At this meeting we learned about an Opensim whiteboard tool designed by Trevor Meister and visited a There.com outpost on NewWorldGrid created by Mike_37uk There.

We also briefly discussed dachshunds.  A subject very dear to me.

Read on for a full transcript and many photos of our adventure.

For more information about the Hypergrid Adventurers Club and how you can join us, please see our homepage.  You can also follow our club’s tweets at #HGAC.

Meeting #27
12/29/2010 : 2pm GMT
6 Hypernauts in attendance:

Mel Blauvelt
Trevor Meister
Sail Woznaik
Graham Mills
Ange Menges
Pathfinder Lester

We begin on the region Pathlandia on jokaydiaGRID.

Ange Menges: Salut Path
Trevor Meister: hello there…
Sail Woznaik: good morning
Pathfinder Lester: sorry Im a little late. was hard to walk my dog this morning.
Pathfinder Lester: so much snow on the ground, and she’s a very short dachshund 😛
Sail Woznaik: I have a dachshund too…. she is refusing to go out in the snow.

I will now take this opportunity to share some photos of Samantha, the snow-hating dachshund.

I now return you to our regularly scheduled chat transcript.  Thank you for your time.

Trevor Meister: Do you have a series of tunnels in the back yard?
Pathfinder Lester: yeah, they hate the snow in general from what I’ve seen
Pathfinder Lester: Trevor, i wish!
Sail Woznaik: mine hates to get wet at all
Sail Woznaik: funny dogs….
Pathfinder Lester: Same with mine! she hates swimming. hates rain and snow. loves digging.
Pathfinder Lester: ah well
Pathfinder Lester: small group today. things are very quiet with the holidays. 🙂
Trevor Meister: I am supposed to go in to work today….would so like to not…
Pathfinder Lester: Welcome to the Hypergrid Adventurers Club! Thank you all for joining us today.
Pathfinder Lester: The first 30 min of each meeting is spent on introductions and an open discussion.
Pathfinder Lester: And for the second 30 min of each meeting, we will make some Hypergrid jumps to visit and explore an interesting location on the Hypergrid.
Pathfinder Lester: To start, if you wish, feel free to jump in and say a few words about yourself and your projects/interests in open chat. This is always a good opportunity for networking. 🙂
Pathfinder Lester: I post a full report and transcript of each meeting’s open chat on my blog, so this is also a chance for you to share information with everyone who reads the blog.
Pathfinder Lester: And if you say anything in open chat that you would NOT like to be posted on my blog, please just say so in chat and I will redact your comments.
Pathfinder Lester: I’m Pathfinder Lester, John Lester in real life. I used to work at Linden Lab from 2005-2010. Now I work at ReactionGrid Inc. as Director of Community Development. I started the Hypergrid Adventurers Club back in October of 2010. My blog is at http://becunningandfulloftricks.com
Pathfinder Lester: Ange, how did the Winterfest on FrancoGrid go?
Ange Menges: Well, a little quiet 🙂 just like here : holidays
Pathfinder Lester: If any of you missed it, it’s still running until Jan 19. I blogged about out previous tour to the festival here: https://becunningandfulloftricks.com/2010/12/23/hypergrid-adventurers-club-meet-2425-a-christmas-adventure-on-francogrid/
Trevor Meister: Trevor Meister Edmonton Canada….used to teach math/physics 20 yrs, now in elearning development….would give my right arm to work full time in 3D for a company like…say Reactiongrid….
Ange Menges: Ange Menges just adventurer thanks to pathfinder
Trevor Meister: Have something to share….before I head off to work…..if that’s okay
Sail Woznaik: Sail, been in Sl for 3 years, first as a professors of education in a masters program, then as part of Imagilearning in SL. just got land here and hope to expand on my skills and create a community. I am hoping to be a part of a initiiative for 3D learning at Duke that is trying to get underway in their medical and nursing school.
Pathfinder Lester: Sail, very cool! Is there a webpage we could check out to learn more about Duke’s medical project?
Sail Woznaik: not yet underway.. still working on the funding..
Sail Woznaik: nursing has small programs in sl and in unity3d
Pathfinder Lester: Sail, gotcha. I’ve been learning all about unity3d lately. Very interesting tech.
Pathfinder Lester: just finished a very good intro book about unity
Pathfinder Lester: http://www.amazon.com/Unity-Game-Development-Essentials-Goldstone/dp/184719818X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1293632023&sr=8-3
Graham Mills: Is RG’s Jibe based on Unity?
Sail Woznaik: yes, good for small simulation, but they also need to combine it somehow to use with bigger groups of people.
Pathfinder Lester: Graham, yes
Pathfinder Lester: Jibe is based on Unity3d
Graham Mills: I noticed the Heritage Key folk were promoting it too, ditto Extreme Reality
Pathfinder Lester: i recently wrote an “executive summary” about Jibe for folks who wanted a good summary of what it exactly is. http://bit.ly/Jibe_Summary
Graham Mills: ty
Sail Woznaik: thanks
Pathfinder Lester: Trevor, do you want to talk about your new invention now?
Trevor Meister: I have a Jibe space as well….haven’t had time to do much with it yet…but starting to explore
Trevor Meister: Sure….then better start the car….-20 here this morning
Graham Mills: I got the impression that Unity required serious modelling skills (which I don’t have)
Graham Mills: ouch, -20 is cold
Trevor Meister: I’ve been using Blender….takes some time…but lots of good tutorials
Pathfinder Lester: Graham, you can also use things like google sketchup to make models for unity. that’s what i’ve been using.
Graham Mills: k
Pathfinder Lester: it’s a lot easier than blender for me
Graham Mills: I have to say that I prefer inworld tools — but that’s what I’m used to
Sail Woznaik: I have been trying to learn blender also.
Graham Mills: Sorry for interrupting — what’s Trevor’s invention abt?
Pathfinder Lester: it’s a shared whiteboard!
Trevor Meister: Sorry…not an invention really so much as stealing other ideas and cobbling them together…
Pathfinder Lester: you can add text, geometric shapes, draw lines, and add images
Ange Menges: Nice !
Trevor Meister: Text goes where ever you click
Graham Mills: Cool 🙂
Sail Woznaik: nice
Graham Mills: I’ll see your nice and raise you a very nice

