lag. They do suck resources. And they greatly diminish other residents’ ability to enjoy their experience. We are giving you the proof. Do not tolerate them.

So far, we’ve learned that not only are Anti-Inspection Shields a nuisance, they negatively impact other residents. Now, let’s make them completely ineffective. There are two ways to do this. The first, alt+click on a nearby prim to focus your camera just to the side or above the offending avatar, use your camera controls (From the main menu, choose View > Camera Controls if you don’t have them open already) and maneuver your camera inside the sea of invisiprim layers until you can right click+inspect any prim object the avatar is wearing.  With some practice, you can identify every piece attached to their pixels in under a minute.  Jacek shared the second method. From the Advanced Menu, choose Rendering and Hide Selected. According to Jacek, “That makes it so any object you select in edit mode is invisble, and you can also click through to stuff behind it. Really useful when building, you can use it to get at inner parts.”  Once you’ve turned on the Hide Selected option, open up your build/edit dialogue (ctrl+3), click on the shield to select it, then click again on whatever attachment you want to see. It only takes two clicks to render this monstrosity completely useless.

Moral of the story:  Be a good neighbor. Who cares if someone wants to know what you are wearing. Consider it a compliment that someone appreciates your personal style. Don’t waste my time, patience and technical resources to protect your vanity. That’s not attractive, it’s pretty fucking rude.

Special thanks to CodeBastard Redgrave, Caer Balogh and Jacek Antonelli for their input, insight and intelligence.  They really helped me to understand this topic better, and I hope you learned a few things as well.

And that great dress I’m wearing on the home page? It’s new from FakE by Dream Resistance and Sabina Takakura, a new design team with a brand new store…check them out, but leave your inspection shield at home, k?

Tags: Anti-Inspect Shields, Gabby Panacek, lag

With school back in session and football season just around the corner, I’m in the mood to drag out my autumn wardrobe.

When Thaumata Strangelove announced via plurk that AM Radio was setting his fields on fire at the Welsh Lakes sim, I rushed over for some inspiration.  And found it…in spades. AM’s sims are some of the most photographed in Second Life, and with good reason.  There is a sense of honesty and beauty in the simplicity of his designs.

For this look, I wanted something warm, cozy, and comfortable but with a little bit of an edge.  I paired an oversize sweater from Japanese designer Pecorine Vita and MichaMi tank with a distressed denim mini by Kaz Nayar.  I added some thigh-high socks from Shop Seu and Tesla Miles’ uber-fashionable oxfords.  Then I finished off with some little details: a great belt from Avebury, rings from Paper Couture and GeorgiaBean Lately, bracelets from Zaara and Exodi and the most adorable little owl brooch from Kess Kreations. I knew I’d need a hat out in the field, so for that I turned to Truth.

AM says that he’s been wanting to set the fields on fire for a while now, but there’s no telling how long he’ll let it burn.  I suggest you visit right away.  Until next time, Happy Thursday!

Style Notes:
Sweater: [gisele] enroulent/cloud
Skirt: !Nayar – Destroyed mini Skirt [Black]
Tank: MichaMi GlamTank in Gray
Socks: Shop Seu kushukushu kutsushita GRAY
Shoes: TESLA – High Oxford *black*
Belt: *Avebury* double metallic belt – black
Ring (R): GBL :: Caridaisee Rockstar (Babyhoney Bailey has discontinued the GBL line and is focusing on her new brand Djinn & Tonic…but, she’s putting out the Caridaisee rings, and the Crimson rings, at her new store for 100L for the full set for a limited time. Hurry!)
Ring (L): P.C; Times Square Ring – Kyanite – Dark Blue
Brooch: *KessKreations* Hooty Hoo Owl Brooch
Bracelet (R): Zaara : Patra silver bracelet *clear*
Bracelet (L): :: Exodi :: Aubrey Bangles
Hair: >TRUTH< Ingrid – coffee
Manicure: Nevermore Studios Super Nova Nail Gloves
Skin: :: Exodi :: Lily Cedar (Chocolate – LtBrow)
Eyes: :: Exodi :: Vetro Eyes (Blue)(Lg)(Veins)

Tags: AM Radio, Avebury, Djinn & Tonic, Exodi, Gabby Panacek, gisele, MichaMi, Nayar, Nevermore Studios, Paper Couture, Shop Seu, Tesla, Zaara

Matthew Anthony and Grim Hathor are the creators of the latest breedable pets to hit the grid: Turtles by Petable. I first met Matthew via Plurk and literally squealed with excitement when he offered me a preview pack of my very own. While I waited for two of my eggs, Ruby and Azure, to hatch, I invited Matt and Grim to the temporary turtle habitat I built on Rouge to learn more about these amazing creatures.

