Oh irony, why must you be so ironic?

Thanks to those who reminded me to go outdoors on previous Saturdays.

The funny thing is, the cellphone reception in my house sucks, so I must do exactly that to use the Second Life-Vollee mobile viewer. The further into the field, the better.

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Yes, the rumors are true! This picture was taken from my MacBook Pro, showing me exploring the awesome Here island on an AT&T Tilt cellphone. This Second Life mobile viewer (aka client), a collaboration between virtual world leader Linden Lab and streaming game pioneer Vollee, has been out in beta for several months since the original announcement, and I’ve just gotten my hands on it. Check out supported handsets and you may be able to try it too!

One of the biggest practical benefits of a “light client” is simply that it allows you to log in and enjoy Second Life on the go. By smoothing the process of being able to connect with others, communication and fun is facilitated. And consider the historical asymmetry of how easy it is to do IM-to-email, but the other way around isn’t as elegant. By creating more bidirectional paths to ease saying “Hi!”, we become more useful in a Metcalfian way.

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I’ve had a few astute requests recently to make all the Torley Textures available as an easy downloadable archive. This is also convenient if you aren’t a Second Life member and want to partake in the lush loveliness, or want to modify them then upload inworld.

I asked myself, “Why didn’t I do this earlier?” and then I recalled how I intended to get around to it, but lacked time at the time. (Ah, tricky tricky time.) Fast forward to today, and here we are, over 600 textures of awesomeness:

» DOWNLOAD TORLEY-TEXTURES.ZIP

Enjoy, and let me know in the comments if you have any questions — you can use them freely on commercial products & services, just don’t sell them as-is (that’s foolish, because I’m giving them away for free right here).

Simple feature, but rather pleasant and a sheer delighter: Second Life webshop SL Exchange has, on their front page, 6 Featured Marketplace items which appear to be chosen at random, then auto-refresh every 30 seconds… or sooner if you press “Get More”! It soon becomes addicting, and is a nice way to get a taste of the rich diversity of what’s for sale in Second Life. Should you miss something, there’s a convenient back button.

You may even find some stuff you saw inworld but lost — a kewl avatar that TPed away, furniture at a lush place you forgot to landmark (but remember you can always check Chat History to see the last places you teleported from). For example, I wanted to tell my brother about anime-styled avatar, and it just came up on my other monitor as I was writing this!

SERENDIPITY MMMM.

One of my passions, personal + professional, is to understand by experience what’s out on the market and how it’s being used. I’ve made some brilliant and eccentric discoveries, and wonder why more online storefronts — including non-Second Life ones — don’t have something like this?

Remember when default loading avatars in Second Life resembled homely women with mullets? Even the guys got ‘em, and a couple of unexpected breasts to go with the horrorshow. It’s hard to believe, but as of version 1.20, those possessive terrors are fading away, the Sadako-esque spirit of Ruth able to rest at last, becoming the talk of urban legends on this Internet superhighway.

Ruth, suitably, has been replaced by an aqua-tinted cloud dubbed “Ruth 2.0” by her artistic daddy, UI design guru Brent Linden. Brent was gracious enough to take some time from his creative day and send me what essentially amounts to a “build your own Ruth” kit, mentioning the “toxic” nuance of said cloud.

Intrigued? Get it! And I’m looking forward to the parodies which arise… and I’m sure you’ll tell me all about those, right? Or else…

The Droste effect is one of my favorite forms of visual trickery: an image made more striking by being repeated within itself. Often fractal-like, manifestations of the Droste Effect are sure to wonder and delight, provoking inquiries of “How did you do that?”

Curious, I searched Flickr the other day for Second Life Droste effect examples, and only came up with one person doing it so far. Congrats, Oracolo Janus, along with prolifically photographing your Second Life, I’m thrilled to see your Drosteness.

See more of Oracolo’s Droste experiments, and maybe you’d like to check out Josh Sommers’ tutorial; it’s fairly involved and I haven’t done it myself yet, but the knowledge is out there for the using.

^ That’s the name of my second contribution to Stepcase Lifehack, wherein I share 4 Firefox add-ons — all compatible with version 3 — which I’m severely fond of.

And yes, there’s a DEFINITE VERTICAL TABS BIAS. You shouldn’t go browsing without knowing what that is. Curious? Find out!

I often get asked how I get location (SLURL) and tags auto-added to my Second Life postcards. The secret is simple, and I’ve got a video tutorial! I use Mark Barrett’s SLBuzz, compleat with Flickr crossposter, to work the magic. This is a Resident-run service so I disclaim it’s not part of Linden Lab; I’ll also share I’ve sent 1000s of postcards and it’s been a gargantuan timesaver.

A number of other Second Life sites I thank also have Flickr crossposting features. See instructions on:

• Snapzilla
• blogHUD (must be logged in)

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I’ve been enjoying the wonderful new features in the recent Windows Live Writer Technical Preview — it’s my fave blogging tool, and despite the name, these additions are mostly very easy-to-use.

Over at Lifehacker, Jared Goralnick shared a wonderfully visual guide which highlights the excitement. One feature in particular, automatic linking, caught my eye: it provides an easy way to simply type a frequently-used phrase and have it be automagically linked. I’ve created a quick video tip showing you how it works in action, and if you’ve never used WLW before, I highly recommend the experience! (Alas, no Mac or Linux version.)