Ask a Windows Vista Programmer

Dear Windows Vista Programmer

Hey now sugar! Ah'm having some problems with mah desktop icons. Mah Windows won't keep muh icons at'all, it sez dey corrupt! Think y'all can help a "Rogue" out? Thanks in 'vance, sugah!

-- Sexy in Biloxi!


Where am I? This world is unfamiliar to me. I see things, like little images of other things. They swim before my eyes, enraging me. I crush them between my fingers.

Damn the little pictures, these colors in my pure black spirit realm. These things, these "icons" ... on this field, this "desktop" ... I must destroy them. Elf-work, this.

Void is pleasing to the dark. Pleasing to the hole where my soul should be.


Dear Windows Vista Programmer

My son Dakota likes to play games LOL! He likes to play all kinds of games, with the Pokeymons and the Guitar heros! LOL! But they dont work on our new Hewlet Packer computer! Help! What shoudl we do! LOL!

-- LOLly in Miami!


May the Unblinking Eye damn you and your shitting bairn. I would grind you both with my battleaxe if I could. Learn the Lesson of the Cavern of Pain and be silent!

Now with this axe, this wedge of steel forged in the pits of Isengard with the blood of slaves and the kindling of Ents, I shall destroy everything I can touch inside this diabolical machine you have trapped me in.

It is a world I don't understand, but which I will gladly destroy. What is a D: drive? I care not. It must die in the name of the White Hand of Saruman!


Dear Windows Vista Programmer

I'm your average white suburbanite slob. I like football and podcasts and Second Life. But sometimes that's enough to keep a man like me interested. Sometimes I got to go out and have fun at somebody else's expense. Am I asshole or what?

-- An Asshole


Human! I remember humans. I remember how we hunted you down. I remember it like it was yesterday.

I can still smell the wheat fields burning, the carcasses piled upon the pyres, upwind of me and my warriors. The reek of burning huts filling the wind tickles my hunter's nostrils still. How you cried out! How you cried out to your weak and feeble gods!

One morning I remember, yes. I was a warrior then, a war-leader. I led a lurg of fifty orcs through the highlands of Rohan.

We came upon a miserable, lone farmhouse, nothing but logs and thatch. We surrounded it, flinging torches on the roof, chanting in the Black Speech as our masters taught us, in the manner of our god, Sauron:

Gu kibum kelkum-ishi, burzum-ishi! / No life in coldness, in darkness!

Then we did orc-work.

We cut the throats of the barking dogs. Then we slaughtered the lolling cattle, severed heads from bodies. How heavy their meat fell, and some of my goblins fell upon their raw flesh at once. Those starving ones could not help themselves.

Then the human family came running out, terrorstruck and keening, their throats gurgling like their own stricken animals. So stupid they looked, faces fat with fear.

They knew they could not flee us. Where would they run to? How could they outrun us, who run like the black Nazgûl?

Instead they threw themselves on their knees, praying to gods who did not come. But we had no mercy, for we are the fighting Uruk-Hai.

We killed them all where they lay and what we did not eat was left for the Storm-Crows of Saruman.

Now I am in your devil box, killing and destroying. And the War of the Ring goes on.

Kanomi's Klassroom

Dear Kanomi's Klassroom,

What is this 'cloud computing' I keep hearing about? And how will it affect Second Life?

- Confused in Caledon


Dear Confused,

Different kinds of computers are made by competing companies, just like Prada and Coach make different purses.

Microsoft makes the Windows Computers and Apples makes the Apples Computers. A man named Linus Torvalds makes the Linus computers. And now Google is making the Cloud Computers you asked about.

Cloud Computers aren't for sale yet because I've never seen them on TV. Doesn't matter though, because Second Life doesn't support Cloudy Computers. So you do not want them. Do not want the Cloud Computers.

Just use Windows or Apples. Windows is a good choice if you are an experienced computer guru like me. Just type your blog right into the boxes or 'windows' as we web programmers call them.

And Apples is a good choice if you have a goatee.


Dear Kanomi's Klassroom,

My Second Life experience is laggy and slow, but when I go into the menus to adjust my settings, I am overwhelmed. Can you help?

- Lagging in the Lab


Dear Lagging,

What's ruining your Second Life is Lag. Go to the Help Menu and turn on your Lag Meter. It will look like a traffic light, except the three lights are on at the same time!

Uh oh! Ding ding ding! Mixed reality metaphor! But don't be confused by it. It works just like traffic school!

If all of the lights are green, you are good to go! Welcome to the future, big band user! You can now roar down the information superhighway in your flying car!

If some of the lights are yellow, slow down and use caution. Try to hold perfectly still and not do anything for a while, like Windows Vista.

If the lights still don't turn green, try installing the patches. The patches can be found on the Microsoft.

If they are red, then you have lots of lag. Ask the people around you to leave. Their thick hair has too many prims and causes lag for you. Here's a great tip for less lag: be friends with more bald people.

Another tip is to go somewhere where there are no avatars and nothing interesting, like the IBM region.

