Commercial Area Advertising?

I'm considering setting up a limited number of ad boards throughout the commercially zoned regions.

The concept is fairly simple. The ads would be paired with a notecard and possibly a free object to be given out when the ad is clicked. 15 ads would automatically cycle on each board. Spaces would be available only to businesses with a presence on SkyBeam Estates and must give a landmark to their local shop only. The ads would be free to the resident owners. No advertising would be sold outside the estates.

Regions that would have the discretely sized ad-boards featuring our businesses:

SkyBeam
Richland Center
Sede di Marte
SkyBeam FirstLand
SkyBeam Tradewinds

Ad content would have to be completely PG in nature (because of SkyBeam's ratings) and sized at a ration of 768 wide x 512 high (this will upload as 512x512 and look 'squished' until placed on the prim size to be used).

I'm looking at this as a means to add value to having a commercial presence in the commercially zoned (or mixed zone) regions.

Please look for the in-world vote in the group - info and vote for whether you like this idea or not. Emphasis will be given to votes from those in the regions effected.

--Char

Leap Day Ball!!!

Don't forget there is a Leap Day ball scheduled for tomorrow!

Where: SkyBeam Tradewinds (128,128,0)
look for the 'tp to party' sign from there!

When: 2pm-5pm *and* 7pm-10pm


We're holding it at two different times to try to catch as many time zones as we can. Dress code is formal but I'd rather you come in skivvies than have you not join us :)

The ballroom is *not* set up yet, but will be in the morning!

Look forward to seeing everyone!

--Char

We've Expanded!

SkyBeam Tradewinds is officially open!!! Woo-hoo!

The work setting up the region has explained my recent silence here! I threw open the doors at 8pm last night and Pips (Nevar's wife) DJ'd for us and we had an impromptu little party! Thanks to everyone who joined us for dancing, laughter and merriment!

Between residents moving from other regions and new tenants, we're already beyond 50% full!

The residents in place took a vote (behind my back!!!!) and we have an architectural theme! Pre-1900's is strongly encouraged and nothing 'modern'. For a little girl who left Caledon over a year ago, this is rather startling! :)

There's going to be a couple of parcels coming open in SkyBeam Wood, so if you know anyone looking for residential only property let them know some will be available shortly! If you know anyone looking for commercial or commercial/residential mixed, send them my way. The remaining parcels in Tradewinds are 1024's and 1536's but can be cut to combine to larger parcels if needed.

Next up is SkyBeam Pastures and a set of voids to surround it. This will likely be residential only, but I might allow light horse related commerce. Anyone's thoughts on this are appreciated!

I'm still working out exactly where best to attach these regions. Ideally they would attach to the regions somewhere where they can ride on into the estates. This pretty much eliminates attaching to any of the Open Space regions or any of the wooded regions, as I don't think there are contiguous paths throughout. I'm also leery of connecting to existing commercially zoned regions because if I expand commercially, I'd want to place the new regions contiguous to the existing ones. Much to ponder.

Perhaps I will redo the bridges for more height for boats and make more room for horse trails through the woods.... much to ponder...

--Char

ZOMG! Griefers!

There is no doubt about it. SkyBeam (the central region) is on the griefer target list because of the sandbox it hosts. 95% or more of our griefer issues are limited to the Sandbox, but we do get the occasional stray wandering off to harass the neighboring regions.

So, what do we do?

1) Stay calm and don't react to the griefer directly. They thrive on people getting upset, angry, yelling at them, chasing them, and so forth. Zero confrontation. If you simply can't remain calm, TP to another region in the estate or off the estates entirely and move on to step #2 (if you tp away, you may have to skip some of the following steps). NOTE: All residents have the ability, with the SkyBeam Estates group active, to freeze/eject from ALL SkyBeam Estates group land, including the sandbox, estate-wide! Also note that this might just boot them onto a neighbor's parcel, but its better than your power ending at your parcel's border!

