SLCC

SLCC

I’ve just finished watching Rod Humble’s speech and Q&A session at SLCC 2011 (if you missed it, you can catch the recorded ustream of it here).

It was great to see that Second Life is in the hands of a man who cares about creativity, about usability, and about getting in there himself to experience the issues that residents have complained about for years (cf. group chat issues that he swiftly saw the problems with after joining a group on an alt account). Also great to see him recognising that many residents (myself included) were trying to tell Linden Lab that Basic Mode was confusing many people, and that the new user experience is changing and adapting to accommodate residents’ concerns.

He acknowledged that V2 was difficult to use (also that the sidebar was a pain to work with), spoke about the potential for new methods to deal with griefers, and about bringing in new benefits for premium members (at no extra cost).

All in all a great speech and an interesting Q&A. Try to catch up with it if at all possible. It may allay some of your worries about where Second Life is headed :)

Collabor88ing on a great new designer discount store

Collabor88ing on a great new designer discount store

Collabor88 is a new designer discount store, much in the vein of The Dressing Room and others. Everything in the store is L$88 (so, sadly, it’s out of the L$75 remit of this blog) but there is a great freebie at the store right now.

If you join the Collabor88 group (free to join; either click the multi-screen joiner at the location or paste this link into chat and click it to bring up the group-join page) then you can get this fabby pack of Cassia Glitter Mini Dresses from The Sea Hole, in six colours (brass tax, cafe (shown here), cerulean, lilac, peridot, and pewter), free! The board to grab them is right by that multiple tv screen group joiner in the store; just have your group tag active and click to receive them.

(Mar’s also wearing two other items from the store: one colour from the full fatpack of hair by Truth, and shoes by R2.)

Summer huntin’, had me a blast

Summer huntin’, had me a blast

OK, this has probably been blogged to hell and back everywhere else, but I’ve been away and it’s my turn to blog it, dammit! :P

R.icielli is running a Summer Hunt at their mainstore. There are 20 golden shells to find (they’re really easy to spot, so it’s a simple hunt) and inside each shell is a fabulous item. The shells cost L$15 each to buy, but consider this: if you buy all of them you’ll be getting 20 items for the price of one or two of the most expensive items in the store. That’s one heck of a bargain!

Here are just three of the items that Mar put together into a great outfit:

Hop behind the cut for a picture of what you’re looking for and a full list of everything available in the hunt :)

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It’s been a while…

It’s been a while…

Yes, I’m back. There’s a longer post over at my Ponderings blog, if you want to read more.

So… back to it! Where to begin? OK, how about with the current TDR Blue collection, because it’s still summer (at least here in the northern hemisphere) and as soon as Mar spotted this gorgeous skirt from Tee*fy she had to have it! Also from the TDR Blue collection this month is the LeoLuxe belt from Mimikri (and I love the resizing options on this; they let you resize in different directions instead of just making the whole belt bigger, so if you’ve got a plush bottom you can accommodate that without having the belt be six inches too wide sideways!)

The top is from the current Summer Hunt at R.icielli (more on that in the post to follow), the skin is a group gift from Exodi (hop behind the cut for info on that!) and the flipflops are lovely little cheapies from Magi Take.

Hop behind the cut!

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You know what?

You know what?

I am bored out of my skull just shuttling around the grid on the occasional times that I do log in. Mar doesn’t socialise, she’s definitely not in SL for relationships or live music or dancing or anything else. She was born to live a cheapie life and to help newbies and, while the cheapie life sometimes falls by the wayside (hey, if that pair of shoes she really wants cost L$250 then so be it!) unless she’s doing what she was born to do there’s a big hole in her (and, by extension, my) life.

In short: sod the person who got me down. I won’t take part in their personal crusade, but their comments hit me at a particularly low and exhausted moment and I let them upset me far more than I normally would. Now, I’m not only bored but I’m stronger for having taken a breather. The wonderful, supportive comments that I’ve received from my readers (which I’ll be getting to very shortly) have helped no end. Sometimes it can feel as if you’re blogging into a vacuum and, while I don’t do this for the kudos, it’s nice to know that I’ve made a difference here and there. So, thank you for the positive comments :)

I’ve sent the comments that upset me so much into the trash (although I have taken screencaps, so if the person comes back their comments are still publishable) because I’m sick of seeing them sitting in the pending comments list (and there’s no option on WordPress to clear pending comments without publishing them). So it’s a clean slate.

