Webhostingrating is a great resource to compare and find the best deals with regards to web hosting, domain names, and e-commerce hosting. Upon landing on their website, they have rated the top ten web hosts at the top left of their page. Elsewhere, they have web hosting articles as your resource to help you with strategies of picking the right service that fits your needs. For example, they provide articles for strategies on how to pick cheap web hosting.

They also provide CPanel tutorials which can be very helpful to someone who has never used CPanel before. They show you an introduction to CPanel along with how to use various programs and gadgets that come with it. If you ever get confused, leave them a comment or search their article database.

Webhostingrating goes over in depth about multiple domain hosting and the pros and cons. They explain reseller accounts as well as dedicated hosting account. I personally think Webhostingrating is a great place to start for beginners or anyone who is looking to shop around for hosting and domains. Their articles provide you with the knowledge to be able to find the best deals as well as the best deals technologically speaking. Pay them a visit.

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All you Second Lifers out there might enjoy this cool nich expo for virtual worlds. There are four main categories right now:

Virtual Worlds Hollywood
Enterprise Virtual Worlds
Kids Virtual Worlds
The Future of Virtual Worlds

I was going through the list of speakers and I noticed that no one from Linden Labs will be speaking. [As of yet] You would think Second Life would be a big part of this expo. If you are going to be in the Los Angeles area Sept. 3rd-4th, 2008 reserve your spot and stop by. Should be interesting! If anyone goes…comment on this post and let us know about it.

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I thought I would include some user data currently for Second Life. I was afraid Second Life was losing ground, but this data shows an upward trend.

Population

[source]

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I was looking at my SL account today and noticed that ‘group liabilities’ for a certain group had been deducted from my balance.  Not a huge amount, but still, it’s the principle that counts.  So I logged in and went through all of my groups, and most of them had the ‘pay group liability’ option checked.  It was the first time that any ‘liabilities’ had been taken from my SL account and to tell you the truth, it had me worried.

I had just rented this place and of course, you have to join the ‘group’ in order to be able to place items such as furniture etc…  But before renting, I was told nothing about paying liabilities.  I IM’d the owner and she unchecked the option for me.  But it did leave a sour taste in my mouth so to speak, so I looked around for another rental property.  Would you believe it, the exact same scenario…… I again IM’d the owner, and after about a day, she got back to me, thanked me for ‘bringing this to her attention’ and informed me that I should be paying more rent and that she would ‘discuss’ the group liability with me.  Well, that put me right off….. so after being there only a day, I moved out…. I didn’t ask for a refund of the week’s rent etc but to be fair to the owner, she did refund me anyway….

I know it’s not absolutely necessary to have a home in SL, but it is rather nice to be able to ‘hang your hat’ somewhere..so off I went again in search of my dream home which I did indeed find. I couldn’t be happier, it’s roomy with two floors and a beautiful rooftop area.  It’s situated in absolutely gorgeous surroundings, beautifully landscaped and the owner, in my opinion, should be nominated for ‘SL Landlord of the Year’.  He’s been very helpful so far and is such a gentleman.

I’m still setting it up at the moment, but when it’s all finished, I’ll post some pics………

There’s no place like home…

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Can someone please please tell me why people insist on using the term ‘Patty’s Day’?????  I’ve been reading through various classified’s and everyone seems to be using it.  Who on earth is Patty?  Is she someone’s grandmother or is it a bloody hamburger???  For Christ’s sake it’s ‘St. Patrick’s Day’….is it so hard to write? It’s only a few extra letters and they don’t cost anything to use.  Other phrases which seem to have me slightly on edge lately are ‘faith and begorra’…’top o’ the mornin’…..  Seriously folks….not one Irish person I know or have ever known has ever said anything like this.  One classified ad actually suggested to people that they ‘bring their shelaya’.. if you’re going to go the ‘Hollywood’ route the least you could do is spell the bloody words correctly.

