http://bloghud.com/ bloghud.com : on Woodbridge : blogging from Second Life.
A feed of posts from users of the 'blogHUD' - a blogging tool for residents of Second Life. en-us Copyright 2006-2007 bloghud.com - and users of the blogHUD Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:27:32 +0100 Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:27:32 +0100 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss blogHUD version 1.06 by Koz Farina http://bloghud.com/images/bloghudfeed.jpg http://bloghud.com 120 120
Now that I've figured out how to setup a working game of tic-tac-toe, I am now working on making it more user-friendly. I'm changing from a 3-faced board to a 5-faced prism. 5 faces are often a bit harder to work with, so the mapping will take me some time. However, it gives me two more faces to work with. I added the name of the game to the top face, and the bottom face will give a status message such as a game being ready, won, tied, or in progress.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/26312Woodbridge86861219451089121Dedric MauriacMon, 06 Oct 2008 08:27:30 +0100Dedric Mauriac
If the grid ever gains control of our countries nuclear missiles, we can use my game of tic-tac-toe to save the world. I have added AI to the game so that a single player can walk up and play a game of X's and O's. Rite now, the AI is setup so that it will never lose. The next step is to dumb it down so that there are easy, normal, hard, and impossible modes. I'll probably add in some randomness so that it will choose if it will implement each rule of its strategy.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/26306Woodbridge82901219451089121Dedric MauriacSun, 05 Oct 2008 21:12:11 +0100Dedric Mauriac
I was playing around with ideas this past weekend contiplating what the bare minimum was to make a game of tic-tac-toe. I came up with an image to represent all 27 different posabilities in an individual row composing of just 27 characters of x/o/space. (xxxo-ooox-xoo

crossposted to Dedric Mauriac

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/26143Woodbridge89861219451089121Dedric MauriacWed, 01 Oct 2008 09:42:22 +0100Dedric Mauriac
My friends have been telling me that both the gift server and prim search engine are broken. I was able to take a look at both tonight. The gift server was broken due to an event queue bug when changing between states (SVC-2297 and SVC-2286). I added an unneeded touch_start events to all states and the server appears to be up and running fine now. The search engine is a bit different. I found a few holes that should be patched up. I was lucky enough to see what the last person had searched for to test against. It appears that everything works, but we know what that does to our friend, umption.

crossposted to Dedric Mauriac

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/25559Woodbridge937227945108927Dedric MauriacFri, 05 Sep 2008 06:21:07 +0100Dedric Mauriac
One of the things that I have learned is that keywords make a pretty big difference when attracting customers. I created a program that lets me query all of the unique keywords over multiple parcels. It only looks at the parcel name, description, and object names appearing in the search results. I then took the least used words, and sorted out ones that are relevant to my business. In the end, I rezzed a bunch of prims with random words about them and set each object to appear in search. It looks like a crumpled up ball of paper.

crossposted to Dedric Mauriac

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/25534Woodbridge95791869451089186Dedric MauriacThu, 04 Sep 2008 05:36:14 +0100Dedric Mauriac
After speaking with a few people, I decided to add arrows to my search results. It appears that some people may not see particles, or that they are hard to see. In this case, the arrow serves as an additional visual indicator as to what direction the product is located. An additional note, I found that the search engine was not responding to me at all. I need to discover what had locked it up. It is in beta after all, but I would prefer if these things simply worked.

crossposted to Dedric Mauriac

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/25327Woodbridge847725945108925Dedric MauriacThu, 28 Aug 2008 09:24:32 +0100Dedric Mauriac
I am finding it is easier to make large objects first when mapping touchable areas. Once the areas are defined, the prim can be resized to a very small item. Since the x/y cordinates are based on scale, the cordinates do not need to be changed as the prim scales down. As I suspected, I was able to map out all of the buttons on my password generator fairly easy. The radio buttons are mapped as squared areas at the moment, but I imagine that llVecDist could easily solve the circle mapping. I think I may look into my single-prim dart board idea again!

crossposted to Dedric Mauriac

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/25305Woodbridge971001219451089121Dedric MauriacWed, 27 Aug 2008 05:24:12 +0100Dedric Mauriac
So I logged into the main grid tonight using the Beta viewer to try out compiling some LSL code in Mono, as well as trying out some of the new touch position methods. The LSL script compiles just fine. What really strikes me is the ability to detect where a prim was touched. Not only what face was touched, but the position as well. This has a very large potential to decrease the number of prims that many of my objects use. Many times, additional objects are added only for the ability to provide additional hot-spots to touch. (Such as my password generator). With these new features, I can use one texture, and detect the location that the end-user touched. Imagine the possabilities!