I’m coming back, bishes ;)

Admin: An open letter

Admin: An open letter

This goes out to one person, and I apologise for subjecting the rest of my readers to it. If you read my other blog or my Twitterfeed, you might have an inkling of what this is about. In short: I will probably be closing SL for Nowt because it’s stopped being enjoyable anymore.

The letter is short, and it’s behind the cut.

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The State of the Blog

The State of the Blog

The main SL for Nowt blog is on indefinite hiatus right now. I’m not sure that I have the heart to even continue it in the light of recent comments that I’ve received (but not published) and other (mainly online) things.

I have put three years of time, effort, love, and money into SL for Nowt (because yes, it may be a blog about freebies but I also blog cheapies, I host land inworld where newbies can start out, plus I pay for the blog’s hosting and domain name, and all of that has cost me a great deal of money over the years) but of late I don’t seem to be able to put a foot right anywhere I turn. The unpublished comments are, I fear, the final nail in the coffin for the blog and for my love of doing what I’ve done for three years. I’m not going into great detail about the comments here because to do so would be to identify the person concerned and I am not in the business of slandering large store owners or anyone else, but suffice to say I feel the comments are unjustified, unfair, and (after a quick bit of googling) hypocritical, but I don’t have the heart to defend myself anymore. I’d rather just close the blog and be done with it.

For all the happiness I’ve found through doing the blog and being able to give people a foothold in Second Life, this has just made me wonder why the hell I even bother anymore. SL for Nowt is just a minnow in a very big sea of much larger fishes. I know I have my faithful readers and I hate to let them down, but if the fun is no longer there for me then I would rather quit than keep going out of obligation. Not to mention the fact that I feel like I’m walking on eggshells now, because of the content of those comments.

It’s not just those comments (although if you decide to comment on this post, be aware that your comment will be published; I won’t hold anything back, so if you decide to come here and deride me for mentioning your comments in another blogpost after I expressly didn’t publish them on the main, more popular blog, as per your wishes, then your comments here will be published). There are other things that have been getting me down both in-world and in the general blogosphere and other SL-related areas, but the comments were the final nail.

I’m not posting this on the main blog because I haven’t made a final decision yet. If and when I do, there will be a simple ‘blog closed’ image post going up with a brief explanation.

Saturday shopping

Saturday shopping

Here’s a cute outfit for those days when it’s warm outside and you fancy a shopping trip. Mar’s pants are the L$10 Lina Pants (fabby slouchy prim cuffs on these!) and her top is the L$10 Capri Top in gold, both from the Beauty Avatar Couture Discount Room. Her shoes are the adorable Jelly Beans flats in yellow, from Roly Poly, which are free on Marketplace, here. Her bag is actually the bag that the shoes came in. Mar loved it so much that she’s added it to her folder of ‘great shopping bags’ to tote around when she’s on a shopping spree!

Hop behind the cut for a closer look at the shoes :)

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A cosy place to park your butt!

A cosy place to park your butt!

Mar visited the {what next} store the other day and splurged a bit on the gorgeous Blogger’s Armchair. There are several colour versions available, and each one comes with multiple poses and accessories. There are male and female sits, a male and female ‘drink’ pose, a reading pose, and a laptop pose. The pack also comes with a book dispenser (to wear while you read) in the form of an open book, a coffee cup dispenser (to wear while you drink) in the form of a coffee cup (these will give out their contents to anyone who clicks, so your friends can grab a drink and a good read too!) and there’s also a wearable laptop.

If you join the Subscribo at {what next} you can also get a nice gift featuring some decor for your home. I won’t spoil what it is in detail, but it includes a pose item and two decor items.

The female sit pose is shown in the main image. Hop behind the cut for images of the other poses :)

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