Happy Holidays!

MacBook Pro 2007 Graphics Freeze Workaround

I have been having problems with my MacBook Pro. Finally, I have found the problem (thanks to the SLED listserve)!

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/MacBook_Pro_2007_Graphics_Freeze_Workaround

What's the problem exactly?

When running Second Life on an affected MacBook Pro, your machine completely freezes up. The cursor doesn't move, pressing the Caps Lock key does not change the Caps Lock light and your machine is no longer reachable from any other machine on the network. The only means available to recover is to hold the power button down until the Mac powers off and then restart it.

The solution they give requires a download and install of the OpenGL Profiler which will then tell your Mac to run the SL client with a different rendering driver (one made for ATI cards, not Nvidia). I will have to check with ITS to see if this is even a possible solution that they might have me pursue. If you are having problems like this please let me know at afontan @ bgsu. edu.

CBS morning show features SL users with disabilities

Check it out here.

New Trees on Campus

Let us know what you think about the new trees. They are made from sculptie prims made by Greg Wark (Des Edmon) and textures I made (or modified) myself. Let me know what you think!

Second Life, Revisited

Chronicle Careers: 11/12/2007: Second Life, Revisited

I think Michael Bugeja does a wonderful job pointing out some of the important issues of Universities in SL. However, his tone seems overly cautious for something as flexible and adaptive as Second Life. These issues are not reasons to turn and run from Second Life, but instead things that need addressed and resolved be each University using SL.

This definitely isn't the first time the idea of and "Education Grid" has come up. They've been discussing it on the SLED listserve for years. While it may have its benefits, in terms of security, it may also cause a disconnect between grids... I certainly would not want to log out of the main grid to log in a separate avatar on the educational grid to attend an art gallery opening at BGSU's island only then to repeat the process to visit more galleries.

Accelerating Innovation

Second Life Will Revolutionize New Product Development and Engineering: "Second Life Will Revolutionize New Product Development and Engineering"

“It as serious development tool,” says Assistant Professor Chang Liu (a.k.a. Chang Tuxing in SL) of the Virtual Immersive Technologies and Arts for Learning (VITAL) Lab. at Ohio University. “Second Life is just emerging into the mainstream and a lot of engineers are not there yet,” says Pam Broviak, PE, (a.k.a. Pam Renoir in SL) public works director and city engineer for La Salle, IL. “When I show engineers Second Life, their initial reaction is ‘it is just a game’ because it looks like a game. They have to get beyond that.”…..

“I see Second Life being used as the first step in the planning process for many future engineering design projects,” Broviak says. “Building something in there does not take a lot of time. Companies will soon discover that much of their initial design work can be accomplished in-world where everyone has a chance to use it and comment on it before anything is actually built," says Pam Broviak.

Grand Opening

On November 9th, we held the BGSU SL Virtual Campus Grand Opening. This event took place in real life at the BT Student Union on the BGSU campus with live musical performances by students from the College of Musical Arts and two student DJ's. In Second Life the event was attended by people from all over the world and documented by several of our learning community members. Below are just a few of the snapshots from in-world.

We've also received some great press lately (see my last post), including this article in the Toledo Blade.

Anthony's snapshots:


Radhika's snapshopts:

U.S. college to hold grand opening

U.S. college to hold grand opening: "U.S. college to hold grand opening"

Our recent SLNN.com article.

CNN in SL

CNN has opened its latest “office” in Second Life. In an experimental move, the news company is not only moving into the realm of virtual reality, but it’s enabling Second Life users to create the content. This actually looks like a very interesting implementation of a virtual location, with tools that Second Life users can use to transmit copy and gather photos. There will be kiosks set up throughout the virtual world in order to provide news to users.

BGSU SL virtual campus Google Calendar

Test

Testing the first blog post.