Diana's Diary

The results

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:11:46 GMT

Rayati and many thanks Honoured Misses, friends and readers for the prayers, well wishes and positive energy!

The biopsy reports of the hospital's pathologists showed benign findings, so there is much to be thankful for!

The family and my humble self are very grateful for your sendings and Dea's Blessings and Mercy.

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:41:01 GMT

My most sincere and profound apologies: I will not be in Virtualia or elektraspace much this weekend, if at all. My father has been undergoing medical procedures and is scheduled for a biopsy tomorrow. It has something to do with his "prostate producing too much psa" (?)

Prayers, well wishes and positive energy sent his way are asked for and much appreciated.

Blessings from Dea

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:44:33 GMT

Rayati, honoured Misses!

I do apologize most humbly for my prolonged absence; it was due to a confluence of circumstances: ordie and connection troubles (which are not yet over) and what is called "the dark night of the soul".

It was not my first time to have undergone the latter, and truly it was somewhat easier to bear this time around. I do thank the honoured Misses and my dear little sister for the prayers, positive energy and loving kindness sent this pette's way.

Mayhap it was also easier to bear this time for this one submitted herself totally to Dea's will and did not rebel or question or fuss. It is a time of great introspection, prayer and meditation; to be sure I am uncertain if it is over--Dea's will has no why. But She is all-knowing and all-loving; the total and complete surrender, trying to live each day in the moment, striving for balance and serenity, is a gift in and of itself.

It was in this state of mind and soul and spirit that this pette attended a charity auction for the make a wish foundation. In my primary persona of Wonder Woman I had submitted myself to be auctioned as a date. Those who attended the auction were most enthusiastic and generous with their bids, the first lots being on frocks and jewelry, but it ran longer than expected. Starting at 7.30 PST, I inquired after two hours what time it was expected to end. A reply of "1.00am" took me quite by surprise! It was a half past 1.00pm on my side of Telluria then, by the time the auction ended it would be 5.00pm! Excusing myself as there were pressing matters to take care of (such as the collection of my recalcitrant work ordie Athena), I went to collect her. And that took much longer than expected.

I returned just in time for the land auction. By then most of the crowd had thinned and the bidding had very much quieted down. I felt rather badly as the items were going for rather small bids and resolved to buy a plot of land with the thought of making an Aristasian settlement, something we had talked about during the Nativity season.

When a snapsie of the property came it was like a sign from Dea. A beautiful valley with a waterfall it is located in a sim called Karma! Could anything be more apropos?

It was rather dismaying to hear such small bids, so this pette sent a silent bid to the auctioneer for the sum first asked, also stating a willingness to raise the amount should it be outbid.

Visting the valley with the realtor to conclude the sale was both exciting and humbling, especially when he said that such real estate usually goes for around L$100,00! Dea is truly loving and generous and provides for Her daughters in perfection and abundance!

No words can ever hope to match the beauty of Mother Earth so I shall not try. Instead i will leave you with snapsies of the waterfall and the sunset, which we have a perfect view of.

While it is nice enough, under Windlight it will be heartbreakingly beautiful, as evinced by this snapsie taken from a former home, which was given up last week.

When Windlight is made part of the "client" we will have such sunsets whenever we should like!

Our parcel is now called Little Aristasia and a group has been created so that all the hounoured Misses can now set home there. Each pette is also given the ability to protect our land with the powers to ban, eject, freeze and return non-group objects. The tier will be taken care of by myself; having divested myself of some other pieces of real estate last Nativity there will be no additional expense.

The group, created by the darling Miss Winkler, is called the Aristasia Pette Rescue. The honoured Misses are invited to IM her or myself for group membership.

Rayati, honoured Misses!

Happy New Year!...and a realization

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:40:02 GMT

Rayati and Happy New Year, dearest friends and Honoured readers!

It is past midnight in this side of the world, and a new year (as reckoned by Tellurians) has already started.

While still somewhat ill, the health and love my dearest little sister sent has helped so very much; many thanks dearest Sushuri-chen! I love you too, dearest little sister.

