You are invited to a night of Celebration in London City, for the New Years Eve Party.
DJ Loki / DJ Torric and DJ Jon Temple will take you through New Years Eve and into the New Year. Loki will be playing club dance, Torric playing Classic Cheese and Jon Temple will be playing Classic Party.
Party starts at 12pm SL (8pm UK) and goes on well into the next morning as we see in the New Year, 2016.
New residents joining Second Life will soon be asked for their preferred location when initially joining the world.
We are proud to represent the UK choice and to offer the gateway for London via our new region, The London City Gateway.
Building work continues, but here is the first glimpse of London City Community Gateway..
Throughout the holiday season, the bars and clubs in London City will be open with many festive events. Also, keep an eye out for the pop-up parties happening throughout the estate over the next few days.
The London City team are enjoying a couple of days family time from 10am SL Christmas Eve through until 10pm Boxing Day (26th December). Please use the Support portal above if you need help and we will be sure to answer you in a timely manner.
LondonCity, a community estate
in Second Life since 2009 is pleased to announce the expansion of the estate,
adding a new region, with an exclusive focus on new users.
London City and their team of thirty "London
Support" agents has for many years, given specialist help to new residents
in the hope of kick-starting their Second Life with a powerful and impressive
immersive experience, fast tracking the user to the best experiences Second
Life has to offer.
We are pleased to announce that we have been invited by Linden
Lab to offer an officially endorsed Community Gateway which will be known as
"London City Gateway".
This dedicated region is under development and will begin to
host and assist new users as they are 'born' directly into the Gateway, in the
new year.
London City Gateway will be a low lag, fun environment where
new users can quickly learn the initial skill sets needed for the best possible
experience in Second Life.
We very much hope that LondonCity
will play a big part in the retention of new users as they begin their Second
Life journeys and to help the further growth of the Second Life community.
Avatars are about to get even more realistic as Linden Lab announces Project Bento.
The avatar skeleton will now support:
30 bones in the hands
6 tail bones
30 bones for facial expressions
11 extra limb bones for wings, additional arms, or extra legs.
2 other new bones in the head for animating ears or antennae
13 new attachment points associated with the new bones
Initially you will need the Project Viewer as it is still a work in progress, but hopefully this will be adopted by 3rd party viewers as soon as the new enhancement is proven.
For full information about this new enhancement see the Knowledge Base
We know how much work, value, personalization and emotional investment goes into a Second Life avatar, so we have always been careful when considering avatar changes. While we want to make improvements, we also want to maximize backward compatibility. Get ready for the biggest thing that’s happened to avatars in years.
Ever wish you could incorporate a tail, wings, or second set of arms into your avatar? How about having animations for facial expressions and finger movements? Yes, we know that there are some incredibly creative workarounds that give you some of these, but they can’t leverage skeletal animation, so they have been very complex, often fragile, and very expensive in performance and resources both in your Viewer and the Simulator.
We are introducing extensions to the standard Second Life Avatar Skeleton that give you dozens of new bones to support both rigging and animation, and accompanying new attachment points! This extended skeleton, which is fully backward compatible with existing avatars, rigging and animation, gives creators the power to build more sophisticated avatars than ever before.
On the grounds that I have presents to wrap and Christmas Shopping to do... you will forgive me for this down 'n' dirty vid this week! Normal service will be resumed as soon as Christmas calms down a bit :)
Does your Christmas wardrobe need a seasonal refresh? Many of the shops in London City are now geared up for Christmas with some stunning new designs for Christmas 2015. Check out the stores below for some great fashion and offers.
Through December, keep an eye out for extra activities as each of the five clubs in London City hold their own Christmas Parties and extra shows.
The Saturday concerts at Party in the Park include Cher, Glen Campbell, Demis Roussos, and a Christmas Eve early evening show for Andy Williams, with a special Christmas Show by Our Cilla on Boxing day!
London City is open throughout the Christmas Season, even serving Christmas Day dinner!