2) Call for help on the SkyBeam Estates group channel. If I'm not online, or I am busy with a Relay For Life meeting or other business, this gives all online Estate Managers and Guardians a chance to respond and you the best chance of getting help promptly. PLEASE MAKE NOTE OF WHICH REGION THE PROBLEM IS IN. I can look up which is your home region if I don't happen to remember (taking a few extra precious seconds), but few or none of the guardians or Estate Managers have a clue what region you live in. Remember that all but four of the regions begin with SkyBeam, so if you say 'we have a griefer in SkyBeam', we will automatically go to the Sandbox on the region SkyBeam! If you live in SkyBeam something-else, you are better off saying 'FirstLand' or 'Stillwater', and if you're in SkyBeam Wood, please say its full name as we tend to refer to Apparition Wood, SkyBeam Stillwater, SkyBeam Wood and SkyBeam Everglades all as 'the woods' and we might get confused as to which of the Woods you mean :)

3) Abuse Report the individual. If you don't know how, here's the quick and dirty:

a) Make certain that any chat windows are closed or minimized and any 'edit' of an offending spamming box that might be applicable is open.

b) Open your Help menu from the top of your screen and select 'Report Abuse'.

c) If there is anything to be seen that is applicable to the report such as particle spam, check the box that says 'include screenshot'.

d) On the dropdown for 'Select Category', select Harassment (or whichever category applies if one of the others is a better fit).

e) Click the blue Choose Resident button and find the name of the individual. If you have the edit on one of their items open, you will have easy reference to their name on that window.

f) Enter a short summary and a more detailed description of the incident.

g) Complete the report by clicking 'Report Abuse' at the bottom.

h) Forget about the report. You will never know what action they take. You will get an email in a month or two (or six) that the matter has been investigated and dealt with, but you will never know what action they took, if any.

4) If the person was leaving things on group land and they were not auto-returning, make certain to notify me or Nevar Lobo that the group land in that area might not be set to auto return. I tend to forget to reset this setting on group land after re-cutting parcels for residents. Please also consider setting auto return on your own property. This has the additional benefit of dissuading 'squatters' who will happily use your prims, on the ground or up in the air, until you happen to notice. If you have more than one person using your parcel, you'll need to deed the land to group to do this and set all items to the correct group before you turn it on (or all items not set to group will auto-return!). If you have any questions about this process, please contact Nevar or me and we'll be happy to assist.

5) If you DON'T get assistance with a griefing incident because no guardians or Estate Managers were online, please drop me an offline notecard with as much info as you can, including the time and date the incident took place. This will help me track the hours we might need additional coverage.

A final note: Please do not use any sort of weapons or cages to try to deal with the griefer. There are two reasons for this, the first is covered in #1 above. The second is that when I, or one of the guardians or EMs teleports in, we need to be able to sort out the griefers from the victims at a glance. If you're busy shooting or caging the original attacker, we might well kick you instead of the perpetrator! It might be funny a few days later, but I'm almost certain you'd get a bit upset at being kicked for trying to protect our home!

--Char

Region delayed?

For all those following along with the order of Tradewinds, I expecting the delivery has been delayed beyond the fast times my fellow region owners have seen lately by the server side updates in progress. We could still see the region this week, but I'm guessing we won't see it until Monday at soonest.

More info as I have it!
--Char

SkyBeam Tradewinds is ordered!

I ordered SkyBeam Tradewinds today! Normal time to arrive is 5-10 business days but the last Winterfell region arrived in two days! I'll need a couple days to get it terraformed, parcels cut, sidewalks, streetlights and trees lined out. The terraforming will be a bit more challenging than some as I have to align it well with both Richland Center and Sede di Marte (the former being the real challenge).

If you know anyone looking for a great spot to have both their home and business located together, please have them contact me or Nevar!

Cheers!
Char

Troubleshooting a real SL bug...

As you may or may not have noticed, SkyBeam is no longer running on Havok 4! I should have posted this much sooner and apologize for the oversight!

I logged in on February 13 to the news that the rez vendor I use in SkyBeam, that our own Dominic Webb scripted originally for me and sells commercially on Skybeam, that Dylon and Khashai and Serra all use here as well, were horribly broken.

After verifying the news, I set to work contacting the Lindens on live chat, spent more than an hour with a very helpful Kyle Linden coming to a 'user's' understanding of what was going on. Turns out that in fixing one bug, the Lindens created a new flaw in how the system recognizes the root prim of a collection of linksets taken as one object, reversing from 'first linkset' to 'last linkset' to make the determination.

