Voice, better Maptiles and Music

We cant ignore the news about Vivox voice available for OSgrid and opensim. You can read all about it in this article from Hypergridbusiness . On OSgrid, you can goto a sim called 3Dvoiceplay, to test it for yourself. We did, and it works just fine. Also the IM voice works, at least as long as both users have (been) on a voice enabled sim. Imprudence cuts out at TP, other viewers like singularity, astra, and some others appearently "carry" the voicestream over to other sims at teleport. If ended, you can only enable it again if the sim is "voice enabled". As soon as we get an account at vivox, we hope to post a tutorial on how to get it on your sim.

If you look around the map, you mostly see green black and pink squares of the prims rezzed on it. Maptile old style. However, some sims have prims drawn on their map, like you see in SL. By default your OSG install can do this for you aswell, through activating the "warp3D image module". This is done by adding 1 line to the opensim.ini, find and see the snippet below and add the line in red:

    ;; Map tile options. You can choose to generate no map tiles at all,
    ;; generate normal maptiles, or nominate an uploaded texture to
    ;; be the map tile
    MapImageModule = "Warp3DImageModule"
    GenerateMaptiles = "true"

This can have some impact on the initial loading time the 1st time you boot a sim. (It has to draw all that prims on the map). Afterwards, you will have a great looking map and your sim will start up fast as usual. If desired you can tweak the maptile refresh timer to a bigger value so its not writing to map constantly.

Than a small note for people running winamp / shoutcast. Dnas2 requires you to buy a streaming license these days, so find a copy of 1.9.8 if you dont want to pay to send some tunes to your own parcel. Mind to configure Legacy mode for it to work.


Since this post still needed a nice picca, check these sims of PMgrid, which is a very nice region on hypergrid. The sims are named ROM.
Definetely worth a hypergrid trip, and a visit.

Migrating your Sim to MySQL

Ok, you followed the steps in the previous post to setup a sim, and all is up and running. If you don't plan to running more than 1 region, or have no urge to stuff 45000 prims on it, the SQL lite version OSG comes with will work & perform just fine. Apart from having better performance, running MySQL has a some other slight  advantages. Whenever you need to upgrade your OSG server software, you will have to make an OAR backup of your sim, and import that in the new installation.

With MySQL you have all your stuff stored in a database sever which runs seperate from OSG. This means that you only need to point the new installation to the database, and it will just load all, without you needing to import or export anything. Below the page break you will find a step by step instruction on how to install mySQL, and what to change in the gridcommon.ini file to point OSG towards the correct database.

As its still wise to make a backup OAR file every once and a while, you can read up on how to do that in the Wiki. Its well documented. Hence we will skip this part in the installation below. You DO want to read that wikipage. Many people that just follow shortcut guides and have no interest or clue of what their actually doing, will  run stuck in the long run. Don't let the technical terminology scare you. And mind there are no perfect guides. If you get the bigger picture, the small stuff will fall into place by itself. 

Running a region and urban legends

Since there is a massive flow of new users entering the OSgrid, here is a topic worth reading for you, especially if you are completely new, or want to run a region but your not able to for some reason. And some stuff that is worth remembering.

1. You likely come from another virtual world. Like secondlife. Osgrid is not Secondlife. Some major differences ? In Secondlife all costs loads of money. Osgrid is free and open source. OSgrid core is hosted in a datacenter on decent machines, maintained by Nebadon Izumi and a couple of admins. However the majority of its sims run on peoples home connections.
So if a sim is not up, or performs crappy, its possible you hit a 1000mhz celeron with 512 KB RAM on somebody's 256kb/ps wireless DSL line on the himalaya just as he's downloading sexy movies. Try again later, and mind it's not the grid, but the PC you landed on giving you the weird issues.
Also switching between viewers and grids a lot, can cause cache problems, avatars not properly loading, and other weird crap. Especially on multi layer supporting viewers. Explains why some people never have rezzing and imventory issues, and others do all the time.No machine / viewer combi is the same. However, the grid works fine for most people. (subtile hint). Cleaning cache, and using 1 viewer saves you headaches.

