Hi peeps! Here’s another in my ‘Those little questions’ series, where I try to give answers to the questions in search terms that lead people to the SL for Nowt blog. There are no silly questions in SL. We all started out as complete newbies, and we all wondered the same things, so here I hope to help you out with some answers :)

You can find the questions on the old blog archived here, and a special Those Little Questions all about skyboxes here.

Today’s set of questions is a general grab-bag. Behind the cut you’ll find out…

– How can I find out my friend’s location in Second Life?
– How do I make a landmark in a building in the sky in Second Life?
– How do I remove the group name from above my head?
– Can you change the landmark on the picks in Second Life?
– What’s the busiest welcome area in Second Life?
– Can anyone teleport into your home in Second Life?
– I can’t get my underwear off in Second Life!
– Can I preview Second Life without being a member?
– I don’t have a house in Second Life. Where should I leave my avatar?
– Do I need membership to have a skybox in Second Life?
– Is it cheaper to rent land or have a premium membership in Second Life?
– Why can’t I send a gift from Marketplace?
– Can anyone see how much L$ I have in Second Life?

Hop behind the cut for some answers!

– How can I find out my friend’s location in Second Life?
If your friend has given you permission to find them on the map in-world (they have to explicitly do this; you can’t find out any other way) then you can open the big map view in your viewer, select ‘My Friends Online’ in the location bar on the right, choose their name (you’ll only see it if they’re currently logged in), and the map will zoom to their location.

– How do I make a landmark in a building in the sky in Second Life?
The same way that you make a landmark to anywhere else! World > Landmark This Place (alternatively, you can right-click the address bar at the top of the viewer and select Add to my Landmarks). It’s a good idea to rename the landmark, too, so that you know it’s in the sky (usually only helpful if you have a landmark to a land-based home in the same area).

– How do I remove the group name from above my head?
Assuming you’re using the latest official SL viewer, open People, then go to the My Groups tab. Click on ‘none’ (at the top of the list) and then click the checkmark (√) at the bottom to remove whatever group tag you’re currently wearing. This is the same way that you choose any of your groups’ tags to wear (useful to know if a store wants you to wear its tag in order to grab a group freebie!)

– Can you change the landmark on the picks in Second Life?
Upgrade your viewer. Not being able to edit your pick location was a bug in an older viewer. In the latest viewer, go to the new location that you want to set the pick to, open your profile and go to the Picks tab, click the Pick you want to edit, then click the Edit button. A new window will pop up. Click ‘Set to Current Location’ on the pick.

– What’s the busiest welcome area in Second Life?
Any of the big Linden-made ones, but I’d say that Ahern is the busiest. Be warned: that doesn’t mean you’ll be more likely to find lots of friends there! If you want to find friends or people to chat with, I suggest checking out the official Destination Guide and looking for an area of interest to you. This may be ‘chat hot spots’, ‘LGBT friendly’, ‘Newcomer friendly’, or any of the International locations.

– Can anyone teleport into your home in Second Life?
Pretty much yes, unless you set restrictions on your home/land. You can set access to group members only (this would be the land group that you rez your furniture etc under) or to named friends. You could also get a security orb, but please be aware that many rental locations don’t allow you to use these (and always check the settings on any security orb that you rez on your land, to ensure your neighbours don’t get bumped out of their own homes!)

– I can’t get my underwear off in Second Life!
You’re wearing one of the newbie starter skins, all of which have ‘painted-on’ underwear which, yes, can look pretty horrible under something like a strapless dress! This is because teens are allowed into Second Life, so all of the basic starter skins have to be PG. Try doing one of the big gridwide treasure hunts that are always ongoing, or check Marketplace for freebie skins to replace the newbie one.

– Can I preview Second Life without being a member?
I’m afraid not. What you can do is check out blogs that give you an idea of what Second Life is like (but be aware that some people don’t run powerful computers, so the pictures you see on their blogs might not be what it’s really like in-world). These pictures will give you an idea of the differences you can expect between snapshots taken using the Ultra graphics setting and the Low graphics setting. Most people can comfortably run ‘Mid’ (or even ‘High’), where you still get the sparkling water; ‘Low’ is for very under-powered computers, such as laptops with integrated graphics and much older systems:

There are a ton of SL-based groups on Flickr that you can search through, as well as lots of YouTube videos. But to actually experience the world, you do need to sign up. You can get a basic account that doesn’t cost anything, and you can still experience everything SL has to offer without putting any money into it (but you do need a fairly decent computer, as SL is quite hard on graphics cards).

– I don’t have a house in Second Life. Where should I leave my avatar?
Anywhere you like! When you log off your avatar vanishes; it doesn’t stay in-world. You might want to join one of the community or newbie groups in-world, so you can have a regular place to log off and on again, but there’s no need to do this if you don’t want to. Just don’t ‘borrow’ someone else’s home, even if it seems empty! It might be a rental place, and one day when you log in you might find someone has rented it and you’re logging in and surprising the heck out of them!

– Do I need membership to have a skybox in Second Life?
Nope, although it helps to have payment information registered with Second Life, so you can pay to rent land from another avatar.

– Is it cheaper to rent land or have a premium membership in Second Life?
Now you’ve stumped me! It depends on how cheaply you can rent a plot of land. Premium membership has many benefits, including a free Linden Home, access to premium sandboxes, and a weekly stipend of L$300 (plus a signup of L$1000, which is a nice thing to start off with! Note: this can take up to 45 days to process into your account). The biggest benefit, though, is access to Live Chat, as opposed to waiting for support tickets to be answered. If you can afford it, go for the ‘pay once per year’ option, as this costs less than paying monthly or quarterly.

– Why can’t I send a gift from Marketplace?
Is the item a freebie? If so, then that’s why. You can’t send free items as gifts on Marketplace (which is why many creators charge a nominal L$1 for them, while charging L$0 for the items in-world, for people that want to buy for themselves instead of sending as a gift).

– Can anyone see how much L$ I have in Second Life?
Nope. The only way they could do this is if they found out your login information and either logged in-world as you, or logged into the Second Life website as you.