I entered the resulting Jira report as a 'critical' issue and it was sent by Kyle directly to Sidewinder Linden, a member of the Havok 4 development team, who provided further excellent and personalized service. Dominic Webb was able to lend the serious programming/technical side details needed to help foster the Linden ability to find and debug the problem.

An interesting note is that someone on the moderation team (I guess?) downgraded the issue from Critical to Medium, while Andrew Linden came along behind and moved it from Medium to Show Stopper (the highest possible, the one that comes with the threat of being banned from Jira land if misused) because it appeared to break content. Yay, Andrew!

On February 14, around 12 hours after the break, I had SkyBeam reverted to Havok 1 until the fix for the vendors is enacted. Five businesses brought to their knees was a bit much for me to stomach for at least a week before an update might happen.

To their credit, they fixed the issue internally the same day I rolled SkyBeam back and the fix will be included in the next update, at which time, SkyBeam will resume its place as a Havok 4 beta region.

I'm pleased to say that everyone who helped troubleshoot this issue received a big thank you from Sidewinder Linden for our role in finding this rather nasty bug and bringing it to their attention within hours of the update that broke it. We also got the implicit welcome to return to beta test status as soon as it won't cripple our merchants! So I think they're happy with us!

--Char

More begging for JIRA votes....

Sorry to bug you all with more of my whining... but the latest required windlight viewer introduces yet another bug... this time they've messed up planar texturing! This might or might not mean anything to you, depending on your skill level with building, but there are already reports of purchased homes having their texturing looking all messed up but still rendering correctly on the normal viewer.

If you have a moment, please log in and vote on the following:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-4860

Thank you!

Char

If you go out in the Woods today...

... well, you won't find a teddy bear picnic... and if you do I wasn't invited so don't tell me or I might cry :)

Before I tell you what you will find, I want to give the entire estate a great big hug and thank you all for the warm birthday wishes I received yesterday and how thrilled I was with my surprise party! Thank you!

Now, what you will find in the woods is four properties for sale! We have two 1024 parcels and a 2048 parcel on SkyBeam Wood and a lovely 1536 m2 parcel on SkyBeam Stillwater. If you know anyone who might be interested in any of these properties, please have them contact me or Nevar.

On the off chance any current resident of either region is unaware, all property owned in a single region, even if not contiguous to your current property, will add to your prim allotment for the region and the prims can be used on either property as one total pool. If you are in need of more prims, talk to me. I have no issues with carving off a 256 or a 512 of any of the parcels, selling it to a current resident and sinking it under water to add to that person's prims.

That's the news for today!

--Char

SkyBeam Tradewinds and beyond....

Announcing SkyBeam Tradewinds, the next planned region in our little continent!

This is slated to be double prim, mixed use commercial/residential, so folks can have home and business on the same property if desired. I'm planning on locating the region in the corner between Richland Center and Sede di Marte and tying the walkways through the region.

I plan to have a map of some sort available over the next couple of days. It will be tentative as I plan to offer custom cutting to size desired. I have not ordered the region yet and plan to accept reservations for a while prior to doing so.

If you know anyone looking for commercial land or a place where they can reside and maybe start a business at the same time, please let me or Nevar know.

Following behind this region, will be SkyBeam Pastures. This region will be unattached in the beginning and designed to suit the equestrian crowd with white rail fenced parcels and riding trails to continue out into a future set of Open Space regions to be placed at each of the four sides. One of these open space regions will attach to the main estate at some point as yet undetermined that will provide the ability to ride in to the main estate.

Again, if you know anyone who might be interested in the Equestrian themed areas, including the open space regions, which will carry the stipulation that the riding trails be maintained, please let me or Nevar know.

--Char

Relay for Life Clothing Fair 2008

Nevar has been hard at work... but not just at SkyBeam Estates!

He's also been working hard, practically since the close of last year's Relay for Life, prepping for the Relay for Life Clothing Fair 2008, being brought to SL by Relay's Raiders with sims donated by the Rezzable Group.



From the press release:

"The much anticipated Relay for Life, Clothing Fair will be opening it’s doors March 17, and run thru March 23, 2008. Jam packed with live music, treasure hunts… and fashion shows this year’s fair features 80 of SL’s premier designers! Kicking off this years Relay for Life Fundraiser will be a multi-sim St. Patrick’s Day celebration and running 24/7 until the doors close on the 23rd.

