Queen’s Public Service Announcement: HEAT! May 13, 2008

It’s gettin’ hot in here…ohgodwhathaveidonenowitstuckinmyhead…

Anyhoo…as the weather gets warmer in the Northern Hemisphere one thing we’ve got to watch out for is HEAT and your computer.

I’m having a feeling that a lot of peeps that are having recent crashes/freezing problems and blaming it on SL bugs are in fact running their machines too hot.

Even if they are oldbies at this SL thang, Windlight makes your graphics card work a WHOLE LOT HOTTER, so many people might not be expecting this. And it seems everybody and their mom has laptops these days, which are harder to keep cool. I happen to be a geek that cares for you, gentle readers, and I have both a desktop and laptop to give you both perspectives.

If you’ve got a desktop, you have a lot more control and you can easily open ‘er up (its ok, you wont hurt anything if you are careful) and check things out.

For SL the most important fan is on your video card! Your CPU also has a fan that is tre importante. And if you have a desktop, you should have a few other fans inside too. Basically your CPU and video card create the most heat, and the hot air will just lie there on top of your video card and/or motherboard, which is bad, m’kay? What you want to do is push that air towards the back to your power supply fan where it pushes it out the back vent.

Check for extreme heat by touching the case and feeling the air coming out of the back vent. If it’s boiling hot that’s bad! Make sure you have enough air flow in the room you’re working. If it’s hot you should be hearing fans working inside your computer. If you don’t hear fans, that’s bad! (unless you have the super quiet fans and if so then most likely you’re a geek so this whole entry is preaching to the choir, or a good reminder at least ) When it’s hot my G5 sounds like a freaking jet engine, I kid you not. I don’t mind it tho…it’s doing the Lord’s Work

For the desktop users….In desperate situations I have placed a normal floor fan directly in front of my desktop (most desktops have front vents). My boyfriend has his computer open all the time and has a fan literally blowing directly onto/across his video card. This is a bit crude, but will do the trick! Be sure to check that the fan on your video card works OK (with your case open, start your computer and watch the fans). Your CPU also has a fan. If any of these fans stop working, your computer can react in a number of ways, including freezing up completely, acting glitchy or freezy or suddenly just shutting down with no notice. The shut down is to save the precious parts! Because if you run it too hot for too long, it will ruin your video card or chip which is expensive to replace and no one wants that. There are also some desktop cases that come with gadgets plus softwares to help read the temp and warn you if it’s too hot. When your fans are dying they tend to make a lot of noises, so don’t ignore those noises! Those ball bearings do give out, but don’t worry, they’re like $3 to replace! Much cheaper than buying a new video card.

If you have a laptop…well, it’s bit more difficult (don’t be opening up your laptop!) but there are still things you can do. For about $20/30 or so you can invest in a laptop stand thingy (and yes, that IS the technical term). They come in a billion different kinds, some just elevate (which is very important), some are metal with a fan to act as a heat sink and will cool things off quite nicely! If you have an (Intel) Mac laptop (MacBook or MacBookPro) you already know how freaking HOT they can run…so download an free app called SMC Fan control which gives you control over your internal laptop fans. Whenever I run SL on my MBP I ALWAYS run SMC Fan Control. The app won’t let you mess things up, in fact it never lets you turn the fan off or lower than what it would normally run, but does allow you to run them super high and keep things reeeeally nice and cool. If you can’t control your internal fans, the most important thing you can do for a laptop tho is ELEVATE. Get the dern thing off your desk/lap and let the air flow under and over. If it’s still too hot get a regular fan and place it next to your elevated laptop blowing from left to right or right to left (across your laptop, if you will). Feel your laptop and find the “hot spot” (Usually there’s a few definite hot areas) and try to point the fan toward those.

So just remember folks…when it comes to computers, HEAT IS NOT COOL.

OMG I’m terrible. Just terrible.

ARC is Not the Boogeyman May 5, 2008

Call me crazy, but I just don’t get the all the hubbub and suspicion around town about the ARC, saying that it’s Big and Bad and All Wrong because “it doesn’t take into account the user’s graphics card capabilities”.

If that were true, then the ARC would have no real value because there would be no real scale, making the number (mostly? absolutely?) useless. And here’s why:

Let’s say I design something, but I have a kick ass system. Perhaps I’m concerned with making laggy things, so I check the ARC. Shows great for me! Perfect, it’s not laggy at all!

But then someone with a crappy graphics card buys my thing and it slows them to a crawl. They check their ARC and it’s thru the roof! Which ARC is right? Is it a laggy thing or not? There are as many answers to that as there are points in a circle (infinite!)

Or situation B: It’s a full, laggy event. The witch hunt begins: Everyone turns on their ARC’s and starts talking. Oh, look person A is huge! make them go bald! But someone else says, no that person’s fine but PERSON B, that’s the one that’s killing it for me…..etc etc etc who’s right? everyone? no one? The number becomes arbitrary, meaningless.