NOTE: Trevor has left a boxed copy of his whiteboard for anyone who wants to grab a copy.  Just look for this box sitting next the campfire on Pathlandia.

Trevor Meister: Its done using os dynamic texture calls
Trevor Meister: feel free to take a copy and spread it around….modify, add to it whatever…
Graham Mills: tyvm 🙂
Sail Woznaik: thanks
Trevor Meister: hopefully everything is unlocked….if not…it should be…
Trevor Meister: but.l..the cold beckons…..have to run…
Sail Woznaik: opps
Pathfinder Lester: i love how you can actually draw on it
Pathfinder Lester: ok Trevor
Graham Mills: bye trevir
Pathfinder Lester: thanks for coming by and showing this!
Pathfinder Lester: i’ll continue to spread the word. will blog about it, too 🙂
Graham Mills: yes indeed 🙂
Pathfinder Lester: great tool for educators
Trevor Meister: Willl come for the tour on Sunday.;..
Pathfinder Lester: great
Pathfinder Lester: i love how you can add little images to it
Ange Menges: 🙂
Ange Menges: I am making some tests with the last release of whisper/murmur. Do someone here use it ?
Pathfinder Lester: there. some pics of my dachshund 😉
Graham Mills: awww 🙂
Graham Mills: um, no, Ange
Pathfinder Lester: Ange, oooh cool! I have never used it. i read about how it was just released as open source. very very cool!
Graham Mills: mumble?
Sail Woznaik: cute
Pathfinder Lester: details about Whisper: http://blog.knowsense.co.uk/blog/_archives/2010/12/27/4713239.html
Pathfinder Lester: “Whisper is a tight integration of the popular Mumble voice-over-IP code with OpenSim for use with most OpenSim viewers.”
Ange Menges: I will put as usual the howto install and use on my blog
Ange Menges: in french, lol
Pathfinder Lester: Ange, oh cool. what’s the link to that article? we can translate it. 🙂
Graham Mills: url for blog, Ange?
Graham Mills: Is it spatial?
Pathfinder Lester: i don’t know. i haven’t tried it yet.
Graham Mills: It says not
Pathfinder Lester: when everyone gets back from vacation at ReactionGrid, I’m going to find out if we can start experimenting with it on RG
Graham Mills: That might be a good thing 🙂
Ange Menges: http://angefg.wordpress.com
Graham Mills: ty, Ange
Pathfinder Lester: ty Ange
Ange Menges: At the moment the only pb I find is that you need to switch between SLVoice and MumbleVoice
Pathfinder Lester: this board that Trevor made is great. i love playing with it.
Ange Menges: But they have done little batch scripts for that
Pathfinder Lester: Ange, oh good, that’s helpful.
Ange Menges: And always the same pb : you hear always the voice when you leave the region
Ange Menges: just like freeswitch
Pathfinder Lester: yeah, we have that problem with freeswitch on ReactionGrid’s public grid.
Ange Menges: If you know any mean to avoid that, I’m interested 🙂
Pathfinder Lester: i’ll let you know if i learn anything. 🙂
Pathfinder Lester: let me pass out today’s notecard

— Notecard of Itinerary and Details —-
Before doing any Hypergrid jumps, be sure you have set your Home location and have relogged since you set it.  If you don’t, Hypergrid jumps will not work.  This appears to be a bug.

