July 2008 Archives

I am having major issues with my graphics card. It keeps crashing, it resets, then SL refuses to run because it claims the card driver is not installed. After the last crash I had weird lines all over my screen, so I restarted the PC, and then my screen resolution poofed to some ridiculously low number, plus I got a message that the ATI driver was either not installed or not working properly.

I'm at a loss here :(

I've already installed all the motherboard drivers and the ATI driver and any other driver that should be installed. Something must be wrong with the configuration somewhere but I'm damned if I can find out what.

I can run without the ATI card, the motherboard has a built-in graphics thingy of its own. Can do SL as well although it'd be much laggier than with the ATI card. *waaaah* I hate technology sometimes :'(

(Doesn't help that my Internet connection is being a bitch, too. Bah!)

New hard disk has been installed and my data safely ported over.

I reinstalled SL and tried to run it. It said it needed me to update my graphics driver.

I downloaded the graphics driver and tried to install it. It said I needed to install the .NET framework.

I downloaded the .NET thingy and installed it. And then installed the graphics driver. And logged into SL.

And it was SLOW AS A SNAIL.

My avi was moving around jerkily, swimming in a pile of lag. She has not moved like that ever since I got this (old) new graphics card installed a month ago.

I changed my graphics preferences to the way they used to be, turned off sound, turned off voice, turned off media streaming, etc. ... nothing changed.

Gave up and went to bed. At 5am.

Woke up at 6:30am for work.

Am now a zombie.

10:41am and I'm feeling exhausted already. How can this be? I slept at 9pm last night!! o.O

Teaching apparently takes lots more energy than I ever thought it would lol

Anyway... yea I got the new HD but didn't manage to get it installed because I crashed into bed so early. The housemate said he'll do it for me after work today, and I've just realised that I'm going to have to reinstall EVERYTHING (Firefox, SL, Irfanview, etc.) and customise them all over again. Man, what a pain. *groans*

Well, if replacing the HD does the trick, I guess that would be a small price to pay.

Meanwhile I've finally joined Plurk (Twitter is so last year) and am stalking the SL forums. Have to get my SL fix somehow :P

I'm now worrying over my PC because if I replace the hard disk, and the problems persist, that means it's the motherboard... if it's the motherboard, I'll need to get a whole new CPU, coz they don't make this kind of motherboard anymore (this PC dates back to 2005). I don't have the budget for a new CPU at the moment, probably won't till end of Aug at the earliest, but more likely end of Sept. At this point I'm more worried about paying my rent than anything else. I can't seem to transfer funds to Aureis via the Ajaxlife viewer...

*sigh*

What am I going to do??? *frets*

Anyway the new HD should be in by Tues so we'll see how that goes. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!

I logged in to SL today on the Ajaxlife platform... not sure if you can call it a "viewer", since you can't actually use it to view anything. But you can IM. It works for those people you want to contact in SL, people for whom you don't have any RL info. Apparently you can use it to sort inventory also (or so I heard) but I can't vouch for that since I couldn't get the inventory window to open.

Whilst I was on, Aureis came on too and proceeded to tell me that someone has rented the adjacent plot of land next to ours. Her exact words: "Yikes! We have a new neighbour! He's put up what looks to be a big ass fire engine red brick building next to your house."

"Is it ugly?" I wanted to know.

"Kind of," she replied.

At which point I started hyperventilating. I moved from my previous place because it was surrounded by ugliness, and so far I've really liked the new place. But the plot of land next to ours had been vacant all the while, so I hadn't needed to worry about the neighbours' aesthetic sense.

Then Aureis saw fit to add, "It's not exactly an eyesore, but not the most beautiful of places. It's a big square building... fire engine red brick texture. Nothing to love or hate about it, looks like a fire service station."

This only made me hyperventilate more. "If it's bad, I might want to move," I told her.

"You can't just move because you don't like the building next door! You'll always be moving!" she replied, obviously thinking I'd lost my marbles. "I wish you wouldn't be so snooty PTA mom about this... what if the neighbour had put up an aesthetically challenged house?"

"I would move! I can afford to be snooty in SL... since I can't in RL!" I retorted.

"Good point," she conceded.

Then she sent me a picture of the building.

I'm like... hey wait a minute, that isn't that bad... in fact, it's pretty nice!

...And then it hit me. My God, the woman is talking about UK fire stations!!!

Because when you say "fire-engine red" in my country... hey... this is the image I get (click for a larger view):

BRIGHT RED.

WTF. All the hyperventilating for nothing.

"You just love drama," Aureis accused me.

"I do not! You misled me!"

"You love drama! You live to be dramatic!"

"I do not!"