The first thing I had to ask: Why turtles?

Matt: You know, there’s actually a really funny story behind that.
Grim: Lol, yeah… our original plan got considerably less furry.
Matt: We originally began creating something very similar with cats in 2006. Unfortunately, it never got completed due to some unfortunate circumstances, so back in July, we decided to pick it back up. Cats ended up being WAY too high-prim for what we were wanting to do, so we decided to find another cute animal, and turtles it was!
Grim: Turtle also had the distinct advantage of being easier to animate… with their slow nature and all.
Matt: Like Grim said, the slow nature of turtles made them easier to animate, which also meant quite a bit less physics lag and collisions than many animals would require, as a great added bonus.

And, since Matt brought it up before I could, we talked for a little bit about what kind of lag, if any, is caused by the turtles. What effect do they have on the sim?

Grim: Well, I’ve worked on a number of different projects in SL and have learned some hard lessons on lag, so I designed these with minimizing lag in mind the whole time
Matt: Whenever I’m asked about the kind of lag that turtles cause, I always go back to my experience while we were testing them about two weeks ago. I had 47 adult turtles in a 10×10 box with no perceptible script or physics lag. That was on the mainland in a relatively busy sim on the northern continent, as well — so I see it as a great “real life” test of the sim performance impact of turtles
Grim: I could burden you with the technical details, but the most obvious is that since they are only physical while moving the impact is minimal… and yeah currently our biggest test population was 47 on the maingrid… perhaps if we get use of a private empty sim we will run some more accurate tests of turtle lag
Matt: The only reason we capped at 47 was because I was actually out of prims :-) I would love to test it higher, though
Grim: *imagines 100s of turtles roaming around*… yup, that would be ridiculous to see.

At this point, we turned our attention to the documentation, which is really well written and includes links to a couple of blogs that contain even more information.

Grim: We have plans to further improve that with an alternative of youtube tutorials too when we find the time.
Matt: It took me forever to try to get all of the documentation comprehensive yet easy to understand.
Grim: Yeah Matt spent a ton of time on it… and you should be glad that he did it and not me.
Gabby: I really liked the Customers Bill of Rights. What was the thought process behind that?
Grim: I have to give Matt full credit for that idea, but I was behind it 100%
Matt: I’m glad! we decided to do that instead of a EULA to make it clearer and more simple to understand, while still allowing us to protect our IP rights in case something ever happens in the future. I know that some of the other AI pet creators have decided to go with a lengthy EULA, and that’s totally within their rights — we just decided to go a different route because we felt it was best for our customers and our product.

Matt and Grim have also given access to an API so that others can create turtle-friendly products. I wanted to know more about the types of things we can expect.

Grim: Basically the API lets you get access to all the information in the HUD from a 3rd party script. An example of its current use is our Turtle Color Predictor that uses it to determine the range of possible colors for offspring. One thing that I hope comes from the open API soon is an improved version of that very tool… I left lots of room for improvement. I know that someone else has a tool in the works to help track a turtle’s time in the box.
Gabby: A turtle’s time in the box? As in, in inventory?
Grim: Correct… turtles still get hungry when they are in inventory. Eventually they can starve to death in inventory, so it would be good to have a tool in world that tells you when they are at risk. I also forsee someone eventually making a tool to help make it easier to figure out if mating two turtles will result in inbreeding or not.

Finally, we talked for a bit about what they each wanted people to know about the Petable Turtles and how they plan to support their customer base.

Grim: I want people to know that turtles will never stagnate. We will constantly be adding new things and revising things based on player suggestions(already done quite a bit of that). If you want a game that’s dynamic and that you have a chance to influence, then give turtles a try. We plan to avoid drama by responding to the players, and to the market… if something isn’t working out we aren’t afraid to change it. We have also tried to create the game to be player friendly right from the start.
Matt: I’ll completely echo what Grim said, and add that we are both here if they have any questions or need any help. we’re both completely available to help people get started or if they have a question — additionally, the community in our chat group is extremely helpful to help newcomers get started, whether or not this is their first AI pet. I personally believe that a lot of the drama around other AI/breedable pets was caused by miscommunication, and we hope to completely avoid that by clearly communicating not only what we’re doing, but the reasons for what we’re doing with our customers via our blog and groups, as well as chatting with them one-on-one. It’s our belief that chickens, turtles, bunnies, etc can all co-exist in harmony. I just want to add that our last point in the Customer Bill of Rights for both our customers and for us is that the most important thing is having fun — and we’re definitely doing that! we have so much planned out for future updates that it blows my mind, and with new ideas coming from the community on a daily basis, the only thing that turtles will get is better.