My health is generally good, which is why this illness leaves me puzzled. It is not anything in particular, more like a series of little maladies that are somewhat incapacitating. Added to this is the matter of appetite, despite the Nativity Season, mine has not been very high and I am able to subsist on but one meal a day for the most part. Naturally, the blonde aspect of this pette does not mind terribly much, for one can never be too thin, as the old Tellurian adage goes.

Despite all of this, for some reason I was not inordinately worried or distressed. It can be uncomfortable and somewhat stressful at times, but there was none of the fretfulness, worry or fear that usually comes with illness. In point of fact, when not vexed by matters directly related to the Pit, this one's mood is actually peaceful and serene. More than that--there was something very familiar about all of this.

It's taken quite a bit, but today a realization finally dawned (helped along, no doubt by my dear little sister's prayers). In the past, when this one actively walked a spiritual path we were taught that when one is ready for the next stage in one's journey there will be a cleansing, both psychically and physically. The latter usually manifested itself as some little illness or a lassitude or took some other form. Remembering this, I offered a prayer and submitted myself to Dea and Her Will.

It is with trust, submission, loving kindness and compassion that this one looks forward to the year ahead and what it is to bring...

Rayati, dearest friend and reader! May Dea's blessings be upon you and your Hestia now and forever! And may the year ahead bring you what you need...

Reducing lag

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 03:57:45 GMT

As many pettes encounter this unfortunate and distressing circumstance, I am sharing some tips for reducing it.

My apologies for the post that follows not being couched in Aristasian terms, but the matter tends to be technical
and I have left the original form of the tips unchanged:

HOW TO REDUCE CLIENT-SIDE LAG

Server issues are at Linden Lab. Nothing you can do about that. “Client side” is your SL software setup that is running on your computer. There is a lot you can do about that. Here are several suggestions, some free and some that will cost:

1. The not-free suggestion. If you can afford it, get the heaviest duty computer and graphic card you can buy. It is amazing what a dual-core or quad-core computer does to lag issues. It is doubly amazing what happens when you slam a high-level, high-memory graphics card into your system. Rule of thumb: the better your graphics card, the better SL runs. There will still be significant lag, but it will go from frustrating to tolerable.

Now for the free ones…

CLIENT-FIXABLE THINGS

* Reduce your draw distance (EDIT / PREFERENCE /GRAPHICS). While it limits visibility, a draw distance of 64 requires far less graphics processing than a draw distance of 256. If you have a low-end graphics card, this one step will do more to reducing lag than anything. At the time of this writing, you can buy a new, 320meg Nvidia 8800 graphics card for under $300. If you can afford, it, that’s the way to go. (Other graphics cards are viable as well. That’s just the one that’s popular with the SL circles today. Great blend of price and power).

* Turn off “fog”. (EDIT /PREF / ADV GRAPHICS). This is counter intuitive, because to turn off fog, you have to set it to the max rating of 4.0. Fog is a graphic. Fog lags. It’s unnecessary. Turn it off.

* Turn off “clouds”. Same concept as fog. To turn off clouds: ctrl-alt-shift- (minus sign)

* Turn-off other rendering you don't need. CLIENT / RENDERING / TYPES & CLIENT / RENDERING / FEATURES. Experiement to see which ones you can live without.

* (EDIT / PREF / ADV GRAPHICS) menu, set “maximum particle count” as low as you can accept.

* If you have a really lousy graphics card, disable bumpmap and shiney in “Graphics Detail”. It will seriously reduce your SL viewing experience, but it will also seriously reduce client-side lag.

* Turn “Avatar Rendering” to normal. (Note, each one of these suggestions will reduce graphics performance, so it’s a fine balance as to what you want to leave on or turn off. But at least SL will continue to work, even though the experience may not be as detailed as one would like. If you want detail… install that new, expensive graphics card).

* Well, bottom line, if you are having really serious lag, turn everything in the GRAPHICS DETAIL tab as low (or off) as you feel accpetable. The lower/off you go, the less graphics-based lag.

* TURN OFF MUSIC AND VIDEOS. If you want music, use your own local music player. SL music lags.

* EDIT/PREF/ADVANCED GRAPHICS: Turn off antistropic filtering. Turn down Outfit Composite Limit.

