Fricker Fraker

According to Websters dictionary:
Awe – an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, ect., Produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like: in awe of great collaboration amongst artists that bring all outside senses to a halt so that you totally get lost in a musical and visual creation.

Well that last part was my addition to Mr. Webster but it encompasses how I feel at this moment after watching this video.

I was chatting with Cypress Rosewood this evening and he shared a link with me to a video created by Colemarie Soleil the rockerfaerie . It’s an absolute amazing work of art that captured Cypress Rosewood and Skye Galaxy live at the Space Music Museum Theater on Feb 28, 2010. Sit back, relax and enjoy!

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Lets face the facts: Most men don’t like to go shopping in Second Life. So when Gwendolyn Bieler let me know of a cool little shop that’s a reseller for Male clothes, I had to check it out for its one stop shopping potential.

The shop she let me know of is called Harley’s Men. It’s rather new and just getting under way. So far the shop owner, Harley Jewell has 4 designers in house with what looks like room to grow. It’s located on the Hallelujah Azul sim which has many other very cool shops and galleries.

I like when designers allow a reseller program to help foster sales as well as offer the opportunity to start a SL business for just about anyone. This has lead to many successful stores inside SL and I look forward to watching Harley’s Men take off as well.  The designers I noticed there were: Second Dream, dbo, VH Industry and Radikal.

(Top picture) I picked up those sneakers from Radikal and the shirt from Second Dream while I was there. I was Mr. Cool sitting there with George (my cat sofa) just chillin.  Hey! George drank my brew!

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I’m a huge fan of Machinima and there are some quality works out there that inspire us to be creative and imagine the impossible, this is not it. Hahaha But it will make you laugh your butt off. Enjoy!

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If you’re ever in search of some quality causal clothes for men, you can’t go wrong with choosing Moonshine Designs by creator Shelly Toonie (Blog Here). Even before she showed me this latest mens release, I was already a fan and have a few of her designs in my inventory. This latest sweater release comes in 6 colors with matching slacks which helps many of us color coordinated challenged men.

Of course Moonshine is not a mens store alone, take your lucky lady there for some of the coolest Sweater Dresses on the Grid! (hint – Valentines Day is quickly approaching)

*2nd pic courtesy of Shelly Toonie
Shirt – Knit Vee in River
Pants – Pinstripe Trouser Gray
shoes – Redgrave Strap Loafers

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Many of you know Cypress Rosewood (aka in FL Tony Gerber), he is a wonderful musician and creates some of the best ambient sounds around with keyboards, signal processors, guitar and of course his Native American Flute. My friend Cypress was a victim of a house break-in and had many thousands of dollars worth of equipment stolen from him. Some of this equipment was not even about the value or what type of beautiful music can be brought forth from them, it’s about family and cherishing equipment that was his grandfathers that can not be replaced. There are people in this world that have no moral values and don’t respect the property of others and I consider them the scum of the world.

If you can find a way to support Cypress either emotionally or financially please do so at one of the following events. 

• Pooky Amsterdam is having a fundraiser for Cypress at The 1st Question Jan 26th at 7pm. PST http://slurl.com/secondlife/Spindrift/66/217/701

• Cellandra Zon is having a fundraiser for Cypress by performing  ’Time’ Wed the 28th at 7pm at The Pocket.

You can also go directly to his website at  Tony Gerber Music and purchase a CD!

Just getting the word out for a friend and I hope my care package reaches you soon Tony.

Thanks to many supporters out there that have blogged, tweeted, pluked and sent mojo his way!

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MotG here with some tips for new Second Life users. Everyone has a different experience when they first come into Second Life and to make it easier on you, I have collected a few basic steps to get you off in the right direction. Always remember to have fun in-world and don’t take your Second Life so serious. Enjoy the beauty, the technology and make some new friends.

1. Learn to move

WSAD will move your avatar around, assuming your chat-bar doesn’t have focus. If that chat-bar really gets in the way, however, you can set the chat-bar to auto-close in preferences, after you hit return. That way you can move around, hit enter to chat, type what you like, and when you hit enter to send the text, your chat-bar will fold smoothly away, leaving you free to use WSAD to move again. You can move with one hand and steer your avatar with the mouse too.