So last night my housemate installed the new hard disk cable and... the PC wouldn't boot -_-"

When it finally booted, I got on SL, and the hard disk had an epileptic fit and crashed me out of SL, made the whole PC hang, and put colourful patterns on my monitor. Yep, I can recognise death throes when I see 'em!

The earliest I can get a new one is probably Tuesday, so no SL for me till then. It's a Saturday and I'm in the office although I don't work on Saturdays... coz I needed to prepare something for Monday and bah, the home PC isn't working, so do I have a choice?

So now I have a more legitimate reason for missing my landlord's wedding than the fact that I would normally be asleep at 7am on a Sunday morning :P

Staying out of SL is great for my sleep. I went to bed at 9pm last night :P

My friend thinks my PC just needs a new hard drive cable and maybe not an entire new hard drive. I got the cable yesterday but am too chicken to try putting it in myself, so I haven't. And then I dare not turn the PC on, just in case it explodes or something -_-"

I'm just lucky I live with a tech-savvy housemate. Of course he's an Apple/Mac devotee -- nobody's perfect :P -- but he can do PC if he has to. And in this case, he has to. I ain't giving him a choice XD

Since I'm nearly done with the house, I'm toying with the idea of trying to make textures to sell, and maybe make some furniture. It's just that I have no idea what sculpties are, let alone how to make them... and if I don't use them, I don't see how I can keep the prim count down. Darn. *goes off to look for a sculptie tutorial for dummies*

I think my PC is totally in a conspiracy with Sai's PC. I'm telling you, the both of them put their heads together and said, "We're gonna take our hoomans down, we're gonna show them who's boss. Oh yeah look who's got the power! Huhuhuhu!" -_-"

So yesterday it had problems booting, and this had already happened once last week and once the week before. A friend told me, "You'd better go get a new hard disk pronto while this one is still alive and you can transfer your data over. Once this one dies... you can say bye-bye to your stuff." I was like... EEK!

I am so going shopping. Meantime I'm not sure if I should even turn the damn thing on anymore until I get the new hard disk. A few days off SL will do wonders for my sleep-deprived state :P

But! Last night I remembered to take pictures. Here's how my bedroom looks like now:

I'm kinda wondering if I should texture the left wall blue as well (probably the same light blue shade as the wall with the window) but that would mean adding an extra prim to the house. Coz the whole back wall is a single prim, and blue would NOT go well in my downstairs living room. Why can't we texture only half a prim if we want? *grumbles*

Oh, in other news... my grandma's been diagnosed with breast cancer. They can't tell how advanced it is until they operate, and the operation is scheduled for Aug 7. She's 83...

The long-promised pictures!! ^^  First, the finished product:

When you enter the house, you're welcomed into the living room. That gorgeous sofa is from Prim Savers by Phil Deakins and is only 8 prims! Phil sells it in his store complete with menu-driven couples cuddle poses, but since I don't have anyone to cuddle with I asked if he could sell me a no-anims version. He very kindly stripped all the anims for me... TWICE. Because after I put one in the living room, I realised I needed another to complete the look. (They're 2 four-prim L-shaped sofas joined together.)

Hangout area under the stairs, because the sofa is soooo formal... but I might put a piano under here instead, if I can squeeze one within my prim limits :P

Upstairs lounging area, with bookcase and fur rug. The fur rug is actually not as innocent as it looks! *cough*MLP*cough*

Bedroom with huge stained glass window. I've changed things round a bit and added some cushions, but as usual forgot to take pictures. This is how it looked like yesterday lol. The bed is from Luneko by Lucrezia Lamont. I love it coz of the lovely texture. 8 prims!

Rooftop pool!! Yay!! The floating raft is from Beach Bums by Arctic Trottier. He'd offered it, together with a lawn pool, for $1L a few months ago and I really love it. Unfortunately, it was made for a 10m rotation and my pool's only 6.7m wide, and it was no-mod -_-"  I contacted him and asked if he would sell me a modded copy which would fit my pool... and he did! He modded three rafts just for me!! (extras in case I have company... hehehe)

And a close-up of the lounger, from Anpuli Lifestyles by Roslyn Carter. There's a story to this one too. She actually offered this lounger in pink and a floating version in brown. I asked her if she could make this lawn version in brown too, and not only did she make a brown one, she also made a blue one. When I saw both of them, I HAD to buy the blue one because it fit perfectly with my pool! It's got 11 animations (one in each pillow) and is AWESOME.

I've had such great experiences with content creators throughout my decorating. Everyone I've contacted has been so helpful and kind and my faith in the basic goodness of human nature is completely restored!!! :))))

Wow lag was bad today. Most sculpties just wouldn't rez and stayed as round balls. Incredibly frustrating, especially when you're shopping for something and need to see how it looks like!

