One of the most panicking idea about the new Linden Labs guidelines is that thousands of bloggers may now have to remove infringing contents from their blog. But if you own a Wordpress self-hosted blog (maybe even a Wordpress.Com blog), NO NOT PANIC! Ubernyms is a very slick way of mass rewriting your blog without sweat.

Legal things better left to lawyers as far as I’m concerned, this article is NOT about HOW to make your blog compliant to the new policy. IANAL and I have no idea yet of all the legal implications. This article will focus on the technical aspect of installing Ubernyms and not on the legal aspects. For that you will have to read Linden Lab’s policies throughly, personally I don’t even know how it will affect bloggers. LL ain’t very good at communicating important decisions like that anyways, but that is another subject completely.

NOTE: Ubernyms may not be compatible with all Wordpress plugins. I heard it conflicted with other plugins. I CANNOT offer support for any aspect of it, as I do not develop Ubernyms. Consider this a primer to the matter, no more.

STEP 1 : Installing Ubernyms

This is the most tricky part, since the installation can be different on one host or another. So I cannot explain all of it, but will try to give it a shot.

Basically installation consists of:

1. Download Ubernyms for the right version of Wordpress
2. Put that .ZIP file into your /wp-content/plugins directory and unzip it on the server OR unzip the file locally and put the folder and all of it’s content in the /wp-content/plugins/ directory through FTP
3. Activate the plugin in your Plugins section of your Wordpress blog administration panel
4. INSTALL SignpostMarv Ubernym patch that fixes a bug with the HTML characters and UTF-8/accented characters. Go there and download the ubernyms-2.7.php.txt file and rename it to ubernyms.php. Then upload it via FTP in the Ubernyms plugin directory, and overwrite the old one.

STEP 2 : Configuring Ubernyms

Once installed, Ubernyms is delicious cake. And you must eat it.

1. Go into the Plugins section, and click on Ubernyms Configuration
2. Leave the upper configuration as is, it is usually defaulting a decent configuration
3. What is of utter interest for this case is the Replace Text option. Take a free slot under “Add new acronyms” and select Replace Text.
4. Enter a term in the Text field, and the replacement term in Definition

For example, let’s say that you want to replace the acronym “SL” for “SL ™”, you would have to put “SL” in the Text field and “SL ™” in the Description field (you should use the HTML code for the trademark sign in this case). SignpostMarv issued a patch fixing a problem with this, thanks to him for the leet patchage!

This plugin can replace any expression in your entire blog in a second, not only for replacements, you can link to internal or external URLs, replace acronyms by full length expressions, and so on. It’s the blogger’s best friend, you can take my word on that.

Hope this will calm down some lovely people I know that got very stressed up with their blog infringing on Linden Labs trademarks, thinking it would be required to correct every article posted by hand. This plugin removes much of the job. It still needs to be proven if it is really necessary. <3

Yeah I hope you appreciate the geek joke. So here is one of my favorite recipe. I know avatars don’t eat, but I have to feed that meatbag or she will die. So before she starves to death, here’s how to make CodiePasta, for approx 4 people. Be warned, it is deeleeshous but it’s rich!

Ingredients:

• 900 grams of pasta (spaghettis, linguinis, whatever) cooked and drained
• 1 package of pre-made basil pesto (about 200g)
• 1/4 cup (about 60ml) of pure virgin olive oil
• 200g of sliced ham or 100g of proscuitto
• 1 cup (250ml) of salted cashews
• Optional: parmigiano regiano to taste

That’s it for the ingredients!

Preparation:

• Cook the pastas, drain them and put a little olive oil and mix, to prevent them from sticking together
• In a large pan, grease it with a little bit of olive oil, and grill the cashews just 2-3 minutes constantly shaking the pan to prevent the cashews from burning
• Add minced ham or proscuitto. Cut it in tiny bits and throw that in the pan.
• Let cook for 1 minute, shaking constantly
• Add the pesto and olive oil (and grated parmigiano cheese to taste)
• Mix and cover, and let it simmer for 2-3 minutes
• Voila!

You could mix the garnishing with the pasta and heat it together, or just add a large spoonful of the mix on a plate of pasta.

Hope you will enjoy!

Someone on Twitter suggested the PicLens Firefox extension. I just had to share this one because I think it’s an awesome gadget.

PicLens is an ordinary Firefox extension that allows immersive browsing of pictures posted on Flickr and of some other image search and hosting services.

Quoted from the PicLens website:

“PicLens instantly transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for viewing images on the web. Photos will come to life via a cinematic presentation that goes well beyond the confines of the traditional browser window. With PicLens, browsing and viewing images on the web will never be the same again.”

Indeed. Browsing images now feels natural, and it goes much faster than standard viewing when browsing batches of images. I’m quite addicted to it so you may just want to try it, just in case you like it too.

• Be warned, I tested this on a recent and powerful machine, not on older hardware.
• It’s avaliable for Explorer and even a reduced functionnality Safari version
• You can search for images directly
• “Fly through 1000s of images in a split second”

PicLens Website:

http://www.piclens.com/site/firefox/win/ 

Vint Falken posted one awesome Photoshop tutorial again. I didn’t think of that technique she exhibits so well in that post. It’s things like that makes her my uber heroin.

Her article is a tutorial on using Diffuse Glow in a very interesting way, while of course she warns and waggles her finger about said Diffuse Glow over-abuse by some members of the SL artistic community.

I can almost feel her finger waggling at me. I plead guilty as charge to massive Diffuse Glow abuse. No need to point at me, it’s no secret I use it pretty much everywhere. But my own humble opinion is, it’s not so much abused than just generally badly used.