2. OSgrid runs on donations and is run by volunteers. Its a Test-grid, and has no working economy. Most stuff is free. Permissions are set by respective creators. Free doesnt mean no rules. You can imagine that a volunteer that likes tech stuff is not very fond of handling formal incoming DCMA requests (boring administrative paperwork) in his sparse free time. Abuse or misbehaviour of the grid or its residents and use of illegal viewers like copybots can result in you being banned. You will find this a rarity though, as OSgrid is filled with cool people :). And you can always run a standalone for "private" experiments. On the grid, behave, and you'll be fine.

3. Do not copy all you can see. Greed is a useless emotion in OSgrid. Since almost all is free anyways, its useless to carry all around, and also it makes exporting your inventory ( yes you can do that ) take ages.

4. Setting up a sim is not real hard, if you have a clue about networking and Pc's. Google, opensim wiki pages, this Blog, OSgrid forums, they get you a loooong way. However whatever you do, do NOT go into a plaza asking "everybody" for help. Better to ask a single person in IM, than to all in chat. Unless you are  prepared for 1000 well meant advices that get you nowhere but lost in a scala of possible issues (that you might never even run into to begin with).
An idiot proof step by step guide with preparations can be found below the page break. OSgrid is pretty stable and thus there is no reason why it shouldn't work for you. It hasn't got absurd requirements, but the more CPU power, RAM and bandwith you feed it, the better it will work.

5. The urban legend :  Generally if your SIM appears on the map, but you cant get to it, somethings misconfigured. Typically the upstream router needs a port assignment, an IP in the regions.ini file is invalid, or a firewall is in the way. On very rare occasions people have a router in which NAT loopback is disabled, for instance when an ISP doesn't allow servers to run at the users homes. (95% of all modern routers just support this function, and its on by default). Even if you would run into this, you can relatively simply install a loopback adapter in windows to fix it. (although i'd advise a different router / ISP in such case ).

This topic will be edited a few times until i get all i want to write in decently.

Club Azul opening next week

We know from reliable sources in the grid that Club Azul will launch somewhere next week. Find it at 137,121,305 on Coral Sailing1 sim for a sneak peek.

We will publish more info once we get updated on exact dates and times.

New release published

LBSA turned into an ice skating area, so beware when entering OSG.
 (The fallen ones that came before you now float as angels above you, so be warned).  Yesterday a new release of OSG was issued. If you haven't updated recently (like last month), you might want to take a look at the OSG  news aswell, as some stuff got added to the opensim.INI files.
 If your in the plaza's, dont forget to grab yourself a copy of the OSgazet. A new issue has been out for a while, and it always provides  a fun read.

Animated - wallpaper.org

Soon it's christmas, and also people predict the end of times. Whichever happens, Red Dragon wishes all the best for you and those you love. Have a Merry Christmas.

We'll push in another update before 2012 starts, with more news, and hopefully more great goodies from the web to explore.

Updates links & weblogs

We updated our log today with links to a number of pages with scripts, and a list of interesting Blogs regarding OSgrid and  Opensim. You can find all the new stuff by scrolling down a bit to our links section.

If you have a weblog / URL / place / club / info regarding Opensim you would like to share with the rest of the world, by all means let us know. Were not the best read Blog on the planet, but were here and we keep getting at it. You can email Foxx Bode at Gmail, or leave a message in our shoutbox. Mind we will only place Opensim and or related pages, as we don't sell meds etc.  

Osgrid is currently at version 0.7.3 which apears nice and stable Stats can be found HERE. One important note, your furniture might need re-adjusting / positioning due to a server side change, which affects seats, beds  and other positionings in OSG. ( for what we understand from it the default sit position was changed, which affects some positioning ).

On the Aurora front it is a bit quiet lately, with their latest public release being the one from august. 