After spending four solid days looking for furniture, I only have three things to say:

1. All merchants should list their stuff on SLexchange and/or OnRez. These are the first two places I go when I'm shopping. Shopping inworld is frustrating -- the "search" function isn't always helpful, you've got to fight lag and wait for stuff to rez, and finding what you're looking for can be a challenge. I search SLexchange.com and OnRez.com, then go inworld to look for the item and try it out, especially if it's furniture. SLexchange also allows you to order search results from items with least number of prims to most number of prims -- very handy!
2. Furniture makers should learn to make furniture WITHOUT poseballs. It's perfectly possible, and will save on prims, since every poseball is 1 extra unnecessary prim. Plus, poseballs are UGLY!!! I refuse to have ugly poseballs on my furniture!! >.<
3. I hate no-mod furniture. Bleh! At least if the furniture is mod, I can take the poseballs off. Thanks to the wonderful Sai Pennell, I've learnt how to embed the poses straight into the furniture prims themselves without having to resort to poseballs... but if there's a poseball and the thing is no-mod, I'm sorry, I'm not buying your furniture no matter how lovely it is or how wonderfully it'd fit into my home. *sigh*

This one is 32 prims for the piano and 8 prims for the bench. IMHO 8 prims for a piano bench is still very much stretching it. I'm sure this can be done with 3, max!

Now, this one is 24 prims all in all, including the bench -- fairly low-prim compared to the other two. But you see the texture of the inside of the piano? It's got no frames, it's supposed to be surrounded by a black edge of wood all round. Also at either end of the keyboard... the keyboard just tapers off into nothing. No finishings. I would have bought this one otherwise, the 995L price tag notwithstanding. The devil is in the details, and I'm too much of a perfectionist sometimes. Plus, 995L is a rip-off for this kind of shoddy work.

And this utterly gorgeous one is 47 prims, total :(

My next post will have pics of the house decor. Things are coming along nicely... it's just that I haven't had time to blog about it because I've been too busy shopping and decorating!! lol

I know I've gone quiet lately on the blog. Every day I'm breathing textures, eating textures, walking textures, sleeping textures, dreaming textures! I actually looked at a wall in my office yesterday morning and thought, "I could take a picture and use that as a texture for the house!" Yes, I'm far, far gone... ;)

The house is mostly done, texturing and all. I can't decide whether to put in another window downstairs, because that would take more prims, and because I can't figure out what type of window to use. But it's not such a big deal. I figured if it's not ready by now, it's never gonna be ready. So I plonked the house on my land two days ago... and promptly IM'd my landlord to complain that the land had shrunk.

He threatened to spank me o.O

I can't decide whether to shiver in fear or anticipation!!!

Apparently I'm not done building yet -_-"

In the quest to make the house less primmy and more interesting, I changed the porch... and saved all of 2 prims :P

I also switched the house around so that the full-length stained glass window is on the left and the doors are on the right. Coz when I tried to figure out where I'd place the building on my parcel, I realised the doors ought to be on the right or it wouldn't look good. *sigh*

I was trying to texture the thing when I felt my eyes glazing over. Am barely managing to type this as it is... but wanted to update you guys :P

Hmmm now that I look at the pictures, I actually prefer the previous version of the house. Maybe I need a different door... this door doesn't quite go with this design. Or maybe once I get the texturing done, it'll look better.

My house is pretty much done!

All that remains is to figure out what kind of textures I want for the interior walls, porch roof, and the rooftop pool deck. I'm also thinking the house looks a bit plain from the outside, but then again it's clean and tidy... hmmm....

I forgot to note the prim count before I logged out, but I think it is 21 prims (if I didn't miss out any in my calculations). I'm still trying to figure out if I can cut prims somewhere. I could use one prim for the back wall instead of two, but that would mean upstairs and downstairs would have to share the same interior wallpaper :P

And yes, there are no windows apart from the huge stained glass windows covering the left side of the house. That's something else I'm thinking about... the lack of windows.

Next step: Furnishings!!! lol

This is what my house looks like right now. I've put in the wrought iron railings on the rooftop, and installed the swimming pool (minus the water)... still haven't decided what colour I want my walls to be, as you can see, although I've decided on the outside texture. And I've yet to put in the door... because I've got to go figure out sliding door scripts and I've been procrastinating.

I'm proud of how it's shaping up, but OMG it is so much work!!!

(are you guys bored of hearing about my house yet???)

I think I am like Sai, I get completely obsessed with a project once I start. I worked on my house till 5am this morning, woke up at 10am to go to church (was horrendously late), and drove to church thinking about the house all the while -_-"

So, I added the swimming pool to the rooftop today, but I forgot to take pictures because I looked at the time and was like OMG! I need to sleep! Have to wake up at 6am tomorrow for work!!!