crossposted to Dedric Mauriac

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/25304Woodbridge105981189451089118Dedric MauriacWed, 27 Aug 2008 05:03:45 +0100Dedric Mauriac
After just one day of using Kerhops's Traffic Stats, I am happy to see a visual indicator of where the most traffic iss in my store. Each corner of my store has an individual sensor. I have discovered that the back of my store only see's two thirds of the traffic that the front sees. For a better visual aid, I took an overhead snapshot of the layout and placed it underneath the traffic stat servers visual bubbles. I also get daily email reports of the number of visitors during each hour of the day. I'll still have to figure a way to graph the data so I can make sense of it.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/25285Woodbridge73831209451089120Dedric MauriacTue, 26 Aug 2008 09:45:17 +0100Dedric Mauriac
I finally got everything sorted out with my data center. I leave the boxes of my products out because they are a bit easier to find in a 3d space rather than in inventory. They'll have to be rezzed anyway, and I get the added benefit of listing them in search while they are rezzed. Any day now, Mono will make itself available to scripters on the main grid. It's going to be a bit of a nightmare getting everything upgraded, but seems like it is worth it. I think I'm ready for it.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/25243Woodbridge92971299451089129Dedric MauriacSun, 24 Aug 2008 10:21:16 +0100Dedric Mauriac
One of the suggestions that Fleche Xeno made to me during his last mareting workshop was to make a gift server. The way that it works is that anyone may use it to send a gift to their friend free of charge. Gifts are cycled every few days, so people may come back to send out new gifts. You can't send a gift to yourself, so if you want it, you have to get your friend to come and send a gift to you. I'm still determining if gifts are delivered instantly or require pickup in-person. I'm testing different methdos to see what works.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/25155Woodbridge927426945108926Dedric MauriacSat, 23 Aug 2008 12:21:13 +0100Dedric Mauriac
Ulee Tarantal contacted me about some scripts to make her carts pullable by a driver while another person sits down. I made a skate board a while back for a Sadie Hawkins Western Dance. A female was able to drive the skate board while the guy squirmed and wiggled while she carried him like a foot ball. I fixed up the scripts a bit and sent them her way. Hopefully everything will be fine. It's pretty late and Ulee was heading to bed as I handed the scripts over.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/25035Woodbridge999351945108951Dedric MauriacTue, 19 Aug 2008 06:45:12 +0100Dedric Mauriac
Tiapa Zamani dropped on in looking for a product that would let him stop his typing animations. I sell a few products that let you play drums or show an icon over your head when you type, but I didn't sell what he was looking for. I pulled out the old bongo drums and copied the script. I then created a new object, pasted in the script, and hacked at it to stop the typing animation. Wallah, it was done in a jiffy. Although it stopped typing, I still heard that pesky typing sound. Still, Tiapa was pleased to have it and added my shop to his picks.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/24989Woodbridge868426945108926Dedric MauriacMon, 18 Aug 2008 08:12:12 +0100Dedric Mauriac
When arriving at my workshop in the sky, people were not always aware of where they ended up. A few mistook it for another part of my shop. As a result, I have clearly labled the area with a building in one corner. As an extra benefit, I now have a place to show off all of my trophies, awards, and plaques. My favorite is the Leo Linden Big Game Trophy.

crossposted to Dedric Mauriac

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/24966Woodbridge87901879451089187Dedric MauriacSun, 17 Aug 2008 19:42:25 +0100Dedric Mauriac
I invited Phinn Boffin to come over and see my product search engine in action. After demonstrating how it worked, she walked up and tried it out herself. The first search turned up nothing. This is powerful, because now I can see what people expect me to have. In addition, I can populate the descriptions of some items to make better matches. Phinn tried it again with another phrase and found a visitor counter. Sweet!

crossposted to Dedric Mauriac

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/24953Woodbridge857627945108927Dedric MauriacSun, 17 Aug 2008 04:15:10 +0100Dedric Mauriac
A few of us (Ina Centaur and London Dailey) were talking about a few things tonight and somehow we came to the topic regarding the costs of running a full sim versus open sims on a dedicated server. A little over a year ago, the costs for sims in SL were raised an additional 100 US$ per month for private region owners only. The prices on the mainland remained the same. I started a petition to ask the Lindens to remove the 100 US$ tax after the first year of continuous payments on up to one sim. More details can be found on the tier loyalty petition.

crossposted to Dedric Mauriac

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/24913Woodbridge100801049451089104Dedric MauriacSat, 16 Aug 2008 11:51:14 +0100Dedric Mauriac
Whimsy Goode found my store after viewing one of my products on SL Exchange. She had the same trouble as many of my customers. She couldn't find the product that she wanted. While I am working on ways around this, I took a break and came to assist. I showed her where the victorian dunking booth was. She had a custom request so that she could hit it with arrows. A small modification and it was instantly ready to be hit with anything. She looked for other games that would fit a medievil theme, but none were available. My new task is to work on a game of Skeet that she can shoot arrows at.

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/24911Woodbridge727827945108927Dedric MauriacSat, 16 Aug 2008 07:51:19 +0100Dedric Mauriac
A while back, I made a scanner to find all objects on a parcel. It was made for a friend to solve a simple problem to hunt for prims. Royer Pessoa had suggested that I should make a store directory to say keywords to find products. Well, I took a look at my old inventory scanner project and developed it into a search engine! Watch a video of prim search in action.

crossposted to Dedric Mauriac

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/24865Woodbridge90881029451089102Dedric MauriacFri, 15 Aug 2008 08:27:11 +0100Dedric Mauriac
The flashlight is another one of my older products. I took a look at how it worked and started shaking my head. A few features have been introduced that I really needed. I added a light source and glow effects on the beam of light. I was able to consolidate the scripts into one since I could now set prim parameters from other links in the object. I also offer two varieties - either copyable or transfer to give to a friend.

crossposted to Dedric Mauriac

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/24818Woodbridge748124945108924Dedric MauriacWed, 13 Aug 2008 09:27:22 +0100Dedric Mauriac
The last marketing class I took stressed having 1-item vendors was better then multi-item vendors, unless dealing with holo vendors. I have started to create a ton of these vendors to try them out. I had more items then I had realized. I have about two thirds setting out so far. After this, the fun begins in deciding how to organize them and build a new shop for better customer experience.

crossposted to Dedric Mauriac

posted by Dedric Mauriac on Woodbridge using a blogHUD
blogHUD map and teleport permalink ]]>http://bloghud.com/id/24790Woodbridge701071979451089197Dedric MauriacTue, 12 Aug 2008 07:03:08 +0100Dedric Mauriac