Ask a Second Life Bling Tard

Dear Second Life Bling Tard,

I think my SL boyfriend has a problem. He is more interested in his combat roleplay than he is in spending time with me. He is part of the Space Marines group and they spend a lot of time building, simming, and making new weapons and of course battles. It barely leaves any time for him to cuddle his kittycat! Mew! What should I do?

-- Pajamacat Springfield

Bring da noise! Dat's right! Rock it boyz and girlz! Put your hands up! Put your hands up! All right! This club ROCKS! You peeps r the greatest! Give me some HOWLZ!!! Wooooo! Hoowwwwl! party like a rock star!

Dear Second Life Bling Tard,

I just bought my first land here in Second Life. It's a nice little plot of 512 square meters. I put on it a new house on it that I made. Anyway my problem is my neighbors. They have put up the most ugly texture I ever seen it is animated and glowing and it hurts my eyes. I am afraid to file a report though what if the lindens say I am filing a false report I don't want to get banned. But this texture slows my pc it is very ugly.

-- Merry Masonry

Click my butt for the dance. Yeah hit the chim! Lets go come on every body! Say word! WORD! Come on tp in your friends and enemies 2! This party is just getting started! Did I hear a hell yeah? I cant hear you. Did I hear a HELL YEAH? That's what I'm talking about!

Dear Second Life Bling Tard,

Lately I find myself going to some of the shemale clubs in Second Life. The girls there are really hot, I mean same as the other girls, but just the thought of a little secrets hidden up in their panties, I don't know something about it just kind of excites me. Does this mean I'm gay?

-- Confused in Connecticut

Motha fukkas say word! We are going to dance until dawn! Woot! Woot! Let's get your hands in the air! Give it up for our fabulous DJ Spinner33, he's got hip hop up the yip yop! Put yo hands up for our dancers 2, ladyKay and Michaelmostest. MAKE SOME NOISE DOGS!!!

Coolguy25 is a syndicated columnist whose weekly advice column, "Ask A Second Life Bling Tard," is published in such diverse and respected publications as Stars and Stripes and the Second Life Herald.

:]

Bling is My Thing

We at Tiny Dancing are committed to bringing you interesting and thought provoking commentary about Second Life. To that end, we have been scouring the metaverse to find the most educational, informative and witty pundits to expand our editorial roster. With that in mind, please welcome our newest columnist, Coolguy25. We think you'll like what he has to say.

Bling is My Thing
by Coolguy25

Word up! Listen up peeps -- one of the best things about Second Life is that everybody gets a chance to shine. Whether you be making threads, spinning tunes, or coding up crunk rides, we all show off our creative lights. My special ability, and one that I believe I have really polished to the next level, is wearing Bling, or as we rockhounds call it, "Blinging."

Blinging is not as easy as it looks, believe me, even though it's one of those skills, like building or designing clothes, that looks simple. There is a low barrier to entry, to be sure, and so you see a lot of newbies doing it. All you have to do is just put on a diamond necklace with a lot of shine, right?

Damn, snizzer! It don't work like that! You can't just throw on a diamond-studded "777" neck snake on your first day out clubbing and tell people, "Yo, I'm blinging." Sorry Harley, but it ain't that easy. It takes years of dedicated hard work to Bling properly: to develop a repertoire, a wardrobe, and the confidence to wear 250 prims of glowing rocks that say "SUCKA 4 LIFE" to a Linden's Office Hours.

First things first, you have to have a solid collection of Bling, not just some random rock you grabbed out of a freebie dungeon. You have to know where to shop for Bling. You have to know how to shop for Bling. You have to know all the top Bling designers, from IceRock Samaritan to the GettoTiez Crew. You have to join the Bling groups like Shine On You Crazy Diamonds or the Ice Palace Posse (shout out to my boyz in the I.P.P! you boyz be HARD! Oh yeah you know what I talking bouts! HOWLZZZ!!) so you will be informed immediately when a new piece of custom Bling is available.

But quantity is not enough. Quality matters too. You have to hunt far and wide for the best Bling, like the ultra-rare Rainbow Rhinestone Playa Belt, which was released as limited edition piece by Djcashmoney back in April, 2007 before he quit the game. You don't see many of those on the Exchange anymore, my blinga! That's a rare, priceless collector's items in the Blingdom community. Or a Carbonite Creations FlexiTwister -- give one of those to a diehard shineboy and you will have a friend for life.

Another thing about Blinging is that you have to know the lingo. Half the time we don't even call it Bling -- it's "rock" and "ice" and "shine." Good Bling is "heavy" and it "rox." Bad, cheap, or prim-heavy Bling is dismissed as zirconian, or "zirc." Calling someone a "zirc jerk" is about the worst insult you can dish out in the Blinging community. Most newbs you see fronting with their freebie ropes are straight-up zircs, the fronters and the fakers! Those fools get played under the Sploder balls for the sucker rope-chuckers that they are!

So as you can see, Bling is my Thing, and I am excited to be able to talk to you about my Bling here every week.

Under my interests, you will, of course, find "Bling." I've also added it to the free text field underneath the Skills selection boxes, in case you should be interested in hiring me to wear some Bling for you at your next event.

Peace out.