Many people find the Imprudence viewer to be very good for using with both SL and other grids.  You can find it here: http://imprudenceviewer.org/

*** How to make Manual Hypergrid Jumps in 4 easy steps ***
1) Open your World Map.
2) In the text box next to the Search button, enter the Hypergrid Address.
3) Click the Search button and wait for the map to move to the jump region.
4) Click the Teleport button.

*** Our Starting Location ***
Hypergrid Address: 66.240.233.81:9001:pathlandia
Region Name: “Pathlandia”
Grid Location: jokaydiaGRID (Lower)
Grid Website: http://jokaydiagrid.com
************************

Hypergrid Jump #1
Hypergrid Address: hypergrid.reactiongrid.com:9009
Region Name: “HG Gateway 1”
Grid Location: ReactionGrid (Middle)
Grid Website: http://reactiongrid.com

We’ll be making this jump using one of the instant Hypergates on Pathlandia.  It’s the stone archway near the Tardis.  Just walk up to the archway and walk through it.  You will automatically make a Hypergrid jump to “HG Gateway 1.”

For more information on how these instant Hypergates work, see:
https://becunningandfulloftricks.com/2010/10/29/the-metaphor-of-portals/

“HG Gateway 1” is a handy jump point in the “middle” of the Hypergrid.

Hypergrid Jump #2
Hypergrid Address: regions2.newworldgrid.com:12000
Region Name: “Cosmo Island”
Grid Location: NewWorldGrid (Upper)
Grid Website: http://newworldgrid.com

We’ll make this jump the manual way (see above “How to make Manual Hypergrid Jumps in 4 easy steps.”)

A Therian outpost created by “Mike_37uk There” for members of the now closed virtual world There.com. A place where old friends can meet and build their own community. There is an information center in the main tower, freebies and some There.com memorial website links. Also includes a hypergrid portal to other worlds, a dance club, a photo booth, and a freebie shop with skins and clothing, Oriental rugs, and textures.

Mike_37uk recently set up another home on jokaydiaGRID, also named “Cosmo Island.”  Be sure to stop by and welcome him to the neighborhood.

***
jokaydiaGRID has a Newbie Dome for folks to pick up freebies that can help them get started.  If you find any good freebies in your Hypergrid travels that you’d like to share, you can put them in the Newbie Dome.   There’s currently a lack of many good outfits and items for male avatars, so it would be great if we could find more items like that to share.
— End of Notecard —