* Turn OFF voice chat. Despite propaganda and other nonsense, every “feature” added to the system increases lag. (I mean, get real PR department). Yes, SCULPTIES, FLEXIS, and TORTURED prims lag. Every single “feature” added to SL increases lag… so shut off the unnecessary ones (and only you can be the judge of what is unnecesssary).

I’m sure there are may other suggestions. These are the easy and available ones. Now, for things you might not be able to control.

SIM ISSUES

If you are a sim or major-land owner, you can control these things to an extent. If not… if you’re on the Mainland, you just have to live with it, cos LL sure isn’t going to moderate it software-side. LOL

* Keep scripts low and simple. It’s true, the fewer the scripts, the less lag there will be. Avoid scripts that use “timer” and “open listen” functions (that respond to general puplic chat commands. /63 etc type commands or touch-mens are just fine).

* Avoid particle excess.

* Keep prims as low as possible.

* Where possible, use 128×128 or 256×256 textures. Try to never exceed 512×512.

* Avoid odd-size textures (137 x 429).

* Keep the total number of textures to a minimum. The more different textures used, the more the simulator has to load.

* Avoid the use of excessively tortured prims. (Basic shapes are the best shapes.

* DEFINITELY avoid sculpties and flexis where possible. You want to see some real lag… set out 300 flexis blowing in the wind, or 300 large-size sculpties moving around on avatars. For an example of serious avatar lag… hang around dragon islands. ; ) (I love dragons, but they do lag).

* Keep personal bling and prims to a minimum. An avatar wearing 800 prims can cause more lag than an entire sim put together.

* Limit SOUND devices. Every sound device added to a piece of property increases overall lag.

* Ignore propaganda. The claims that “lag is caused by client issues” is just plain bogus. Even empty sims can lag (yes, it’s been tested). Fact is there are serious server/asset issues with Second Life and no amount of client content correction is going to fix that… because that is Linden Lab side. The platform is very unstable, it’s just that simple.

It is hoped that these tips will prove to be of help to you, dearest friend and reader <3

Happy Nativity!

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 06:20:26 GMT

After two hours of sleep, this pette attended her very first Aristasian Nativity Service. It was 6.00am on this side of the world and I am normally never my best so early ( unless involved in production matters) and was quite muddled and may have committed a few gaffes, for which I do apologize.

Most Honoured Raya Chancandre conducted a wonderfully sublime and eloquent service; having been to a Catholic service earlier, this pette can say without qualification that Aristasian one was the most beautiful, meaningful and relevant service she has ever been to! It was as if a Presence of loving kindness, serenity and compassion descended, linking this one to her sisters, bestowing a gift of utter peace and tranquility...a more magical and evocative Nativity morn i have never experienced!

Happy Nativity dearest friend and reader!

a tutorial in Virtualia photography

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 07:44:31 GMT

Every pette loves taking snapsies and what is presented here are some techniques how to get the very best piccies, no matter what kind of ordie you have!

This tutorial will teach a technique that can be applied to snapsies taken in-world for sharing, and to one's ordie for uploading!

To take the best quality snapsies, one needs to click on the snapshot button and call up the following menu:

Uploading the snapsie will give you a piccie that can be shared in Virtualia immeditaely, whilst saving it to the hard drive will give you one for uploading. Those may be then placed in an Elektraspace photoalbum and reuploaded to Virtualia for sharing. It is for this reason that the recommended size image is Custom.

The recommended settings are to check the boxes that say Keep specified aspect ratio, freeze frame and Auto-snapshot. For purposes of this tutorial, the last one was disabled in order to get a screenshot which showed the Virtualia buttons and the snapshot menu. Dear Signorina Del Giglio has mentioned the freeze frame option and enabling this feature allows one to freeze the image, eliminating all movement for better snapsies!

The most important concept is one called "aspect ratio". This is the relationship between the horizontal and vertical aspects, when the horizontal is larger the shape is rectangular. When both are equal or very nearly so, the shape is square. This is important because in Virtualia the aspect ratio that is favoured in the square one.

A rectangular aspect ratio

A square aspect ratio

Of course, any changes in the aspect ratio will also affect the composition and must be planned for accordingly!