This year’s concept, spearheaded by Pips Fetid and Nevar Lobo spans four sims to ensure low lag, positive shopping experience. Watch all our sponsors for more infomation on this event.

So mark your calanders, check events, and save your Lindens. Come stroll the seasons and help us “Celebrate, Remember, Fight Back”. We can make a difference! Until there's a cure, there's Relay for Life. "

I'm particularly looking foward to LabGraal's performance on March 17th at 1pm SLT during the fair on the central stage!

The regions are busy being prepped now by his lovely lady, Pips! I expect the regions to be absolutely gorgeous and I'm also expecting to be a lot poorer by the end of it all!

--Char

Quick Update - JIRA request

Yesterday I asked you to go vote on a JIRA about how the new IM/Release Keys/Stand Up buttons work on the 1.19 release and the latest windlight release. The link I gave you has been closed and sort of merged to a single entry (duplicates were created). The votes do NOT appear to have merged into the official JIRA for the issue, so if you took time to vote, I beg that you vote again. Here is the corrected URL:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-4541

For those of you not familiar with the site, it is not particularly intuitive. When you get to the page in the upper right hand corner will be a 'log in' link in tiny little letters. Once you do, the easiest way to vote, if the system takes you to the main non-intuitive home page, is to manually past the above into the URL bar of your browser on the SAME browser window/tab that you just logged in with. If you do it in a new window its likely to require you sign in again and start over. Tedious at best.

Thanks a million for even trying!

--Char

Joyousness (for me) and a bit of begging!

First, let me say I am overjoyed that the latest release of windlight returns the water effects to my ati graphics card driven computer! Yay!!!

I tend to use Windlight because for me it has proven more stable.

Now for the begging!

The Lindens in their infinite wisdom (*ahem*), have decided that the 'release keys' and 'stand up' blue buttons should left justify along with the IM received button. This means, that if you're like me, you see blue button on bottom left corner and click it to see who is im'ing you and instead turn off your HUD/AO or worse, stand up in the middle of a meeting!

So I'm begging all of you, your alts, your friends, your enemies and anyone else you can beg, bribe or otherwise con into voting for the following JIRA to do so.

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2890

It just might save your head of hair later on if you don't use Windlight now! :)

--Char

Show in Search - Unable to check the box?

So, you have this nice shop, you've learned to use the Show in Search checkbox to help people find your things (if you haven't yet, you really need to!) but all of the sudden, you can't check the checkbox on new items! Why? because during the last 1.19 server side update it 'broke'.

Today's rolling restarts might fix it, but if it doesn't, our own Alessandra Pinklady gave me this tip: Take your items to a Havok 4 region (as SkyBeam sandbox currently is) and check the box there, take the items back into inventory and when you set them out in your shop on a regular server release region. They will stay checked (even if you don't want them to!).

I hope this helps!

--Char

Community Yard Sale

Next weekend is the Community Yard Sale!

Everyone in SkyBeam Estates is welcome to set out items for sale and this is a listed Second Life. We will have DJ Dakota Christiansen for a portion of the sale each day just for a little extra fun: Saturday from 11am to 2pm and Sunday from 11am to 1pm.

The parcel we will be using is on SkyBeam, in the SouthEast corner of the region. SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/SkyBeam/190/41/37

Setup is officially scheduled for 10am to 1pm on Friday, Feb 8, 2008, but can continue all evening and the sale officially starts on Saturday, Feb 9, 2008.

The following rules apply:

1) You must have your SkyBeam Estates group active when setting out prims or they will auto return.

2) Prims are on a first come, first served basis, but more prims can be set out as items sell throughout the weekend.

3) A prim meter will be in place. Please check its status as you set out items. Overage will draw from the sandbox prims and we don't want to hinder the builders unduly.

4) Please try to work together on placement so that everyone's items remain visible and attractively presented. I would suggest that everyone tag the items as 'share with group' or 'anyone can move' to facilitate moving items around to keep things tidy (Please note that you do not want to deed to group unless you want ME to get all the money!).

5) Items must be PG in nature because of the region's overall rating.