As for the Red Dragon club, it's new sims need tons of work done, but there is too much other games slurping all my attention. Battlefield III, World of Tanks, the elder scrolls Skyrim, Modern warefare III, Civilisation V.....  So much fun stuff to do, and only so little time. Anyways. Go check the new stuff. Some Blogs will provide you very interesting articles for reading.

Halloween party

The Halloween Party @ All Hallows Plaza in OSgrid 

Various DJ's, and OSG's most creepy people would love to eat your Brains  Dance with you this Halloween !

 

Video by Milkshake Nebadon 

Halloween party

29-10-2011 @ All Hallows Plaza in OSgrid 

The Halloween party in OSG kicked off. Put on your scary outfit and come dance with all your friends on the Grid. 40 people are already kicking it on Hot Tunes of various DJ's and the night is still young. You can find us at All Hallows Plaza on the map.

Some screenshots of All Hallows Plaza and the OSG freaky bunch Dancing :

For all of you that can't make it tonight Happy Halloween ! 

The -*Red Dragon Nite Club *- 

New Build RDS X

Since the latest build doesnt appear to function real well, we started building something new again. The first 2000 prims are in place, which is a good time to show an impression of what the build will look like.

The building to the right are the offices and living quarters, 9 floors with a height of approximately 130 Mtr. In the center there are shopping area's, a roof terrace and the bottom floor is one huge Mall floor.
The swimming pool is located in the center of the left tower, and in the tower top you will find a kick-ass club with spacial 360 Degree seaview. You'll be dancing at approximately 235 meters in the sky.

The pyramid like structure in front of the tower will be an experiment, with a "hovering dancefloor" surrounded by balcony's and it gives access to the water power generator house, which is built on the left, against the mountain. (There is an exit there aswell, leading to my humble home). As it's a work in progres, sims will emerge around it, and the interiors will be built overtime. Feel free to snoop around. Music is provided by Pulse Radio, sim is found by looking for FBI AR on map.

Performance issues

Regular visitors of the Red Dragon Nite Club might have noticed the sim is "down" a lot lately. This is due to the fact that we appear to have some issues with lag which just wont go away. Since the last 2 updates, it's hard to move around the sim, without getting that frustrating SL feeling.

Where we used to run 26 islands on this machine quite fine, we're now stuck on a single sim instance that runs like it's installed on a 286. Both OSG and Imprudence push one of the processor cores to it's max for some reason. The very same build runs blistering fast in aurora, so my best guess is somethings borked in my OSG setup or scripts again. Until a new version arrives, this means you might not be able to get to the club. It's no use having it up, when you can only cam around and hardly move. Since it's holiday season it's not real busy anyway, but if you cant get to RD,  you now at least know why. No worries though, we will be back when the summer is over and when there is a more "usable" version again. 

Video of Red Dragon Sneak Preview party

Mystic Moonlight shot a vid of the "sneak preview" Opening party of Red Dragon in OSgrid.
( Unnannounced spontanious stuff is always fun ) . The club is still under construction, but as you can see, its ambience is already sufficient to put on the dancing shoes and to start shaking them pixel booties.

OSgrid's 4th birthday started ( 22nd to 25th of July )

OSgrid's 4th birthday (OSG4B) is on from 22nd to 25th of July. 

The announced special events that OSgridders will hold on their regions this weekend are:

* All day 22nd - 23rd: Dance Party at region Lani, Throne Room and Pyramid Ballroom with Costume Party, dress as you like
* All day 22nd - 23rd: RolePlay Combat, Challenges, and Duels at region ixi, desert caves area and The Great Hall of Combat 
* 22nd at 19.00 UTC: Friday Dance Party OSgrid Birthday Special at region Close Encounter
* 22nd at 23.00 UTC: Live music by Rafaella Docherty and streamed western for 4 hours at Western Saloon
* All day 23rd: Art installation with paintings from Rainer Hübner on region CB Showroom
* 23rd at 10.00 UTC: Guided tour of OSgrid with demonstration of building by Larysa Firehawk. The tour will be display on a big screen in RL Australia. Everyone welcome to participate
* 23rd at 19.00 UTC: Psytrance dance party “Living picture” at region CB Showroom with music by DJ Galen
* 24th at 21.00 UTC: Live music at the Maritime Hotel at region OSG4B Festival presented by stiofain nbmcmedia