The settings one chooses for the size image will also affect the clarity and sharpness of the image. For crisp images that can be enlarged, the settings of at least 1500 for the horizontal and the vertical is recommended. This is particularly true of in-world photography. Whilst the aspect ratio will remain unchanged, the difference between a 512 X512 snapsie and a 1500 x1500 snapsie will be astonishing and it is respectfully suggested that the dear readers try it for themselves to see the truth of the statement!

Having determined the aspect ratio and the desired resolution, one can go about framing the piccie! There are two ways to do this. The first is the technique used by the dear Signorina, which was unknown to this writer! When the snapsie has been taken and the image frozen, then one can use a combination of left click and the alt key to move one's viewpoint around before pressing save.

The other way is to compose the piccie to one's satisfaction, then press save as normal. Every pette will have her own preference!

The settings in one's Preferences in Virtualia will also necessarily limit how much one can "zoom in" and "zoom out", even then there will be limits to how closely one can "zoom in". To be able to circumvent this CTRL 0 will take one in as closely as one needs to get, as evident in the following series. Each snapsie is one CTRL 0 step. To reset when finished is CTRL 9.

it should be noted that one may still go even closer, if desired!

These techniques, it is hoped, will help you dearest friend and reader take better snapsies in Virtualia. They in fact were developed so that one may take exceptional snapsies without the aid of "software" like Photoshop. If one does have those already, then the techniques outline here will also help immeasurably!

Happy piccie taking!

Snapsies from the Ball

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 06:23:01 GMT

Adding to the piccies taken of the Ball yesterday, here is this Pette's contribution, connection difficulties notwithstanding. All looked marvelous dressed in ballgowns. Perhaps we should have balls once a month! *giggles*

Following the dear Signorina's lead, this pette will let the snapsies speak for themselves

Signorina Del Giglio and Severina

Miss Yatsenko

Miss Madonna

Fraulein Landgrebe

Miss Bethune and Miss Eilde, who because of connection difficulties is sadly "Ruthed" (shown as the default avatar, which is called Ruth)

Miss Niami Aeon

Miss Gregoire, in a thoughtful mood

Miss Kohime and Miss Gregoire

Miss Poppy and Fraulein Landgrebe at the Antiquity Town Ball, where we went after the Embie Ball

Makeover Magic

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 04:13:26 GMT

The other day at the Japanese baths, I extended an offer to the Honoured Misses which is now also extended to you, dear friend and reader. And that is an all expense paid makeover.

Under the persona which this pette first entered Virtualia, this one is a model and has a thriving SL business specializing in the crafting of high end shapes and a Custom Avatar Service, examples of which can be found here.

This pette herself is the recipient of makeovers and has learned much about looking glamourous in Virtualia, which is the result of the interplay between one's skin and shape for whilst the shape determines one's facial characteristics and body type, it is the skin that can either bring out the facial detail or conceal them. Consider these piccies; the shape, hair and eyes have not been changed--only the skin has.

The Default Skin. Whilst a certain amount of makeup can be applied, much facial detail is lost and on the whole the appearance looks rather flat and lifeless.

Rainey's first premium skin, purchased from Naughty Island. It was only learned much later that very few shapes work with Naughty skins. The poor thing looks like a painted trollop :(

Rainey after her makeover by her now wife Kara Foley. The skin is part of the Horizon series and brings out the facial features in amazing detail.

Miss Winkler, who the had the pleasure of meeting the Honoured Misses the other night, had also undergone a makeover for the Ball. Whilst there was nothing wrong with her appearance per se, it looked rather too bongo for this one's liking and I was determined she should look like a proper Aristasian maid.

Miss Winkler before the makeover. The Naughty Skin works here, surprisingly! However Miss Winkler's appearance is sadly obsolete by Aristasian standards

Miss Winkler after the makeover. Her appearance is now that of an up-to-date Aristasian maid, the Arcadian ball gown notwithstanding! :D

One might suppose that it takes Lindens (the currency of Virtualia) to look stylish and glamourous. It does indeed and that is why the makeover will be spoken for by myself in terms of shape, skin, hair, eyes and eyelashes. This pette has been the recipient of much kindness in Virtualia and now "pays it forward" to her Aristasian family <3

If you wish a makeover dearest friend and reader, please do let me know by a message. I have determined that nothing less than the Custom Avatar Service will do and this means working closely together with you to create the appearance you want!