Don’t worry though, I think this is a temporary rant and it’ll probably ease off once St. Patrick’s Day is over and done with.

So, just to clarify things a little..

We don’t all wear green and we certainly frown upon green beer.  Leprechauns are not the joyful little creatures such as the one on the Lucky Charms cereal boxes, they can be evil little bastards!  Potatoes are not our main diet (though I will admit that during the Famine, they were sorely missed!) Not all of us have freckles and red hair and  we NEVER say ‘top o’ the mornin’…never ever!

That’s it, rant over…well at least for the moment

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Maybe I’ve just been spending too much time in SL, but today, I discovered that St. Patrick’s Day this year will be held on the 15th of March as opposed to the 17th!!! What on earth is going on?? I’m such a confused little Paddy, my head is about to explode! Oh I know that it’s related to the leap year and Easter etc…but I mean…come on!

Next of all, there’ll be some politician with a very important engagement to go to on the 25th of December, so will that mean that we’ll have Christmas somewhere near the end of November??? One can’t go around changing time-honoured traditions, the world as we know it would descend into unbelievable chaos. We get enough ‘unbelievable chaos’ in SL so we definitely don’t need it in RL as well.

Anyway, enough of my ranting away…. I have to sit down and organize the ‘Photography Competition’…which will begin on Monday. I’m still trying to come up with some interesting catagories etc…and I promise that I will have them for you by tomorrow evening, along with the rules..etc I’m going to have the entire day to myself…oh joy! so I’ll have plenty of time on my hands for important matters.

Oh and by the way, if anyone happens to see me in-world, about to buy something, I’d really appreciate it if you could come up to me and tell me not to…my poor wallet can’t take much more!

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Without a doubt, shopping is one of Second Life’s most popular activities along with clubbing and dancing the night away. But if you fancy something a little different then I’d suggest you visit the Nickel Arcade run by Rhaorth Antonelli…a very cool person indeed. Well, anyone who could come up with such a fun little place has to be cool!!

The Nickel Arcade is by far one of my favourite places to visit and play a few old-school arcade games such as ‘Whack-a-Mole’, ‘Invaders’ and almost every other arcade game you can think of. There’s even a great looking pool table and a dance

floor. You can pick up a ticket roll that you can wear whilst playing the various games, earning you ‘points’, which you can then exchange for some fun prizes.

This place is very authentic and I just love the arcade atmosphere……it’s very like the real thing. So if you’d like to visit Rhaorth’s ‘Nickel Arcade’ then here’s the slurl..

Nickel Arcade
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Jeogori/183/103/97

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Creating your own items in SL is so much fun and can also be quite lucrative.  All it takes is patience and a willingness to learn skills that you have may have previously been unfamiliar with.  Before I joined SL, I did have some knowledge of photoshop and graphics but since then, I’ve learned so many new things.  Whether you’d like to create your own clothing, poses & animations..etc..  There is a cure out there for what ails ya! In other words, there is a tool somewhere out in cyberspace that can help you along your creative path…and the best part of it is that you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg on accquiring these tools..in fact, you don’t have to spend anything at all but a little of your time in getting to know them. 

I’ve been looking around and I’ve put together a list of some great free applications to maybe enhance your SL creativity.  Most of these I’ve tried so if you’ve any questions…really really simple questions that is…..please feel free to ask.  There are also a few that I’ve only gotten to the stage of downloading and haven’t really tried them out in any depth yet.  

GIMP

A free edit-imaging package that can be used to create clothing and textures etc for SL.  A bit difficult to come to grips with at first, especially for Photoshop users such as myself, but well worth sticking with it… (wish I could follow my own advice!)

SL Clothes Previewer 

Created by Johan Durant, this is a fantastic application that allows you to ‘preview’ your designs before you spend that hefty 10L$ on upload fees..lol

Blender 

This is a ‘content creation suite’… and it’s so jam-packed with features, it’s hard to know where to start.  I’ve been so busy with Photoshop lately, that I haven’t really had time to look at Blender at any in-depth level, but the site is very interesting and informative and there are loads of tutorials and fantastic examples on how to create with blender.  