2. Learn to communicate

Chatting and Instant Messaging are your primary communication tools. Second Life also supports spatialized voice chat, but that can be a little rough on the inexperienced. Local chat can be seen by the general public if they are within 20 meters of your avatar. Once your in SL for a bit and you have a chance to make some contacts, you can use the more private one on one IM chat and advance up to group chat.

3. Learn to use search

Second Life’s search might be powered by Google, but places in Second Life aren’t like Web-pages, and the search system doesn’t always respond quite like you’d expect. It takes a lot less time than teaching your Granny to Google, though. Get used to the relatively few quirks in search, and your time in Second Life will be a whole lot smoother, and you’ll actually be able to find the stuff you’re looking for.

4. Create Landmarks

Landmarks are like bookmarks in your browser. They store a location allowing you to return to it at any time. Landmarks are stored in a folder of the same name in your inventory. It’s hard to remember exactly where you were if you don’t. Pull down the World menu and select Create Landmark. You can double-click on a Landmark in your inventory or access them through a drop-down menu on the Map. You can even save SL locations in you bookmarks. Known as surls, you can create an offline link to your favorite places by  clicking on “Map” when you’re at your favorite spot and select “Copy SLURL to clipboard”. Open up a browser window an paste the new slurl into the address and save as a bookmark. You can use this in the future to login directly at your saved location.

5. Visit a newbie help organization

Try out either Starting Point run by a friend of mine, Tymmerie Thorne or New Citizen Inc. (NCI Website)They have teachers, free rooms, events, free stuff, helpers, information and guides. They’re places you can get help and answers to questions just about 24×7. There’s a lot of information about Second Life, but it can be darn near impossible to find what you want, when you want it, especially when you’re new. Knowledgeable helpers can point you in the right direction.

Bonus Tip! Don’t worry if your frame-rate isn’t great

Second Life doesn’t need an awesome frame-rate to work just fine. Which is good, because it’s going to work your system harder than pretty much any MMO you might have had installed. Since none of the content exists premade and on your hard-drive, your network drivers are going to steal a lot more time that you’re used to being funded to your graphics hardware. Pretty much every single thing you see and hear in Second Life is made by someone like you. Linden Lab provides little more than the ground, the water and the sky.

Setting your network slider too high can actually cause the Second Life viewer to respond slower, and more sluggishly, and reduce your frame-rates. Go to EDIT > PREFERENCES > NETWORK. If you can afford the disk space, push the Disk Cache Size slider all the way up. Set the Maximum Bandwidth slider somewhere between 300 and 500.

If that’s still not enough of an improvement (ignore the actual frame-rate, concentrate on how well it responds as you look around, because that’s what’s really going to matter to you) jump down to the Graphics preferences. Try disabling Water Reflections, or dialing the Draw Distance slider down. Mostly you’re going to be interested in what’s closer to you anyway. Live, learn and enjoy your SL!

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update – Tateru Nino noted that NCI has a website. Thank you Tateru!

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If you ever logged into Second Life and noticed that either your inventory count is lower or that you’re missing some items that you recently purchased? This may only be a perceived loss of your inventory and nothing is really missing at all.

The Item Count in the Inventory window is not always precise. The displayed number represents the number of items that have been successfully read into your viewer from your cache and this can be affected by your internet connection, especially if you use a wireless or satellite connection.

Any unstable Internet connection such as wireless or satellite connections can lead to apparent inventory loss in Second Life. High packet loss may cause your inventory to fail while retrieving a complete list of items from the Second Life’s servers.

In either case, Linden Labs has always given this standard answer to help clear up this apparent loss of inventory.

They ask you to clear your cache because it may be corrupt or that a complete list of your inventory items was not completed because of connectivity issues.

Here are the procedures to clear your cache:

1. Go to Edit > Preferences on the menu bar.
2. Click the Network tab.
3. Click the Clear Cache button.
4. Note the location of your cache location.
5. Exit Second Life.
6. Go to your cache location on your computer and delete anything that still resides within that folder.
7. Log back into Second Life. (low lag sim preferably)
8. Open up your Inventory tab and wait in place for 5 minutes for SL to reload you inventory

If this doesn’t work to clear your issues, try again in one hour. If your inventory still has missing items, you can try this following method that has been passed to the Man on the Grid and is known to work very well with inventory issues.