Red Dragon IX Migrated to SQL

Last week a new Red Dragon Club emerged on the grid. Its just above the old (and lost) Red Dragon Nite Club sims on the map. After loading the 25-6 OSG version, the region has also been upgraded to use SQL, rather than SQLlite, boosting it's performance a bit.

In the build you can find various theme's and lounges, like a beach theme, a park theme, some bars, and there are multiple dancefloors to be found. Also a 100+ seat conference room was installed, and in the upcoming weeks we will rebuild our shops  with gestures, -*RDS*- design builds, and more. For now, you will need to fly around, as we have not yet instated a proper teleport system, but you can find all the goodies in this 1 building once done.

If your looking for a space to run IE a gallery, or if you would like free  advertising or shopping space, feel free to contact Foxx Bode.  Red Dragon Club has several spaces available for you to host your goods & wares free of charge. Also when you need to host any event, Red Dragon Club can offer a suitable space, live streaming music,with a great atmosphere in of one of the grids hottest danceclubs.

Back up

Well, we are back up, but not from a backup. Wish we had one on a partition that didnt die. Anyways. I did some quick building today and here's some first pic's. Mind its a work in progress though. But at least the Club is back up and running.
It needs a lot more work, which will obviously happen overtime. Feel free to pop by and take a sneak peak at it however. Make sure to say Hi if you do. Red Dragon nite club can be found by finding "Red Dragon Club" on the map.

Soon we will also revive the Red Dragon Shops, after which you can come and put the stuff you like to share out for sale again. Contact Foxx Bode inworld for more details.

For now, take care, and when you make those OAR's, store them on a different disk, not different partition ! It can save some hours/weeks/Months....

DownTime

Red Dragon will be temporarily permanently down, as one of the disks of the machine it resides on decided to give up. Unfortunately it was the bootdisk of the machine that crashed, so it will probably take us upto the weekend to get things reinstalled and going again. ( it was time for a reinstall anyways..... ). And for a rebuild aswell. Some genius put the backups on a different HDD partition, but on the same disk (facepalm). Bye regions, OAR's, textures programs and other stuff.
Obviously we will build something new when the new disks arrive.Thank you for your understanding and patience.  

-*RDS*- Design realises various projects in OSgrid

Next to building stuff for the Red Dragon Nite club, we sometimes assist and help out the people that are not capable of realising their own builds or projects. Below you will find 2 of our latest projects in OSgrid.

The first one is a build of Nedaplast LTD, built for avatar Neda Norm.

In a constant search to generate added value for its customers, Nedaplast LTD from the Netherlands was searching for a way to make an attractive product catalogue in 3D for it's customers. Nedaplast is a company that designs, develops and sells Recycled Plastics. From parking poles to street and park furniture, straight poles & boards, or even fencings and playground supplies, if it's design is from recycled plastics, Nedaplast is the supplier you look for in the netherlands.

Instead of suggesting a 3D plugin for their website, Foxx Bode of -*RDS*- Design made a pilot simulator on the OSGrid, translating their "physical" building into a 3D model as per their request. Eventually this model should become available on Hypergrid, and anchor into the Nedaplast website. This way Nedaplast's customers can not only look at specsheets, but also get an idea of the 3D representation & design of its various models of products. This is a work in progress, but the sim is live, and can be visited at Nedaplast LTD on the map.


The second project is a conference center built for avatar Amanda Rose.

In a couple of months, the US airforce will have a conference in the Rennaisance Spa & hotel, for which a virtual representation was required in the OSgrid. -*RDS*- built an impression (not replica) of a part of the hotel in which this convention will be held. It's currently situated on the sim of RDS Design, but will move to a desired location soon.