Daz

A 3D modelling software programe …again, this one falls into the catagory of ‘just downloaded’ so I haven’t used it as of yet, but I did browse through the various examples of the possibilites of it and I have to say, this is one I’m looking forward to getting to grips with.  

Qavimator 

Have a go at creating your own SL animations and poses..

Audacity 

A free sound editing software package. Here you can edit and manipulate sound files and upload them to SL.  Very useful if you’d like to have you own custom sounds to accompany your animations. Of course, it can be used for a myriad of things, explore it and have fun..

As promised, here are some links where you can download some alternatives to the official SL viewer.

 Nicholaz Viewer

 OnRez Viewer (CSI style)

Able Viewer 

Dale Viewer 

Sculptypaint 

Using sculpted textures in SL can be a great way to reduce your prim usage.  With a basic 512sqm plot of land there is a limitation of 117 prims.  You can make the most of your prim allowance by using sculpties in your builds… Of course there are the ‘temp-rezzers’ that people use to kind of ‘cheat’ the prim system to allow them to have more prims than is allowed.  It may sound like a great and wonderful thing, but I personally wouldn’t advocate their usage as they can cause absolutely crippling lag.

Well, this should be enough to give you some food for thought.  The best thing is that all of these tools are free…. but you know what, there is another tool, and it’s probably the most powerful of them all, unlimited usage and potential, and you’ve already got it in your inventory…

YOUR IMAGINATION……..so go use it and make some SL magic!! 

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Why are there so many updates???  Personally, I never use the latest viewer untill it’s forced upon me…as it was today.  Sometimes I use Windlight, and for most of the time, I use the main viewer.  So today was a Windlight day for me..  I double-clicked my lovely SL icon, and there on the page it informs me that a ‘new update’ is available..and from reading the usual nonsense.. it lead me to believe that the update was mandatory.  So I said to myself, ‘ah I’ll update later’..  Then when I tried to log in…it tells me that I must install the latest viewer because ‘SL says so!’.  Oh good grief, when will the madness ever end

Okay, so I do all of my ‘updating’…etc…etc..  Well…what a crock of ‘nasty stuff’ it turned out to be.  I could barely move, it was actually like swimming in mollasses, not that I’ve ever done that of course, but you get the picture?  I couldn’t tp anywhere, couldn’t change my clothes and I must have crashed more times than Philip Rosendale has had hot dinners.  I was ‘Ruthed’ several times and my attempts to tp to other places failed miserably.  But, my new piano looked amazing in Windlight…lol so I suppose some good came out of it all.  

By the way, yes, you did read correctly, I now have a spanking new baby grand piano and it’s a beauty.  I was shopping around yesterday for little bits and pieces for my up-coming gig on Saturday.  I figure that it would look better sitting at a piano singing rather than standing there in front of a microphone looking like a spare part!!  Ah, but that’s not all… I also picked up a very cool microphone that is chock-full of singing-type animations and has a ‘moveable mouth’ hud also…  I may have to get a guitar and a stool and then I’ll be more than ready for my debut!  All I need now are some ‘hecklers’ in the audience and it’ll be just like a RL gig

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I came across a post on the forums where someone had put up a link to a youtube video. When I find the SL website to be ‘usable’ again, I’ll find that person’s name and give them a huge hug and a thank-you.  I followed the link in the post, and watched the video.  I kid you not, I couldn’t stop laughing…. there were actual tears of laughter streaming from my eyes… and that video is now one of my all time favourites.  I won’t spoil it for you by telling you what it’s about, but if you need a good laugh to brighten your day….you won’t go far wrong by watching this…

A Bloody Good Laugh 

ENJOY 

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