SL: Ruthed!

I finally found the missing piece of the OpenSim on Vista puzzle, you have to run the Opensim server as Administrator, even when you already ARE an Administrator. Gee, thanks for such priveleges, Microsoft.

Sadly, the XP build I have worked on is looking like it has low-level stability issues as it is a machine that I resurrected from a major crash in order to get somebody's data back from it.
I think I'll have to re-install from scratch, which kind of tempts me to use Linux instead.
Darn, it's one learning curve after another.

So, now I have 65,536 square metres of ocean that I can terraform to my hearts desire. I will have a 15,000 Prim budget and no network lag or unexpected Sim outages (I hope).
If I get confident and the traffic cost isn't too insane, I might even try connecting to the OSGrid to share the place.

This is a 'tiny' 63x62 metre block I raised from the seabed to learn the land tools (after I built an atoll first). 3,900 square metres and no land tax to pay, lovely!

Until I manage to port my Second Life inventory across, I will probably remain 'Ruth', the default Second Life avatar.

Porting stuff across will, of course, be restricted to stuff I have permissions to, but hopefully won't be too hard once I part with 14 Euros (about AUD $22) to these guys -

http://www.secondinventory.com/

Thanks to mentor and all-round nice person Moggs for that heads-up -

http://moggsoceanlane.blogspot.com/

Incidentally, it turns out that you don't have to do Second Life scripting exclusively in LSL (Linden Scripting Language) as it is based on .Net/Mono.

You can also use C#, Java, VBScript (On Windows) and more, so long as you put a comment on the first line to identify the language.

http://lslwiki.net/lslwiki/wakka.php?wakka=Mono

Some caveats however -

http://www.theseventhsun.com/7thSun_Vol2No2_gigsCorner-registered.pdf

But that won't stop the .Net fans from networking in Second Life -

http://www.sldnug.net/

SL: Noddy's Guide to Opensim Setup

I had the passing thought to Google 'Opensim Vista' to see if others had problems with the installation.
I'm happy to say I found a nice hand-holding guide -
http://www.virtualwhite.com/?p=9

It starts off -

"If you’ve have ever wanted your own Second Life Island/Estate but didn’t want to pay the $1700 bucks plus $300/month fees for it, then this tutorial series is for you. I will take you through downloading, installing, and configuring an Opensim standalone server on Windows Vista using the community edition of MySQL. It is all free of charge thanks to many others who are forging a freely available virtual world platform."

It shouldn't be hard now.

Also, I don't see why these instructions won't work on XP too, so I intend setting up the OpenSim server on an older PC on my home network. Then I might be able to connect to the OpenGrid.

SL: Linden aren't the only Virtual World makers

Introducing a new category "SL:" to make finding relevant articles easier for my Second Life friends.

I have been looking at an alternative to Second Life where I can host my own virtual world just for practicing building etc with no lag or outages.
The project I found was OpenSim -
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

Wikipedia has more on Open Simulator -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSimulator

Here is some info' on setting it up -
http://opensimuser.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/opensim-install-and-configuration-tutorial/

I'm still in the throes of getting it set up right, but meanwhile, I disovered that there is another project which ties all these private virtual world servers together in a grid -
http://osgrid.org/index.php?page=home&btn=1

A handy place for getting a quick overview of all this is - http://planet.opensim.us/
(not often you see a '.us' suffix)

Lest you think all this Second Life stuff is just a game and not a genuine virtual reality, I will mention that I got offered a full-time Real Life/Second Life job last week as a scripter (programmer) on a major project with a real company, I think I'm going for it.