Petable Turtles are available now, be sure to join the group for more information and to be the first to know when limited-qantity preview packs are available. The official launch party takes place on Friday, September 4th from 6-9pm SLT with DJ Madame Maracas providing the music. There will be new turtle information and exclusive items available.

Turning our attention back to my little ones… After two hours, Ruby and Azure hatched from their shell and immediately took a nap. Turtles sleep for an hour during every four-hour SL “day.” But they have an attitude right out of the box. “Can’t a turtle get some sleep around here? I’m not following you!” This from Ruby when I tried to wake her up.

Some things to know:

• You have to feed your turtles. If not, they will die of starvation. According to Matt, this is the only way they will die. So, you don’t have to worry about griefers, dropping them off of a sky platform or having them auto-returned to your inventory. As long as they have not starved to death, they can be re-rezzed from inventory after a two-hour security period to make sure they can’t be duplicated.
• Traits are passed on genetically via “playing cards” that each turtle is born with. Each new hatchling receives one card from each parent and three cards randomly. The better the poker hand these cards add up to, the more glow, one of the rare traits, your turtle will have. Shine is also a rare trait, but it is determined in a way that is closely guarded by the creators.
• Turtle eggs take two hours to hatch and can begin breeding after a week. You can check your turtle’s geneology via the HUD to avoid inbreeding. You can also feed your turtles Hatchless Food, so that the eggs won’t hatch and you can pick them up to give as gifts, for trading or, if you are into rare-breeds, selling.

There’s a lot more to learn about these turtles…but I’ll leave that up to you. I think it’s time I made sure my little ones have enough food. Happy breeding!

Tags: Gabby Panacek, Petable, Turtles

Hello.  I’m Gabby and, for those of you who do not know me, I’m just another avatar with an overflowing inventory and a few random thoughts.  When I was approached to participate here, I hesitated only a moment before agreeing to a weekly post. I haven’t decided, yet, what my focus will be…fashion, gadgets, pet peeves or perhaps, all of the above.

Today, though, I was inspired by Tuli’s new Goth addition to her Hope line of skins and the Pruriency Corset from Abyss, and set out for the quiet beauty of Chakryn Forest (Thank you, Prad, for reminding me to visit this sim).

I wanted to keep the look somewhat monochromatic, so I opted for the Half-Tulle Skirt from Digit Darkes. This skirt has been in my inventory for a year and a half, and is still my favorite. The Angelina boots from Tesla are so perfectly constructed and utterly gorgeous, I wear them with everything.

For the jewelry, I wanted a little bit of a contrast.  The Evangeline necklace from Balderdash is just delicate enough to play off the rigid constraint of the corset and its subtle glow lays nicely against the milky, but slightly ashen, skin. Zaara’s Vyomini chained bracelet seemed earthy enough to bring the look together.

That’s all I have for now, so I think I’ll head back to the forest and continue exploring. Feel free to come join me.

Credits:
Corset: The Abyss – Pruriency Corset in Black
Skirt: Digit Darkes – Half-Tulle Skirt in Black
Boots: Tesla – Angelina Boots in Seductress
Stockings: Sheer – Stockings 29a: Very Torn Black (Right)
Necklace: Balderdash – Evangeline in Coal
Bracelets: Zaara – Vyomini chained bracelet in onyx-silver (the arm band is the upper portion of the bracelet attached and fitted to the upper arm attachment point)
Skin: Tuli – Hope Goth in Natural
Hair: Exile – Breeze in Mink
Lashes: Cake – Bedroom Lashes
Eyes: Exodi – Vetro Eyes in Blue
Poses: Boudoir Rouge
Location: Chakryn Forest

Tags: Balderdash, Boudoir Rouge, Cake, Chakryn Forest, Digit Darkes, Exile, Exodi, Fashion, Gabby Panacek, Sheer, Tesla, The Abyss, Tuli, Zaara