Here is the video of last nights concert in London City, also featuring, Churchill's, Madame Lala's and Bar Soho.
Enjoy, and see you today at 11am SL (7pm UK) for Substation.
Girls Aloud are/were an English pop group who were the next generation of 'girl
power'.
The group was created through the tv show Popstars in 2002 and
its most famous band member is Cheryl Cole.
During their ten year
career together they regularly charted with hits such as I'll Stand By You,
Sound Of The Underground, Something New, Call The Shots, Love Machine, Sex No
No, Jump, and many more hits.
Join us on Saturday here in London
City, for the Girls Aloud tribute show. The party starts at 12pm
SL, with the concert an hour later.
Dan Redangel has designed a free Aesthetic t-shirt for those who would like to show their support against the atrocities committed in France on Friday. The shirt is available at the Redangel store here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/London%20City/134/69/24
This Saturday, The Drifters are in Concert at Winter Wonderland in London City!
Spanning fifty years (and
counting) and with sixty Drifters members so far, this is America's longest
running band.
Their songs include, Saturday Night at The Movies, More
Than a Number in my Little Red Book, On Broadway, Kissin' In The Back Row of The
Movies, There Goes My Baby, This Magic Moment and many many
more.
The Party starts at 12pm SL (8pm UK) and The Drifters are on stage
at 1pm SL.
Today is the day of the first major
upgrade for Windows 10, called "The Fall Update"
With 110 million machines already running Windows 10, the update will trickle through over the next couple of days.
Most noticeable differences being coloured title bars instead of the plain white ones, built in Skype and improvements to the Edge Browser.
Some welcome cosmetic changes include the ability to disable the Windows logo and User profiles displayed at start-up. Also, for those who use Cortana, it will now work without a Microsoft account.
One of the most frustrating things for new users born with the initial mesh avatars, is the inability to customize their character, without having to first revert to a classic avatar.
The new initial Avatars are now classic/system type avatars with mesh clothing. This will make modifying characters so much easier, since there is now a choice between mesh and layered clothing without losing the entire body!
Although the shape is no-modify, new users can easily create their own shapes to further customize their characters.
Also all the avatars have clothing that you can use on others initial avatars in a mix and match fashion.
This is a huge move forward in giving the best initial experience for new residents joining Second Life.
Come as you are, or if you would like to be a part of the show and dance on the stage as a terrified Londoner, please wear turn of the century/victorian clothing, steampunk etc.
In August we explained how Premium Membership to Second Life could cost as little as 26 pence a month for those of us in the UK who opted to pay for membership on an annual basis.
This month, Second Life has another offer for premium membership at just US$11.25 for 3 months (£7.31). Add back the stipends you receive, worth £3.35 a month and the 1000L bonus worth £2.59 and you get £12.64 in Linden Dollars for the £7.31 you pay for Premium! Now this really is a bargain!
Just some of the benefits of Premium Membership include:
A Linden Home -or- a 512 sq meter parcel for you to build on supporting 117 prims.
Expanded Support, now including Live Chat
Exclusive Activities including Dune Buggy Racing in Racer's Gulch
Free Premium member gifts
Access to Premium member only Sandboxes
Increase from 42 to 60 groups!
Increase from 25 to 50 offline messages!
Other offers and incentives offered constantly.
Don't forget, VAT is no longer applied to European membership. So now is a great time to jump on board. Hurry because this offer only lasts until 2nd November!
Linden Lab has blogged about some new features coming our way:
Media on a Prim utilizing HTML5 and replacing the old Quicktime framework (that many Windows 64-bit users can't use anymore anyway!).
Rendering Complexity, a way to block the rendering of avatars with high render weights that impede the performance of your viewer.
Quick Graphics. Store multiple settings for graphics, accessible at the click of a button. Handy for when you want to enable high detail for photographs and video or lower detail for busy places, or to set a different ambiance for a beach or a city.