1. Clear cache as explained above.
2. Start your SL viewer but don’t log in.
3. Press Ctrl/Shift/G – This brings up the grid selector.
4. Select the”Aditi” grid and login as normal. (Aditi = SL Beta grid)
5. Open your inventory tab and let it load completely.
6. Do nothing else in the beta grid except allowing your inventory to fully load.
7. Exit/logout of this session and restart your viewer again.
8. Select the “Agni” grid. This is the main SL production grid.
9. Log back into Second Life. (in a low lag sim preferably)
10. Open your inventory tab and let it load completely.

Your inventory should be completely restored and if it is not, then you have issues that are not part of your viewer or your cache.  Provide this information to Linden Labs via a support ticket and let them know you tried all the known fixes.

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Fricker here from Man Cave Central bringing you your latest Man On The Grid update. While searching the grid for some cool ways of travel, I came across a trio of Motorcycle & Custom Chopper creators worth mentioning here on MOTG. I did a bit of research on these 3 selections and found both the design and scripting to be of top notch quality. If you’re in the market for a cycle, you can’t go wrong with either of these selections and what better way is there to travel the grid then on your very own hog.

First I’d like to mention Motor Loon Custom Cycles. MLCC’s latest bikes are comprised of some sculpty art masterpieces and are highly detailed. These cycles are amazingly created to look exactly like the ones in your non-pixilated world. I could put a picture of theirs next to a real one and you would be hard pressed to see the difference. If I was looking for a full bagger this is where I would shop.

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Men, it’s time to look good at your next SL holiday party and be a Man on the Town with this sweater from Argrace.
“With You” in white with a muffler is a classic winter look that will keep your significant others attention on you. I don’t promise any extra presents under the tree but do look forward to complements as best dressed. I have been know to be in an outfit I like for an entire month and if I had to chose one outfit for December, this ensemble would be it.

Now what is the difference between a scarf and a muffler? I have been told different answers and seen different answers on the web. One frame of mind is that a Scarf is for a lady and a muffler is for a man. The other frame of thought is that a scarf is determined by it’s material as being light and colorful. The muffler is then said to be of heavy linen or wool. My answer to this is… lets ask James Dean.

James dean said he wore a muffler and I think it made him look cool! So if James can wear one and call it a muffler, then I can as well.

Sweater – With You in White w/ Muffler – Argrace
Hair – Glide Black Argrace
Skin – Belleza Jonas Tan
PrimOptic Plume Glasses

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It’s going to be a great football weekend with many of the colleges hosting their conference championships. I couldn’t think of a better way to watch these than in my favorite recliner, and now you can have one in Second Life as well.

This recliner from Prim Pads is fully menu driven and can also give out beer or the ultimate man accessory… the remote control! The recliner even has scripted color changing fabrics to match your Man Cave. My color matching skills are not up to par with the fashion houses of SL so I just pick a cool color that blend in with the spilt pizza sauce.
The cool widescreen that allows your parcel media stream to be viewed is from Hoffman Designs. I think I have a good dozen tv sets in my inventory from small to one that is on a megaprims for a drive in theater affect. This one works just fine and is not over primed.

Enjoy your football this weekend men (and ladies)!

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Greetings from Man Cave Central, the international headquarters of Man on the Grid. Man on the Grid has been created to fill a void of Second Life blogs that feature male oriented gadgets, clothing, technology and that cool guy stuff we all want in our personal Man Caves.

This blog will be a focal point for all things manly as well as items that will enhance your Second Life technically. We want to provide valuable information on creators that produce content for male avatars that allow each and every one of us to be a Man on the Grid.

Be it clothing, gadgets, technology or just where to find that perfectly scripted keg of beer for your next stag party, Man on the Grid wants to help our fellow pixel brothers in finding it.

Think of Man on the Grid as your Second life version of GQ.

Some themes we are going to cover are:

Gadget Corner
Causal Friday
Dress to Impress
Date Night
SL Viewer Insights
Tech Corner
Man Cave Must Haves

If you have ideas for topic you’d like to see here, leave a comment below or send an email to frickerfraker@gmail.com

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