Solutions for problems with Virtualia

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:01:18 GMT

Virtualia is a magnificent place in that it allows one to overcome the limitations of one's geography. Without this, this pette would have never been able to start her journey home; she had heard of Aristasia in the past and for a variety of reasons moving to an Aristasian district seemed forever like a beautiful impossible dream that was desired with a fervent longing and always just beyond one's grasp. Through Virtualia, it is no longer an impossibility.

A number of pettes have had difficulty with it, and that is why I now tap into my Melinic aspect in order to provide help for these poor darlings. Virtualia in and off itself is not an easy thing to use, so one must therefore try to make the experience even less vexing that it normally might be!

Some basics then.

Virtualia itself is not optimized for ordinators with what is called a "double processor" also known as a "duo core", "core duo" or "quad core". Till this pette was told about that particular idosyncracy, this one suffered many crashes, some within seconds of each other after her ordinator upgrade almost a year ago.

How to tell if your ordie has this particular problem?

One needs to go to Control Panel --> System. By opening it and under Computer one will see what kind of "processor" one has. If it says "2CPU" then one needs to visit this site before entering Virtualia again. By using this application, one can assign but a single processor to a specific application. One will need to experiment a bit to find out whether Virtualia likes processor 1 or 2 better.

Even by using this to solve that particular problem, the Virtualia experience might still be much improved, the particular solution depending on whether one has Miss Windows XP or Miss Vista.

For those on Miss WindowsXP, the following solution is suggested. OnRez was specifically designed for the new user. It is more intuitive (it is said) and more stable. For those already used to Ordinators and travelling through Elektraspace, this "client" will prove far kinder than the one currently available from Linden Lab.

For pettes who have been in Virtualia for a longer period of time, they will prefer the older "client" with which they are more familiar. A more stable solution is found here. This solution is recommended for those who have spent a considerable length of time in Virtualia and have become used to its "user interface". There are two versions offered, one called BE and the other called OS. The former is for those who prefer to travel Virtualia with a voice option and the latter is for those who eschew such a doubtful improvement.

For those on Miss Vista, Virtualia now has a solution.

Even with the above it is possible that one may continue to experience problems with Virtualia, for it is in and off itself "buggy". One may have the most currently available parts on one's ordinator and still experience crashes. It would seem that what is important is being able to identify that which is necessary to effect a more pleasant experience in Virtualia and upgrade those if one has the resources and is inclined to visit Virtualia on a fairly regular basis. If not, then there are other things on which one's money can be more satisfactorily spent!

For Virtualia to run very smoothly, one's ordinator needs a very good Video card and enough "RAM". I believe that the site itself states what the required configuration is, and this pette has found out through the time she has spent in Virtualia that "3GB" of "RAM" is highly recommended. The latter improvement will also lead to an overall better performance of one's ordie!

It is hoped that the information provided will be of use to pettes and please do not hesitate to ask questions on the matter and this one will endeavor to help you find the right solution that is needed to give you, dearest friend and reader, a more enjoyable Virtualia experience.

Rayati, Honoured friend and reader!

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:32:05 GMT

"So you mustn't be frightened...if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall..."

It has been almost two years since the last entry in this pette's diary. I have included my previous one, by way of introduction. It is in reverse order and if any wish to read it, starting with the last entry is recommended, since that is actually the first. A word of caution must be uttered; Rainey's Heart contains the thoughts, feelings and experiences of this pette and towards the end attempts to chronicle an event that changed this one's life forever. It ends on a poignant and sad note.

And yet it was that experience that led this pette to Virtualia and from there to take her first steps towards the Motherland. That is the reason for the heartbreakingly beautiful quotation above; it is only now that I have begun to understand its truth. While there are scars, and whilst they remain forever, healing is also possible when a maid entrusts and surrenders and submits herself to Dea.

Rayati, Honoured friend and reader; this pette is much glad for your company as she begins the journey of a lifetime....