Look people: here’s what (I think, in my very humble opinion) the ARC’s about. Before this, all we had was folk legends about AO’s lagging down events, or whatever you want to believe this week. Laggy events were handled like witch hunts, each person with a different pet theory about what’s causing the lag. Most of the pet theories are wrong.

The graphics guys at LL do understand how certain things cause more work than others to render. That’s obviously how they assigned their points. ON A COMMON BASELINE.

Believe me, I don’t think it’s a perfect system, but it’s better than folk lore. I think some things are noticably missing from the points assignment, like sculpties, and taking into account a texture’s size which can make a big difference.

But it’s a beginning. It’s a snapshot, a general idea about how laggy one thing is compared to another. Everyone could be in red and if you’ve got a great system that can handle it, you should have no problem seeing it all, have high fps, etc. Good for you, now get outta mai face The rest of us do contend with lag and it’s nice to know that hair A has a large ARC so maybe it’s not a good idea to wear it to the next fashion show or orgy room or Insert Laggy Event Here.

The ARC is a development tool, much like if I create web pages I should check the pages to make sure they work on older versions of browsers and in different OS’s. If it only told me what things were to me, that wouldn’t help me create items in a smart way, nor understand the impact I’m having on my poor Minimum System Requirement-having customer or neighbor or visitor or victim.

The fact is, LL always gets the short end of the stick when it comes to “it runs so slow!” but so much of that slow is caused by you and me and everybody. The ARC sets to put the User behind the Content in a place of having more information.

User Generated Content may be the Shining Star of Second Life, but it’s also it’s Primary Problem.

We’ll Call it Productive Week May 5, 2008

Because that’s what it’s already been so far and will be!

First I have some RL stuff to take care of, namely my Demo Reel! I don’t think I’ve mentioned here, but my RL Job is that I work as a freelancer doing either Video Editing and Motion Graphics, or sometimes I do a variety of odd jobs on set during productions of various music videos, business corporate videos, TV and films. Work lately has been…nonexistent! (Which accounts for why I’m on SL A Lot lately). So when work is tight, time to start hustlin outside the normal circles, which means I gotta prove mai skillz which means !gasp! a demo reel. I have been avoiding this for a long time, in fact making my demo reel and resume always sends me into fits of anxiety. The past few days, though, it’s not scared me as much, and I’ve actually felt an urge to do it so I went with it!

When I (finally) finish I’ll post it here for shits-n-giggles.

And after that’s done I Am Going To Finish Some Items And Open My Store I Swear. Said nonexistent RL jobs are starting to put a damper on my SL spending, and it would be nice to have a wee little bit of moola to put toward renting my shop spot. My opening strategy is to have loads of freebies and a few items for sale. Actually I’ll probably always have loads of freebies. I love freebies, so I want to give give give back. Oh but I have so much to do before I can open in addition to just finishing items…store posters, get my fash con dealie, start new Royally-only blog…oh my head is swimming.

So anyhow, at the end of this Productive Week we’ll see how far I am for realz.

And for some reason now I hate making posts without pics so here’s one I liked from last week sometime:

Have a great day everybody!

Vote for my bug! April 30, 2008

Why not use my small blog readership loyal fans to push my own agenda!

I’ve got a bug, but it’s low on Jira votes. Plus, I made a cute graphic and I’m proud. Bonus, I could spin it into a blog post! Win Win Win !!!!

Antialiasing turned on, change an avatar layer turns it black

Bug or Art? You decide! I like it works well with this outfit I think

fjdksla;ioubo April 30, 2008

WANT

ok I was only going to post that but now I feel guilty. so here’s some pics.

YAY for Fluffy Green Meadows!

Royally Progress Report: I maked a sign!

Toodles,

QK

Vomit-Inducing Cuteness April 26, 2008

Sorry, my 2.37 readers, that my blaaagh has turned blahhh. I’ve been quite busy with the following tasks:

1. Trying Not To Shop For Avie stuff (clothing, accessories). Status: Epic Fail.

2. Trying To Justify Shopping for Cute Stuff for my Store Build. Status: Can you say Happy Stump?

2. Working on items for my store. Status: Eleventy Billion more unfinished items, Zero finished.

3. Working on the store build. Status: Cursing my Linden-Dirt Terrain; Sobbing from being forced to use precious prims for grassy lawn.

4. Working on the store Branding (logos and display styles). Status: um…I downloaded a buncha new fonts!! I love fonts!!

5. Trying Not To Get Frustrated At Clothing Making. Status: Avoiding Photoshop for the moment!

6. Trying Not To Puke From The Cuteness Overload that is my New Bunny Pet (and baby chick!) from LittleGirl Shop! Status: *Burp*

I do have a goal though. I will be opening my store….soonish. How’s that for specific?

Yay! errr….yay? April 24, 2008

OK so that’s weird:

I downloaded the newest newest RC last night, crossing my fingers, since the last one crashed me instantly, while the one before worked great, but the one before that had the mighty mouse bug so I didn’t use it. So if you can follow my rambles, I’m on an Every-Other-One-Works thing.