Notifications. For the busy resident, the ability to sort incoming notifications into categories.
See the Linden Lab official blog for an in-depth explanation of these new features.
Come on over to The Worlds End Pub on Sunday from 1pm SLT for a lunch time pub quiz. There will be 2 hours of music from DJ Katty. And also try win Lindens with several quizzes on different subjects. So come and test your brain and perhaps even learn something new at this fun and popular pub quiz in the quaint little British pub and enjoy music and excellent company!
Here is the video from this week's Saturday concert featuring Hazel O'Connor. Enjoy!
(It's in Hi-Def so fiddle with the cog to alter the quality of playback).
A special treat this weekend for those of you who remember the 80's New Wave scene in the UK.
A hit film starring Hazel O'Connor and Phil Daniels, broke the box office in 1981. The film was called Breaking Glass and charted the success of a post-Punk/New Wave singer 'Kate' from humble beginnings, singing in rowdy back street bars, to sudden super stardom and her eventual meltdown.
Hazel O'Connor wrote and performed all of songs from the movie and just like her character in the film, experienced a brief superstardom in the early 80s with songs, Black Man, Eighth Day, If Only, Writing on the Wall, D-Days, Who Needs It and her most famous of all, Will You, which remained in the charts for 14 weeks.
In case you didn't see it at the time, here is the original London City Dungeon from 2014.
This year, ride the ghost train in London City. It's still under construction, but will be ready for the big day. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/London%20City/57/227/24
Many male New Residents look for a very personal and essential bit of kit, only to find that they are prohibitively expensive for the newcomer. Then they get horrid and disappointing freebie versions instead!
Realizing this problem, Midnight Lotus have made an extremely kind and generous offer to all new residents under 30 days old.
Normally retailing at 349L, the Silver FULLY FUNCTIONAL edition of their product is now available for just 99 Lindens and exclusive to London City.
You muse be under 30 days old, or payment is refunded.
From today, Carrier Bags in the UK cost 5p wherever you shop, or considerably more in the corner store.
However.. someone has carelessly thrown away some carrier bags in the Regent's Park litter bin. Walk into the bin to see if you're a lucky winner of a gorgeous carrier bag, free of charge!
Over 70 other free items have also been put in the bin, so check it out!
On Saturday, The Dubliners are here in concert (so they are). Drinks will be flowing, (so they will), the fife will be playing (so it will) and we'll all
be singing along to famous folk music. If you don't know the words, the just
keep supping-up until you do.
Party in The Park starts at 12pm SL (8pm
UK) with the show at 1pm SL.
After a spluttering initial launch and having ironed out some problems, Bright Canopy, the service that lets you stream Second Life via a web browser, offering a new lease of life for slower computers and superior streaming for android devices is available again from Wednesday 23rd September.
Bright Canopy says:
Bright Canopy has been down now for almost one month. We have done our best to be transparent and communicative during the downtime. We have been working with Frame on a new pricing plan that will allow us to offer the service immediately. We will continue working on options that will improve our costs on the back-end and allow more flexibility in the future.
The service will be charged at US$17 per month for 20 hours service, additional charging at $0.02 per minute.
We hope you had a great time with us all here in London City last night. For those who couldn't make it and for those of you who did, here are some of the highlights from this weekend so far.
(As usual its in Hi-Def, so click the little cog on the playback and choose the quality you prefer).
On Saturday, the biggest British sensation since the Beatles, TAKE THAT are here in London City. Join this most famous boy band for an evening of their most
popular songs of all time.
Party in The Park will start at 12pm SL (8pm
UK), with Take That in concert at 1pm SL.
Second Life is transitioning to a new payments processor for credit cards. If you use a credit card for Second Life payments and have not added or updated your billing information since July 7, 2015, we strongly encourage you to re-enter your information to avoid any potential disruption of services. If you use PayPal or Skrill for Second Life payments, no action is needed.
It is amazing what some people throw away. The Regent's Park bin has 60 items to collect, including some cash!