Also, I thought of another way to design the house, which I like better than the current design, but it means redoing almost the entire thing from scratch. I am so annoyed with myself. Why can't I have good ideas EARLIER?!

Sheesh. 'Night, all! ;)

Yesterday I got off work early, went in-world, could not keep my eyes open, tumbled into bed at 7pm and woke up at noon today *blushes*

SL has been eating my offline IMs and messages. I get them in my email, then I go in-world and none of them are there. *glares at SL*  Luckily I've recently taken to checking my email regularly. (I have a separate account for SL emails... which I don't check that much, seeing as I'm supposed to get all that stuff when I log in anyway. Apparently not!!)

I'm trying to build my own house. So far I have... 3 walls, 2 floors and a roof. lol

(No, I do not intend my walls to be pink and blue... I just slapped any old texture on them prims so that I could tell them apart from each other!)

Here's how it looks like from the side (because you can't tell from the front):

I didn't intend to have a spiral staircase. I think spiral staircases are EVIL, and I fall off them ALL THE TIME. Am I the only one? Yes? Ok, just checkin', lol. Anyway, I was putting a ramp in, and then Aureis (who shares the land with me) came by and completely vetoed the ramp idea. Her exact words: "It works if it's a barn but it would be nice to have an actual staircase." >.<

So I went to SLexchange and found this 1-prim staircase for $1L. The texturing is unfinished right at the top, but other than that it's pretty okay. Although when I tried it I found myself walking over the railing... that's not supposed to happen! It isn't phantom! *ponders the mysteries of SL*  Luckily, it's not a very far drop. Although I did get a bit bruised. *pouts and wants somebody to come kiss her better*

The rooftop is supposed to hold a swimming pool. I got the wrought iron fence texture from SLexchange too, a pack of 10 textures for $60L. Very pleased with that ^^

I'm hoping to put a huge sliding glass door in front... because I apparently have bad eyesight in SL and keep walking into the wall instead of the door, and then the door closes and I have to open it again. This happens ALL THE TIME. As you can see I'm rather spatially challenged in SL, walking off spiral staircases and walking into doorposts (sometimes I walk off ramps too %#$^@&!), which means I need a house specially designed to accommodate my particular handicaps :P

Talking about being handicapped, there must be an easier way to align prims rather than simply relying on the naked eye. My landlord Ciaran came around to help me figure out the positioning, but after loads of calculations my eyes glazed over and I'm afraid I tossed in the towel. After all his blood, sweat and tears, too! *looks apologetically at Ciaran and hopes he won't cast a spell on her* (he's a wizard, don't you know)

I checked my email and saw all your friendship offers and was like, "Awwww!"

And then I logged in and looked for them to accept them and... WTF? SL ate my friendship offers!! *pouts*  So I had to re-friend you peeps. Bah, SL!

Haven't been in-world all that much... my weekend was pretty packed and work will start in earnest tomorrow morning with a staff meeting at 9am. Exciting! Having to wake up at 6:30am is not that exciting, though *groan*  Especially for a night owl who isn't very fond of mornings!

I forsee having to go to bed earlier >.<  Which will cut into my SL time :(

On to happier things! Behold my 47-prim campfire:

It goes really well with Aureis's wooden caravan, except that -- *wince* -- it's 47 prims. Upon inspection, I realised that every single rock around the fire is 1 prim, and of course every single log is 1 prim, each cushion is 1 prim, each poseball is 1 prim. It does add up to lots of prims! So I thought, hmmmm, what if we could use sculpties to get rid of some of those prims? Like to make the ring of rocks, for example. Surely that could be done with sculpties!

Only thing, I have no idea how sculpties work, or how to do anything with them. I decided to do the smart thing and ask for help: I posted a "products wanted" ad in the SL forums.

And guess what! I got an IM from someone who would be willing to take on a custom building job. Originally I only wanted a sculpty ring of rocks, but when I TP'd him over to my land, he took a look at entire campfire and said he could redo the whole thing. "I can make each log and its cushions into a single prim," he said, instead of 2 or more prims that are linked up. When I said texturing might prove tricky, he told me it wouldn't be a problem: "The 3D software textures can be applied in separate areas." Wow!

At this point I was getting excited and asked him how much his services were gonna cost me. You know, it's a custom job and I was afraid it'd cost the earth. "Let me get it done, then you just pay me whatever you think it's worth," he replied. I was like... o.O

Of course I agreed! I've got nothing to lose. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about, so I'm excited about this and looking forward to seeing the finished product. He said he'd probably be done around the 4th of July (haha USA's Independence Day)... and to save on poseball prims, he could easily embed a script into the logs/cushions so that I could add anims in without having to use poseballs. How cool is that??