An Average Guy on Second Life

What does EVERYBODY do in SL, from the newest noob to the longest resident in this crazy world of ours?

Think about it. You do it...every time you are inworld.

*Jeopardy theme playing in the background*

Give up? or ready to see if you were right?

Here is the answer (and you don't even have to put it in the form of a question).

Everybody in SL, and I mean everybody, teleports!

It is just a basic part of existence in our world here. We teleport to events, clubs, stores, we even teleport from one floor to the next in our own homes. We teleport ALL THE TIME!.

Now, we all have our inventory of Landmarks we use to get around, or search, even SURL's from the web. But what about teleporting around your space? Many of us have large multi-story houses here (because we can!...:)), or we have several different spots we set up in our private spaces that are not easy accessable (nor do we want them to be). So we need to be able to teleport to these locations quickly and easily.

Most houses you buy that have more than one level will come with a built in teleport system. These systems are varied, but they all basically do the same thing. Some are nicer than others, but they all basically work.

Now, if you are someone that likes to do things THIER way, or need a teleport system for your own places, I have found a VERY useful tool just for you!

These tools are called Beam-Me Teleporters. I found them when I was helping some friends who wanted to have a quick and easy way to move between several different locations on thier land.

If you search for teleporters both in-world or on XSTREET, you will find a ton of them. Most of them work, some are not able to handing anything above 700 meters, even though the SL viewer now supports destinations up to 4096meters. Some only work within 300 meters. It really depends on which method of teleport they use (this gets into a whole realm of different teleport methods that I really don't think is necessary to get into honestly).

After looking at many different systems (and I mean MANY), I feel I have found one that just about covers EVERY teleport need out there. The system is called Beam-Me.

The Beam-Me system has 7 different models. Each one solves a particular need, and does it VERY well.

The different models are:

Beam-Me-Up: This is the simplist model of them all. This version acts much like an elevator..meaning it only moves an avatar straight up from the current location. This model supports 10 locations and is limited to a 300 meter distance for teleport,

Beam-Me-To: This model is just like the Beam-Me-Up, except it allows you to teleport not just up, but around. So for example you could use this model to teleport from inside your house to your wonderful little garden cuddle spot you love so much. This version also has a 10 location ability, and the 300 meter limitation.

Beam-Me-One: This model will move you to any part of your sim, but only supports one destination. This is great for moving up to a skybox, or just to the second floor. This one is also just a click teleporter, no menus, or right clicking for this model! It will also work up to 4096 meters!

Beam-Me-@: This one is similair to the Beam-Me-To model, but can go anywhere in your sim, even up to the 4096 meter height limit!. It supports up to 19 different destinations.

Beam-Me-$: This model is just like the Beam-Me-@ model above, but has the option to allow you to restrict use of the teleporter to people who pay.

Beam-Me-Anywhere: This model uses the SL Mapping technology to allow people to teleport ANYWHERE in SL. Great for a multi-sim owner, to allow people to move around your sims. This model supports up to 100 destinations (10 groups of 10)

and finally...

Beam-Me-HUD: This is just like the Beam-Me-Anywhere system, but instead of a prim that anyone can access, its a HUD for your personal use. So if you have a group of places you go to a lot, this is a fantastic way to move around your own personal SL quickly. This also supports 100 destinations (10 groups of 10).

As I said before, there are literally hundreds of different teleporters available in SL. I have liked this particular system for two main reasons:

1). VERY easy to set up. You can set up the destinations for these system either by dropping a LM into the prim, or editing a notecard. Everybody knows how to create LM's, so just copying them into a prim is VERY easy.

2). You are not restricted on how your teleporter looks. Most of these models are easy to put into any prim you want. Don't want a teleporter to your private playplace visible for all to see? Put it into a lamp...or a picture. All these models come in a modifiable prim that you can make into anything you want. Or, if you are a bit more sophisticated in your prim knowledge, you can copy the contents of that prim into something you already own and VOILA! your own secret private teleporter!

Not only can you make the prim anything you want using the normal prim editing methods, but there is also a setup menu that gives you many different options on altering the prim including transparency, rotation, shapes, textures and colors! There is even an option to make a BEAM visible (some people are SOO visual..:) ).

And the security options are very extensive also. You can allow anyone to use the teleporter, only a specific group, only people listed on the notecard inside, a group PLUS the notecard (a very nice feature), or just the owner.

I have used this system in a couple of places myself, and also helped several friends set them up. They are soo simple and easy to set up, I have done a 5 location setup with a friend in like 10 minutes!

The Beam-Me teleporters were created by Monica Balut, and are available both inworld at MVD Inc. and on XSTREETSL. Costs range from $99 lindens to $799 lindens depending on which model you buy. Most models are also available in a No Copy Trans and Copy No Trans versions!

Now, go out there an TELEPORT! (like you don't already..:) )

Till next time...

...get more than you expected!

A very dear friend of mine recently asked me to help her find a way to easily access a every growing list of poses she has in her inventory. She told me that she wanted to sort her poses in certain ways, and was there a simple way for her to do this.

Being the ever helpful guy and gadget junkie, I set out to see if I could find such a tool. I had in the back of my mind a way to do it myself (I am getting better and better at scripting), but wanted to see what others had done in this area first.