Thing is, I always use it in a different way, and very rarely as is. I work it until it gives me what I want, mixing many different techniques, experimenting new things and always trying to incorporate new tricks in my general workflow.

Sure, what follows will be far from being as elaborate as what Vint did. I’m surely not going to do such an awesome presentation and go in deep details. I won’t post screenshots either. But I would like to contribute to the fun with a very tiny mini HOWTO of how I personally work with it, in hope it could be helpful to some people (not Vint, she’s way over those beginner techniques).

Why do I use Diffuse Glow almost everytime?

1. The primary main reason is that I find the Liquify tool, Heal tool, and the Diffuse Glow filter to be the ideal combo for fixing the nasties, namely nurb lines, distortions and pointy angles. If i’m just looking for a clean sober look, I personally think adding a tiny weenie bit of Diffuse Glow after having cleaned the pic with Liquify and Heal just softens the rougher pixels and gives a sweet look. I sometimes add a tiny bit of Gaussian instead of the glow, if it’s really not indicated. But usually the Diffuse Glow layer has some degree of transparency to adjust it to a more discreet level too.
2. Combined with many many Photoshop basic tools contained in the Image and Layer menus, especially things like the Levels, Color Balance, Desaturate, Saturation/Colorize, etc…, you can create a plethora of base effects. I almost always do a Level on a layer that will have some Diffuse Glow on it, to control the spread of the glowy surfaces.
3. And of course those base layers can be combined in different ways with the Layer transparency and effects, like Overlay, Hard Light, etc… Combined and mixed properly, usually with a bit of intuition and a few trial and errors, this pretty much allows an almost infinite range of effects to create from scratch.

The 3 techniques are very mixable, often my PSD files ends up like uber sandwiches of 5 or more layers with different effects and alpha levels. And it’s really fun to try different things and play with the layers until you get the desired effect.

So, apart Liquify if we can call that a filter, Diffuse Glow would be almost the only Photoshop filter I use. I don’t use any third party plugins, and almost always use Photoshop’s most basic image treatment tools.

For the fun of it, I will try and make a short quicklist describing how I usually proceed for a regular post-processed picture. This assuming you followed the usual advice, used antialiasing, and did a decently high resolution shot. Go for 1600 x 1200 and more. I usually shoot 6000 x 4000 but I’m nuts. I use Photoshop CS2.

So, here goes nothing:

• Open the BMP pic in Photoshop (duh! .
• Select Background layer in Layers
• CTRL-J, and CTRL-J (duplicates BG layer, twice)
• Get rid of the Background layer
• Select the top layer (Layer 2)
• Do a Filters / Liquify. Clean the rough angles.
• Do a Tool / Heal. Plaster the nasty pose distortions.
• CTRL-J (always keep a layer copy between each step - Layer 3)
• CTRL-L (Levels, have fun! ^^)
• CTRL-J (yep. backup! - Layer 4)
• Filters / Diffuse Glow (play! but try to moderate and put some Clearing in there)
• Play with this layer’s effects in the Layers window (time to be extreme. Color Dodge, Hard Light…)
• Often, I will CTRL-J (yes, again. Layer 5)
• Play with this layer’s effects too (think lighter. Lighting, Overlay, Screen…)
• Then, hide all but Layer 2, Layer 4 and Layer 5 (or get more if you want, you can stack those babies)
• Keep the background (Layer 2) with no alpha transparency (again Layers window)
• Play with the alpha of the 2 overlaying layers. (Alpha will let you balance your effects)

Voila! That’s not very long or complicated, apart the Liquify and Heal part, those can be long to work if your a crazy perfectionist. But for the rest, it’s a matter of minutes sometimes, or a few more if you want to elaborate more complex or special layer combos.

Before applying the Level and Glow, you can Desaturate the picture. Colorize it with Saturation tool. Whatever, go nuts! It’s fun to try different ideas until you get the result. Often the inspiration comes while working it, as I said, trial and error. Each pic is different, the lighting, general color density, often it takes different treatment for different occasions.

To play with lighting, Levels is often the tool of choice to get a range of effects and control how the Diffuse Glow will be applied on the layer. Note that the top layer (Layer 5) is an extra Diffuse Glow, but depending on which Layer effect you combine with the background picture, the glow MAY or MAY NOT look like normal Diffuse Glow, but instead will be integrated in the lightings and highlights in a more discreet way. In my example, of course Layer 5 can be made optional. Just find a good layer effect for Layer 4 in that case.

Okay, enough for now. I hope this pile of nothing will give a little help to someone that’s getting started or is interested of doing do. Enjoy!

*waves to Vint!*

One of the first big bug I noticed in SL, and that never really got corrected, is a bug that affected my style more than any other avatar I know of. It usually manifest itself by both my feet sinking into the floor where I’m standing, often down to my ankles.

My theories are:

a) my ass is too big and my body mass is superior, and it seems to be happening more often in higher altitudes, therefore it must be a gravity issue with the Havok physics engine

OR

b) I’m just way too hot and the floor is melting under my feet

Whatever the explanation is, it pisses me off, first because I look much smaller, secondly because it breaks my zen by not being very fashionable. Since I live in a skybox, I may as well swim in a pool of sweet ceramic. I wish I had some example pictures illustrating the bug, but very simply, my feet are just invisible and drowned in the floor up to my ankles.

But! I found an easy way to get rid of the nasty glitch when that happens, and it’s very simple too. I was reading the JIRA about similar issues while crossing sims. One mentioned a really easy way to fix it, sit on it. So I had nothing to loose by trying it, and it worked!

If your feet are sinking into the floor, just sit on something, anything, and stand up again. Tadaaa! Seems the physics engine recalculates your altitude and each time I tried it, the glitch disappeared.

Woot! Havok 0, Good looks 1