For more information on implementing your project in OSgrid, you can always inform at RDS for assistance, consultancy or even basic building lessons. Mind that RDS design will only build "full perm", and that any project we realise can become available to anyone who would like to have it. As we generally do not charge anything for building a project,  this also means you will have to cope with what we provide in. We build for fun, not for greed. For further information on RDS Design, contact Foxx Bode inworld or at Gmail.com

Playing around

Red Dragon Nite Club regions have updated to the latest build, the 0.7.2.dev.2a12d14 and also updated all the INI files with the changes mentioned on the OSgrid news pages. We have also been playing with Imprudence 1.4 exp. The Media on a prim now works like a charm when quicktime is installed, which is fun, and good to know. Things appear to run stable sofar, and we will keep you posted. There are some updates posted in the links sections below aswell, so grab the fresh goodies. 

Also we tried  Kitely, which is an app connecting you to a "booted on on demand" cloud based OSG server, via facebook credentials. Since its in beta you have 1000 credits to play around. Funny concept, and although its not fast, it does what it promises. I only expected a webviewer (in the likes of Unity or so) , having to install a plugin. Not for it to fire up imprudence.  Imprudence is releasing its new 1.4.0 Beta somewhere next week. 

Aurora has a fresh new website, and are currently at version 0.3.1. There also working on an inworldconnector, which is sort of a hypergrid replacement for all we know ATM.  

Furthermore we enjoyed a couple of great party's with 80's and 90's music at D&J's Friday party, which are pretty well attended. If you are new in OSG you definetely want to drop in on one of these, and meet all the regulars, and if your a regular and wonder why LBSA is so empty at friday evenings, well. Now you know.

To stay in the D&J area, This weeks region Showcase is Doro's Real Estate. If you need a home, and can't / don't feel like building one, you want to check this sim. It contains quality housing, built with neat accuracy by one of OSG's finest designers. Castle's temples, appartments, farms, modern, classic, its all there. For kick ass D&J furniture you can drop by at the Red Dragon Shops, where D&J has one of her furniture store's. If you like a luxurious OSG life with quality prims, come shop for Free.   

Updates, news, and upcoming events

Well since we gathered enough new stuff to fill a topic again, here we go :

First some news on meshes. LindenLabs will change its Mesh Format, effectively making all meshes up to now unusable. OSG will follow, as they plan to remain compatible. So might want to wait on going loose with meshes for a bit longer, as you likely will need to re-upload them all.

Kokua released a test version of its viewer called Kokua WIP 0.1.0 ( WIP = work in progress ). In their words :  This is a test build. It will likely have many bugs. It might break your avatar or eat your pets. Use it for testing purposes only. This is not a finished product. The UI is not final. The feature set is not final. Nothing about it is final.
In short, they need your feedback, but expect a wobbly ride.

OSG issued a new build yesterday, (for last Aprils INI file adjustments click HERE) and also brought back the Who's Online pages, which show avatars / friends and the region their at. To get there, login to the OSG pages, and select "my grid tools" at the right hand corner. The wire is not available yet, but any progress on the social part is great. Also you can Purge your avatar, if you keep having cloud issues.This will Ruth you, but you stop being a flying fluff. Some other helpfull tools to cure avatar issues are found at LBSA and Wright Plaza.  (I'll stop mentioning the empty trash via your OSG web account, people should know by now...)

Wright plaza has been updated with various shops, and a tourist office, with useful information and landmarks.  Key Gruin kicked off the speedbuilding (weekly winners are presented at LBSA plaza) and primwords contests, (more info in OSG forums) and Dan Banner became admin, and can help new people get free hosted land on the plaza regions. Last Tuesdays Meeting at wright was heavily attended, and an annoying bug was detected and handled.  Also OSG dev's are working on their asset server, juicing up performance.

