Tourist offices & Dynamic DNS

This picca was made for the OSG Tourist offices. There really helpful if you are new in OSG, and want to know where the action / sweetspots are to be found on the grid.
You can find the OSG tourist offices at wright plaza, and at the SimSquare Metaverse astro shopping area.
They are maintained by respectively Mercalia Beck and Richardus Raymaker. Handy to know if you have built your very own beauty, and want to share it with the rest of the OSG visitors. Alos check back regularly, for fresh new updates.

I got some questions on how to create a free dyndns account. Here's the howto.
Register an account at https://account.dyn.com/entrance/ and do the email confirmation. It will open a page with all kinds of paid services, and an option for free trial. Dont click any of those ! Instead click my services in the top of the screen ( its a button ).

In there you can add a Host name. Choose yourpreferredname.dyndns.org or any other URL you like. Write it down. tick the box for wildcard to enable. Service type is Host with IP adress. Fill in the public IP adress (typically its already displayed ).  Add to cart. (it will require you to start a trial now, but mind it will ask for credit card details at the end. You can put those in, and immediately quit the trial after registering. You get to keep the 1 free domain name, and wont get billed.)  Done.
If you dont have a creditcard, or dont want to give those credentials, you can try http://www.no-ip.com or another free dynamic DNS service. Same service, no credit card requirements.

Typically most routers have an option for dyndns. You put in the username / password of your dyndns provider, and your chosen domain name, and hit update. Now the router will be reachable through the URL you made, and update automatically when  the IP adress changes. If you dont have this option in your router, you can download dyndns updater software from  This URL . Install, and follow instructions. Self explainatory.

Last step is to change your public IP adress in your regions.ini, to the DynDNS name, and restart your OSG server.

Red Dragon moved & Grid outage

Last week, after installing the latest version of the OSG software, we put the Red Dragon back to "old" map positions. Also the previous build that used to lag insanely, is now back up and running properly and as it used to.  When writing this the grid is Offline for over an hour already, although were still partying hard on D&J's friday party at close encounter sim.

The quote of the day in the category : "Things you don't want your sysadmin to say" :
<nebadon> I accidently whacked the inventoryitems database
<nebadon> gonna have to restore from backup
No stress Neb, we all know the feeling of computers not doing what we would like them to. You'll fix it.
 (put's reminder in to read "excuses.txt" in next version of OSG ;-).

It is a thing we rarely see. OSgrid being down. As a backup is being restored we expect this should not have much impact, other than some time. You can keep track here when the services are back up and running, or be patient and keep an eye on the twitters, or IRC ( scroll to the bottom of this page for that ) to keep updated on the status / news. In the meantime, we party on !

Update: Grid already up again. Downtime was limited to less than 6 hours, and only inventory of the last 12 hours prior to that can be missing.
Chapeau for OSG. We have suffered 0 impact from this whole database issue. Now that's disaster recovery management that deserves 2 thumbs up.

If you also like the OSgrid, and the awesome service they offer you, you might want to consider sending them a Donation . Bang for your bucks, and money well spent.

Maps cleaned, new version released, events

On the 19th of februari, the map purge in OS cleaned all the sims that have been off line for longer than 2 weeks.  5555 regions remained online, whilst now, two days later its almost back at 7000 online regions. According to the twitterfeed on OSgrid the 0.7.3 version that was released today no longer requires the use of opensim32bit.launcher.exe for 64 bits systems. It is still included with the download.

Red Dragon's old regions are removed, and we will go back to a 3x3 region soon, in which the current FB sims will be renamed and put back on their previous locations. Also we will start testing some small scale events in the weekends. Not your average midnight danceparty, but chillout sessions in the morning, with musical themes and maybe a guest DJ every once and a while. We will keep you posted.

Message from the Technoshaman

Dear friends,

Next Saturday, 18.02.2012  Cyberbohemia region will open its doors for the exhibition "Photography&Metaphysics" from the german artist H. J. Kaeppeler.

14:00 GMT - Vernissage of the exhibition with a live audio stream.
Mr. Kaeppeler will guide us through the exhibition, explain his pictures and answer questions.

20:00 GMT - Exhibition party "Art meets Psytrance" with a fine selection of actual psytrance music by DJ Galen.
                   
No dress code, and bring all your fancy party toys :)

All the events will take place on region "Cyberbohemia"  in OSgrid. We are looking forward to this unique event and to enjoy some fine art and dance music with all of you beautiful Avatars. Please spread the news.