Pathfinder Lester: for today, i thought we’d visit a region on NewWorldGrid started by someone who was very active in There.com
Ange Menges: In fact, it’s first to remind what I have done, lol
Graham Mills: 🙂
Pathfinder Lester: his name is Mike_37uk There, and he actually just got a region here on jokaydiagrid
Pathfinder Lester: did anyone here use There.com?
Graham Mills: yes, he was here last week?
Pathfinder Lester: Graham, yep! he was at our meeting last week.
Graham Mills: um, never had the pleasure
Sail Woznaik: no never got to use it
Pathfinder Lester: i used it for a while
Ange Menges: no
Pathfinder Lester: it closed down a couple years ago. it was like SL in a few ways. but you couldn’t build inworld.
Pathfinder Lester: had an economy, you could buy things, it was full 3d with voice, etc.
Pathfinder Lester: fun place, too. the devs spent a lot of time working on making the avatars have lots of social gestures built-in.
Pathfinder Lester: but they ran out of $ and eventually closed.
Pathfinder Lester: many people emigrated from There.com to SL when that happened.
Pathfinder Lester: i remember when i was working at LL, we set up an area in SL to welcome all of them. Blue Linden worked a lot with their community.
Graham Mills: Interesting how communities endure
Pathfinder Lester: Graham, precisely
Pathfinder Lester: and Mike_37uk has spent a lot of work with those folks in opensim, too.
Pathfinder Lester: and there are still websites where former There.com avatars keep in touch with each other.
Pathfinder Lester: it’s always tragic when a virtual world shuts down. but people often build communities that are much more enduring than the worlds in which they exist.
Pathfinder Lester: worlds come, and sometimes they go
Sail Woznaik: just like life
Pathfinder Lester: any of you ever use Google Lively? Google’s 3d world?
Graham Mills: same with other social media — I know ppl acting defensively abt the future of Friend feed
Ange Menges: Heuuu no, sorry
Graham Mills: I used Lively a little
Sail Woznaik: no neither
Pathfinder Lester: Google Lively only existed for a few months before Google shut it down. web-based 3d world.
Pathfinder Lester: barely had time to get started before it was gone.
Pathfinder Lester: that’s one very nice thing about opensim
Pathfinder Lester: there’s no single company controlling its fate
Graham Mills: the issue of code forking worried me tho
Pathfinder Lester: whether or not opensim continues to exist depends on a community of devs and users
Pathfinder Lester: Graham, good point. that can be problematic for compatibility.
Pathfinder Lester: it would be nice to see even forked code continuing to support a common interconnected protocol like hypergrid
Pathfinder Lester: so at least we could all visit allt hese different worlds 🙂
Pathfinder Lester: well, let’s jump to our tour location now
Pathfinder Lester: oh, one thing
Pathfinder Lester: i’ve updated my blamgates
Pathfinder Lester: they now have some antiloop/timer functions in them
Pathfinder Lester: that should make things a bit more stable
Pathfinder Lester: here we go!
Pathfinder Lester: first jump thru this gate

We walk through an Instant Hypergate (aka “Blamgate) on the region Pathlandia on jokaydiaGRID.

And we arrive on the region HG Gateway 1 on ReactionGrid.

Graham Mills: hi 🙂 made it
Graham Mills: that was v smooth
Pathfinder Lester: ya
Sail Woznaik: first time.
Pathfinder Lester: ok, from here we jump to: regions2.newworldgrid.com:12000
Ange Menges: I see cosmo island ok
Pathfinder Lester: you know the drill
Pathfinder Lester: 1) Open your World Map.
2) In the text box next to the Search button, enter the Hypergrid Address.
3) Click the Search button and wait for the map to move to the jump region.
4) Click the Teleport button.
Pathfinder Lester: i’ll wait for everyone to jump, then i’ll follow
Sail Woznaik: got it,

We all make a Manual Hypergrid jump from the region HG Gateway 1 on ReactionGrid, and arrive on the region Cosmo Island on NewWorldGrid.

Graham Mills: this is cool
Pathfinder Lester: there’s an info kiosk with a helpful noetcard around here somewhere
Pathfinder Lester: ah, there it is

Here are the contents of the notecard given out by the Tourist Information Kiosk.

—Contents of Tourist Info notecard from Cosmo Island —

* Cosmo Island

The oldest surviving sim from the first series of Therian sims on the New World Grid ( NWG ). Features a main square, Club House, some outbuildings, and the Information Point tower with its freebies and there.com memorabilia. There is also a sandbox, a hypergate, and the Cosmo Design Studio building.

You can access this sim via the hypgergrid or signing up for an account at the New World Grid

Hypergrid: regions2.newworldgrid.com:12000

* Fisher Island

This sim has a distinctive industrial feel to it with its large Fisher Warehouse Building ( a few surprises inside ) and smaller outbuildings nearby. There is a small harbour with a few boats and a sandbox area. Visitors from the now closed there.com world will recognise the medieval cottage, along with its pub sign that was used in the England World Hood in there.com.

On the other side of the island there are the freebie shops, a large sandbox area, and a container ship berthed alongside the quayside. The hypergrid terminal can be located alongside the cafe in the shopping area main square.

Hypergrid: regions2.newworldgrid.com:14000

* Zona Island

Zona links up with Cosmo and Duda Beach through a series of bridges and sim crossings. It has a disused railway station, the large Tyr Hotel complex and Ootay holiday village. The log campfires here will be a familiar sight since they are styled on those from there.com

The Welcome Point building on Zona Island has some free clothes and its own hypergrid Gate and  sandbox.

Hypergrid: regions2.newworldgrid.com:16000

* Duda Beach

Duda is different. Its sandy beaches and colourful themes set it apart from the other sims. The sim features a ranch, natural harbour and a number of interesting buildings.

Duda has its own hypergrid gateway, log campfires and a there.com kissing booth!