I was not searching long, when I came across a VERY useful tool, that fit the bill perfectly. The tool I found is not new, and if you have been around SL for any length of time, you have probably heard the name of this tool before. I had also heard it before, but never really looked at it closely. Boy am I glad did!

Care to make a guess? You sure?

Ok ok, I will tell you what it is (I know you were VERY scared I was not gonna tell you...admit it!). I am talking about the HUDDLES EZ Animator Deluxe.

As part of my search process, I was thinking about how would "I" use one of these devices. Do I need one, and if so, why? I started to think about what I do in SL, and how would such a device benefit me. Well, a couple thoughts did come to mind.

First of all, when I am at a party or an event, and there is dancing (and just about EVERY party or event has dancing in SL), I have never been fond of the dances that most places have in thier dance balls. Outside of the fact that I hate looking like everybody else, I find that most dance balls have dances that look MUCH better when women dance with them...not men. Given that, I spent an afternoon over at Sine Wave and then over at AKEYO to put together a nice little set of dances that didn't detract from my masculine mystic that I worked so hard to create.

(alright...you can stop laughing at ANY time now).

Also, I have put together some nice poses for basic photography that I have been doing, so I had a list of those poses also. Now, you can sort things by folder, as I do a LOT of, but the more I looked into the HUDDLES HUD, I realized how nice it would be to have all of these things right at my finger tips!

I really started to dig into the HUDDLES, and the more I dug, the more I found. And the more I found, the more I liked it. This gadget has some REALLY nice features that have really made my life inworld simpler, which is always a BIG plus for me!

What features did I like? I am soooo glad you asked that.

The first thing that caught my attention was that you can set up notecards that list animations that you load into the HUD, so you can sort them any way you want, and just load them up at the click of a mouse. That in itself was huge for what I was looking for, not only for my friend, but for me as well.

I started off with a dances notecard and a poses notecard, and played around a bit. I then divided up the poses into "standing" "leaning" "sitting" notecards. I was clicking around changing things left and right, all from the very well laid out HUD. I was having a blast!

After my afternoon of dance shopping, I only came away with a total of 3 actual dances that I liked, but also had a couple of fun "swaying" animations that I like to use at live music events and such. So my next task, was to create a "dances" and "listening" notecards.

I suppose I should talk about the notecards here for a moment. The notecards, especially the animation notecards, is just a list of the animation names that you want to have loaded when you pick that particular notecard. There is a button to list available notecards, and when you select the one you want, it loads up that group of animations. There is even a function to list all the animation IN the HUD, so you can copy and paste the output into a notecard, and edit away!

Once the animations are loaded, you can either just let the HUDDLES play them in order, randomly, or just pick each one yourself. This allows you to either relax and enjoy the atmosphere of where you are, or if you want to impress people, you can pick your dances to fit your mood, or the song, or both...:)

Ok, so...sounds pretty good so far right? Well, it gets better.

Another one of the very cool features of this gadget, is that it also has a built in AO. Now, if you read my article in Role Magazine (*cough, page 78), I talk about AO's quite a bit. One of the issues when going out dancing is that your AO can interfere with the dance animations you might want to use. This usually means you have to deactivate your AO before starting to dance. Not so with the HUDDLES.

As I talked about in my Role Magazine article (yes, I AM gonna keep saying that..:) ), I talked about how customizing your AO is not as difficult as it seems because most of the AO's out there are based on the ZHAO engine, and the HUDDLES is no different. What this MEANS..is that the odds are that you can copy the notecard out of your existing AO, and put it into the HUDDLES, along with the animations from your other AO, and have all your stuff in one place! ALSO...the HUDDLES will automatically turn OFF your AO, when you pick another animation to play, such as a dance! One less thing to worry about!

There are several other features of the HUDDLES that I am not gonna touch on, because I have not used all of them yet. For example, you can use it to invite others to share your dances (like a chim), you can use poofers, there is a flight assist, keep track of landmarks, hugger, build macros, emotes, object rezzing, etc etc etc.

Some might say this is a bit overkill, but I have to say it is nice to be able combine so many features in ONE HUD attachment. Talk about simplifying your screen!

OK, so lets get some details here. The HUDDLES EZ Animator Deluxe was made by Keiki Lemieux. There are several versions available, some with VERY specific functions, which might be a bit more to your liking, but most of those versions are combined into the DELUXE model.

The DELUXE version, which is what I have is available both inworld at

HUDDLES Main Store

and on XSTREETSL

HUDDLES EZ Animator Deluxe on XSTREETSL

(which was recently acquired by Linden Labs).

The HUDDLES EZ Animator Deluxe sells for $1499 at both inworld and out. I consider it money VERY well spent!

Before I go, let me give you a sampling of what the HUDDLES EZ Animator actually looks like..



and



If you want to see me dancing...you will have to wait till the next party!


Till next time!

Hello again everybody!

January has been an absolutly crazy month for me..both in SL and in RL. I would have to say it has been a good month though.

Part of that craziness...has to do with my previous blog post, specifically regarding ROLE magazine.

Shortly after the January issue was published, a call went out for new writers. I took and chance..and submitted my application. Fortune smiled on me, because they seemed to like my writing, and hired me on.

I was both excited and scared about this new challenge. I have written much over my life...mostly for myself, but some for other peoples reading.

So...for better or for worse..here it is.



I am on page 78

I have lots that I have been working on this last month, so be prepared for many more blog entries coming up.

In the meantime...go read the magazine!

Till next time.