D&J are having their Friday Party's every week again, and Belfast's Maritime club has live performance acts every sunday. OSGrid hit the 60.000+ users mark aswell, and new initiatives are launched. There is a new "Like" voting system available by Fernando Oliveira, which you can pick up at Festa24 sims.
Red Dragon has updated it's regions, and put in some more eyecandy. Shops got updated, but we can still use more venders, so if your interested in getting a free vending space shop, get in touch. From stall or kiosk to huge floors / halls we have a spot for your goods. Free advertising space for your sims available aswell, just drop us a NC with a picture of your sim and it's LM. 

OSgazette came out with a new issue, having 24 pages of various interesting subjects for your pleasure, knowledge and leisure. You can find the OSgazette distributors at various locations.This issue sneak peek : Techtalk by Nebadon, building classes, and even a RL interview with an artist from germany. Another highlight is the annual OSG Birthday ( OSG4B ) which is its 4th this year. For any info, tips, events, and stuff you would like to organise, hit the forums on OSG4B  

Last but not least, our region tip for this update is Pandora Region. Find yourself in the world of Avatar and visit the tranquile and wonderfully built sim by Cai & Dutchy. Turn on the music, relax and dream when you follow the Helicordian ...don’t touch them however :). Try to walk over the tree trunks across the water to the Hometree. Dance on the drums and meditate at the center, enjoy the view on the Pandora blue Whale and the mountain Banshees, the lost gardens and its flamingo's. Follow the path to explore the  forest and swamp. Walk under the waterfall, run under the dragon.Take a relaxing bath at the pool. And don’t forget to look into the sky....

Kokua Viewer issues new Experimental build

What's this kokua doing on a weblog with aurora and opensim as main subjects ? Well, you need a viewer to visit either of those grids. And Kokua  (former Imprudence) is our preferred one. Here the Pastebin with changelog for the Nerds interested people. Its been a while since they updated, so enjoy the new fixxes, features, shiny buttons, and working media to play with.

As for OSG, the dev's issued a new version on 3/3/11, to which we haven't gotten around updating to as yet.  The 16/2/11 one seems to work "best" out of last 3 updates we've tested, but the Red Dragon regions will be updated to the latest version somewhere soon. For news on exiting new stuff in OSG, check this forum topic about the new Myst Regions in OSG. Also  the "Friday Party" at D&J's is back up, and there are speedbuilding contests again. More info on OSG's forums.

Aurora finished it's logo contest. More info on the latest news section in their Blog.To be fair we havent been at it's grid a lot lately, as it doesnt really have a box of LM's at their landing zone yet. Also we lost our sims there at a purge waaaay back (it's a test grid, and thus purged if needed), but the scalable regions and other cool features are too good to be ignored. More on this soon.

You might have noticed the frequency of posts on this Blog is down a bit, but don't worry, if there is spectaculair stuff happening, we will notify you of it (eventually). Really ! For now, play around with your new favorite "screenie" tool after Snagit. ( 3Dvia  captures 3D environment screenies... how nice is that ?.... Enjoy !)

Aurora brings Scalable Regions, OSG issues update

It's been a while since the latest update. This due to the fact that after the couple of days of outage due to the upgrades, our regions appeared to suffer from random crashes. Since than, OSG issued 3 newer releases, and the last one seems ok so far, qua stability. The Dev's keep pushing it forward, hammering out the bugs. Some new OSG admins have been assigned (Key & Rev), and loads of stuff is happening again. Spring is in the air.....  


Also the aurora team comes with new stuff. After Aurora-Sim being the first to use CAPS communication, and extended OpenRegionSetting - which supports vertical parcelling and many more extra features - now team Aurora is proud to announce the release of the first fully functional variable sized regions. The variable sized regions are based on multiples of 16, currently ranging from 64 meters up to 256 standard SL regions combined. for more info, click the Full Article on their site. 


For the region showcase ( have been lazy and not roaming around the grid too much ) please refer to the last pages in the Februari release of the OS Gazette newspaper. You can find those at the kiosks in the OSG plaza's.  With the map being clean now, teleporting will be better. (4500+ dead regions purged, and a bi-weekly check will keep it nicely accessible). This does mean that when your sim is offline for over a week, the map spot will be released. (start the sim and its back, unless someone took "your" spot). Thats all for now, please check back soon. 