So this new one works great for me! With a noticable speed up, like 5 fps! Yay! Happiness! Still hadn’t checked all the bugs yet, but some immediate obvious ones seemed better (build outlines not sliding around so much when I cam about), but then I read on the big blog comments that lots of people are having problems. And reporting the exact opposite scenarios as me (as in last one worked great, this one crashes me immediately)….weird. and they report having similar set ups (macs with nvidia cards)

I admit it: I want to use teh dazzle. Not because I like the color scheme, but for other things: I’m in love with the new camera control sliders in preferences. I’m creaming in my pants over the anti-aliasing in client (which although every time I switch to 16x to take a picture I cringe, fearing a crash, but I have yet to crash when it does the scary “changing resolutions” thing). I’m learning a lot with the whole Avatar Rendering Cost thing. Want to play with scriptable glow and using other sculpty forms (without having to script to do it). And start to work on some Dazzle skins!

Sadly, Oh yes, I do get insta-crash in appearance mode. But not the “beacons always on” crash many are reporting in the big blog post comments.

But…man, I’m starting to hate this process. Simply because I’m trying to get a feeling for what to test, what’s crashing others, and the whiners bitchers crabby asses really drive me into a horrible mood. This especially gets my goat: when people start ranting and bitching about the RC being buggy, don’t report the bugs, then scream to everyone how it’s soooo UNUSABLE AND KEEPING ME FROM USING SL OR MAKING MY SLMONEY GOSHDERNIT. Um….use the regular viewer? Or even the viewer before that, you can still use that one! Or Nicholaz’s version! Some people just need to have drama in their SLives. It’s an RC people! By it’s very nature of what it is…IT WILL BE BUGGY (gasp).

Also the same people that complain about it not working, they want bug fixes now now now (therefore regularly release updates). Which way you want it peoples?

I’m sorry but nothing puts me in a worse mood than to have to read a eleventy billion Second Lifers (*snicker*) bitch and complain!

/me looks at herself and shuts up now.

Oh hai - the sign version! April 15, 2008

I have the coolest thing (OK, perhaps I’m easily amused…) it’s from The Cute Institute. It’s a set of letters, “Hollywood Sign” style (also a bit LOLCats style) on sticks. Low Prim fun signs! So the first thing I did when I got them a few weeks back was to make a greeting in my skybox

Shown here with the cuuuutest lil Avie also from The Cute Institute! Space Diva!

Here’s another pic I took recently I like. And I went photoshop crazy on it. 2 versions worth…

Sorry for random posts, I’ve been in a bit of a random mooood lately.

Hawt April 12, 2008

(Beware: rambly, pointless mostly RL-based post ahead. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

So, I live in San Diego.

(Yeah, jealous much?)

Anyway, today was SO HOT. Like, too hot. 90! In April! I mean, ya gotta work up to 90. Whew! I know, I know…I shouldn’t complain but we don’t have air conditioning and all our big fans broke the end of last summer and we need new fans!

Between my maxed-out ceiling fan and my G5’s jet engines fans, I could barely hear my WOW-addicted boyfriend call to me from the next room, asking if I wanted to see his cool thingamamboberdealie. I forget all the names for his WOW thingers except Epic Mount and Goblin Jumper Cables. Oh yes, I know he’s a level 70 Rogue? I don’t play WOW or most video games really. I played Portal. That was fun. (Although I had to play it on boyfriend’s icky Windows puter *wipes hands*)

Um. yea. That’s all really. I’m procrastinating starting dinner. Falafels and corn on the cob.

Oh! OMG I keep meaning to make a blog post about this but I am a big HUGE fan of Battlestar Galatica! Anyone turned off by that — just wait! See I’m really not a huge Sci-Fan Fangirl. Battlestar is simply one of the best written shows there is. (Mad Men and Battlestar are tied for #1 right now I lurve them both so much)

ANYWAY! Battlestar finally started their new -and final(SOB!)- season! OMG I thought it would never arrive. Anyway, last night while watching it I was looking fer clues…Cuz I haf to know who’s the Final Cylon Model! the 12th! the 5th of the Final 5!

And I think I have figured it out! Of course it’s an early theory. We’ll see how it all works out. I won’t discuss here for the spoilage factor and b/c I’m Sure Nobody Cares.

OK: I think it’s me. I’m a cylon. Not really. But honestly the past 2 Friday nights, both times I had not thought about the show at all that day but precisely at 10 pm (when it comes on here) I look at the DVR and see it’s 10:00 pm and that it’s recording. Then I see #5 beside me in a red dress handing me a glass of champagne…Ok not really. but the time thing yes. Srsly.

Well, if you made it to the end, Thank You So Much for Joining Us This Evening on THE QUEEN PROCRASTINATES MAKING DINNER. Brought to you by….Tecate beer! It’s made in (barely) Mexico!

Time to make da dinner.

Teh Queen and Dramatic Bunneh April 10, 2008

Proceed…