Hypergrid: regions2.newworldgrid.com:25000

* Life After There Island

This was the name of the original island when there.com closed. It only ran for a short period of time before being abandoned when earlier and more unstable versions of open sim caused a mass exodus to Second Life.

Thankfully NWG is now one of the most stable grids around. It has voice capability and sim crossings and crashes are now infrequent. Life After There is an organised residential district where land can be obtained free for ex there.com members.

Hypergrid: Not hypergrid enabled

* New World Grid

The New World Grid website can be found at http://www.newworldgrid.com/

New members to the NWG should first land at Welcome Point and familiarise themselves with this PG world. The teleport centre in the Welcome Building is a good place to start. The Cosmo Island teleport board can be found inside.

The next port of call should be the Free Market to customise your avatar and pick up the freebies. From there take a trip to the Sandbox area for a second building packed full of freebies. Miley World is definitely worth visiting since Dordy and Miley have put a lot effort into providing the NWG with some additional free goods for all residents.
— End of Notecard —

Pathfinder Lester: Mike also has an island adjacent to here called Fisher Island
Pathfinder Lester: oho, i see two green dots over there
Graham Mills: So he’s basically recreated the content from There?
Pathfinder Lester: parts of it
Pathfinder Lester: and there’s an info center that has links to web pages that folks from There.com have created
Pathfinder Lester: let’s fly over to Fisher Island (it’s directly to the west)
Pathfinder Lester: maybe we can meet a couple folks who are there now!

Pathfinder Lester: hello!
Micca There: hello
Micca There: how r u guys ?
Pathfinder Lester: doing well, thanks!
Pathfinder Lester: we are exploring with our Hypergrid Adventurers Club
Micca There: =)
Micca There: that’s nice I have tried hiper griding but I can never come back home
Pathfinder Lester: lol
Pathfinder Lester: well, our club explores as a group.
Micca There: I guess I need some more practice on this stuff
Pathfinder Lester: if you ever want to explore the hypergrid with other folks, please feel free to join one of our weekly excursions. 🙂
Micca There: how do I do that ?
Pathfinder Lester: Micca, well, we meet 3 times every week
Pathfinder Lester: here’s a page with all the info: https://becunningandfulloftricks.com/hypergrid-adventurers-club/
Micca There: have you met Mike ?
Pathfinder Lester: Micca, so you were in There.com too?
Pathfinder Lester: oh yes, Mike came to one of our Hypergrid Adventurers Club meetings last week. 🙂
Micca There: yes
Ange Menges: hello Micca
Micca There: hello everyone
Pathfinder Lester: that’s why i wanted to bring ppl here today
Graham Mills: Hi Micca 🙂
Sail Woznaik: hi
Micca There: I wanna come too … I am a total noob tho , gotta have patience with me
Pathfinder Lester: oh no worries!
Pathfinder Lester: we are all newbs at this
Pathfinder Lester: the idea is, we all learn together 🙂
Graham Mills: so true, lol
Ange Menges: Don’t worry, Pathfinder is a kind of angel
Ange Menges: lol
Pathfinder Lester: 😛
Sail Woznaik: yes, there are many 1st times here.
Pathfinder Lester: exactly
Pathfinder Lester: that’s the whole point
Pathfinder Lester: helping each other learn as we go
Graham Mills: this is a nice build
Micca There: =) that sounds good to me
Micca There: yes Mike has been hard @ work
Micca There: life after there is his latest addition
Pathfinder Lester: where’s that?
Micca There: he put up a sky thinggy it’s pretty awesome
Micca There: folow me
Pathfinder Lester: Mike is here
Pathfinder Lester: but he’s afk

At this point the region apparently rebooted and we were all logged off.  But we quickly regrouped and continued exploring.

Pathfinder Lester: maybe the region rebooted?
Graham Mills: yup
Graham Mills: It wasn’t just me then?
Pathfinder Lester: no
Pathfinder Lester: it was the region
Ange Menges: Back, was stucked, lol
Pathfinder Lester: same thing happened to all of us, i think
Sail Woznaik: yes, I am back on the ground

Pathfinder Lester: i’m impressed with how quickly we all made it back 🙂
Pathfinder Lester: we are hardy adventurers!
Graham Mills: heh, true
Ange Menges: lol
Pathfinder Lester: I’ve got to head out now.  Have a good day, everyone. Take care.

And so ends another excursion and meeting of the Hypergrid Adventurers Club.  Until next time!

-John “Pathfinder” Lester