OSGrid Downtime scheduled

OSG scheduled some downtime to work on their backend databases. With the Grid migration to 0.7 they didnt manage to convert all databases without several days of downtime, so the part wasn't done back than, is being handled now.  Also a new release was issued on the OSG website. Read all about it on the OSgrid News page and especially if you run a sim, as the update also contains some useful information regarding changes to the Opensim.ini. All of the above should improve overall performance of the simulators & the grid.

 Yesterday there was one of LBSA's infamous spontanious party's again, and typically, just before the downtime kicks in, it will likely be loaded again. (For some strange reason, when downtime is announced it is busy around LBSA).
Mind that the upgrade will involve an estimated downtime of 24 hours, so don't get anxious if you can't login. OSG will keep you informed via twitter and their news pages about the status. If you really want to keep a close eye on the progress, you could try IRC.

You have only 2 days left to submit your Logo to the Aurora Logo Contest. 48 hours should be enough to still create something awesome, and earn eternal glory. This weeks region showcase will be posted after the grid upgrade.

OSG issues new release, Map purged

It's been a while since our last update as we haven't spent to much time on the grid lately The dev team, however did tons of good stuff in the background. The 17th of januari they issued a new version, and today the 19th, the region map was purged, leaving a 4600+ regions online, that all run 5 januari's version or later. This means that the grid is a lot more usable now, as the map is more reliable. We hope it's a reoccuring event. Also another reminder that you can empty your trash via the website. No need to walk around with more trash than inventory anymore. Just login to the osgrid website, click account, delete AV trash, wait 5 minutes, relog your viewer, and your good. We eagerly await website upgrades, as the wire and who's online pages were very nice additions to the social part of the grid.

Imprudence or as renamed Kokua is still working on version 1.4 of their viewer, and you still have 10 days left fo help the "brand" the Aurora server and provide them with a great logo.(see previous topic). For the rest little major news, were still thinking on the new sim design. Other interesting news,  SecondLife has a EA dude working for them, and he solved all their problems by raising the groups to 42, the answer to life, the universe and everything. Nintendo brings it's 3D gameboy, and if you like to play with 3D, and build meshes, try http://beta.ourbricks.com/ and show us your awesome stuff. Back to a busy LBSA plaza, with loads of new faces.

Today's region spotlight is a new Freebie Area called Freebies from Corny. Its on the map, Freebie Cornflakes (132, 133, 24).
You will find several items from various builders in OSG there. Check it out, grab some nice new goodies, and have fun. If you visit, make sure to find the owner of this sim and say Hi.

OSgrid Upgraded, Aurora issues Logo contest

After the news on the mandatory upgrade, it was delayed a bit, but the update has been performed. OSgrid is back up and with working Hypergrid again. Information on which versions of Hypergrid are compatible, read this.
The most current version of OSG can be downloaded here. If your on 1 version before the current, you will still be able to connect, older versions will need to upgrade, to be able to connect to OSgrid.

Meanwhile, Aurora Sim has opened it's new year by issuing a contest for a hot new logo design. Eternal glory if you make Aurora the coolest logo on the web. Requirements and such can be found here. Contest will run all of January. More info can also be found on their fresh new Forum Boards.


The picture in todays article is one of the CyberBohemia Regions. It's mainly known due to it's Art vernissage's, and surrealistic inworld builds. It also carries a club with awesome particles by Galen TechnoShaman. More pictures on their regions can be found on their webpage, as they have a Photo gallery online.

Their regions run 24/7 and are definetely worth a check, especially if you've not seen them before. Their exhibitions  and the works and atmosphere on the sims is one experience you shouldn't miss out on.

One last thing we would like to share, you can loging to OSgrid webpage again, and kill the trash :) Figured you'd like to know.