Someone has carelessly discarded two Wearable Voodoo dolls in the trash can. Be sure to visit and see if you are the proud new owner of one of them. You can name them and click them to stick pins in. Will there be enough to go around? http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/London%20City/84/225/24
Enjoy the video of last night's action here in London City. The video is in Hi-Def, so click that little cog to improve the quality. See you for Substation at 11am SL (7pm UK)
This Saturday, enjoy the incredible talents of Neil Diamond as he performs all of his most famous songs from the 70's, in concert here at Regent's Park
Party starts at 12pm SL (8pm UK), with the concert at 1pm SL.
A new tool is on its way to Second Life, "Avatar Complexity".
Currently being beta tested via 'Project Quick Graphics Viewer', the viewer will let you know at logon how complex your avatar is.
20k to 60k is normal.
Linden Lab explains, Avatar Rendering Complexity is a measure of how difficult it is to draw an avatar; it's a number that can range from just a few hundred to several hundred thousand. It is affected by your avatar shape and what you're wearing. Since drawing avatars can be one of the most expensive parts of rendering a Second Life scene, complexities at the upper end of the range can cause severe viewer performance problems. Being aware of your own complexity and that of those around you can be an important part of managing the performance of your viewer and how you affect the performance of others.
Regular visitors to London City will know that Render Weights are already monitored to ensure the protection of visitors from those using highly complex, or badly designed attachments. High weights degrade the performance for other residents, sometimes crashing their sessions.
When Elizabeth II became Queen in 1952, Stalin was still leader of Russia and Truman was President of the USA.
The British Empire, although severely dwindling, still existed. India had become independent just five years before. The British Empire finally ended in 1997 when Hong Kong was given back to China.
Today, Queen Elizabeth II, becomes the longest reigning monarch in British history.
The 89 year old head of state, surpasses the reign of Queen Victoria, who until her death in 1901, was Queen for 63 years, 7 months, 2 days.
On Saturday, the Spice Girls stormed the stage and held a captive audience as they performed their most famous hits. It was standing room only in Regent's Park.
It is amazing what random gifts you find in the Regent's Park litter
bin. From cash to an Oculus head set!
And now, someone has carelessly thrown away a lovable Queen's Guard mesh cuddly toy!
Over 50 items now to collect, from the most well stocked litter bin in Second Life.
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at 10am SL time (6pm UK), be sure to head over to The Churchill Arms in London City North, where Jon Temple is now in residence.
Jon will be playing a fun mix of old and new party songs to get your spirits on a high before you head off to the clubs.
The Churchill Arms specializes in Live Ales and Jon is on hand to recommend the finest offerings from Newton & Ridley.
The successor to SL Go has launched to tremendous fanfare.
It is however proving difficult to blog this story as the situation keeps changing.
Yesterday the site said they were oversubscribed and had to suspend registrations.
It now appears that the service has been suspended whilst cost and usage allowance are recalculated:
We suggest you head on over to their site to catch new information as it emerges.
You can elect to use either the Second Life or Firestorm viewer.
Eclecticmuse writes:
Bright Canopy Just Launched! For all of the users out there that are missing using SL Go, or have a slow machine or laptop - your wait is over!
"After months of invitation only testing, we have just opened Bright Canopy to the world. You can start your 14 day free trial right now at www.brightcanopy.com and be streaming Second Life or Open Sim in a browser in less than five minutes." states Bill Glover, Founder of Bright Canopy and Long time Second Life Resident.
"We're going to have a big party next weekend to celebrate, but right now we're here for you 24/7... Be sure to follow @BrightCanopyApp on twitter for updates and news."
I for one have been awaiting this news for months, since the demise of SLGo. I have been working in Beta testing of Bright Canopy for the last 2 months on an old lap top. If you can access Chrome, you can use Bright Canopy. Great News for users that have older machines and experience a bit og lag in high traffic areas such as London City in Second Life.