6) Boxed items, where appropriate, will help with prim counts. This takes extra effort and preparation, so its extra appreciated :)

7) Copyable items or your own creations that can be sold an unlimited number of times are not permitted.

8) Freebies: See #7 & Covenant.

9) Weapons & vehicles may be sold. Signage will be posted to remind folks that they may not be tested or used after purchase on SkyBeam.

10) Anyone with a commercial business on SkyBeam Estates that wishes to set a sale event at their place of business during the same time frame as the Yard Sale, may display a 3x3 board announcing the event along the south or east border of the property at a height so as to be above the merchandise out for sale. These signs may include a landmark/notecard giver but must not teleport on touch or use a sensor to dispense the contents. (If you need help setting this up, please contact me and I'll be happy to assist).

If you have any questions or comments about the event, please contact Nevar Lobo or me. We'll be more than happy to assist!

--Char

SkyBeam <----> Sede di Marte Border Issues

Greetings!

In an effort to crack down on illegal immigration, the border crossing between Sede di Marte and SkyBeam has been shut down until further notice! Ok, only kidding!

There is a continuing issue with the Havok 4 installation on SkyBeam and the Sede di Marte Havok 1 installation. At this time there is no resolution save ripping SkyBeam back off Havok 4, which would defeat the purpose of being a Beta area and the necessity of working through the issues as they appear. I will continue to evaluate the merits of taking SkyBeam back off Havok 4 on a daily basis and am hopeful the Lindens will have a relatively quick fix. If not, I will revert the sandbox in the few days.

I apologize for the inconvenience this incurs. You cannot tp from SkyBeam to Sede di Marte or vice versa. You must either tp to another region on or off the estate and then to the region, or fly around through Scepterd Isle and SkyBeam Silver Sea to make the transition.

Please feel free to comment here or to me directly in world.

--Char

Trials & Tribulations - Havok 4

We've survived our first semi-serious Havok 4 related 'issue'!

While troubleshooting the performance issues on Sede di Marte yesterday, I noted that I could not see SkyBeam from the region. My first thought was 'oh, SkyBeam just hit the rolling restart', but then I noted that on the overhead map, there were green dots (avatars) on the region!

So this brings up an entirely different set of circumstances. Occasionally, a region will restart and come up not as part of the estate it should belong to and will be totally invisible from the rest of the estate an the rest of the estate from it. So I tried to tp over to SkyBeam. No way. Flew into Silver Sea and could then see *both* SkyBeam and Sede di Marte and once in SkyBeam I could see Sede di Marte, but hit an invisible wall trying to fly in. So it wasn't the issue I was most familiar with, but! It did smack loudly of an issue I'd had as Estate Manager for Caledon's estates, where Caledon SteamSkyCity (then on Havok 4) couldn't be seen from Caledon (the original region). Same issue, same server software versions and same classes of server. Off to Live Chat help I went.

We were able to do preliminary troubleshooting but because of the rolling restarts we were unable to complete those steps yesterday. I was able to reach a Linden this afternoon and got the matter resolved with a server side restart (as opposed to the restart I'm able to perform). I'm really happy with the support I received from LL in handling this particular issue with expediency. They have also TO'd the circumstances to the proper developer for review to see if the server class/server version issue might have some bearing on why it happens.

To sum it up, we can walk or fly from SkyBeam into Sede di Marte. If anyone experiences any TP issues related to the SkyBeam (sandbox) region, please report them to me as I am beginning to see hints of a pattern of tp failures at least headed outbound.

Thank you!
--Char

Sede di Marte Residents: Thank you!!!

I want to extend my warmest and deepest expression of appreciation to the residents of Sede di Marte who have responded quickly and without hesitation to help remove high script time objects from the region.

The Sim FPS is still being monitored closely to see if we are stabilizing or if further steps need to be taken, but there is already a fantastic improvement, at least by my stat bars.

In general, items that have to scan the surroundings that scan too frequently, items using physics (including some pets/animals), and just generally poorly scripted items can be top resource hogs. As with most decisions about resource use and estate matters, I try to apply logic to the necessity of the script and/or whether there is a lower resource viable alternative available before asking for removal.

Anyone with any questions about how I identify trouble items and why I might or might not go after someone else's similar widget is welcome to contact me.

Thank you all who had to take the time to drop all to handle the issues brought to your attention!

--Char