Will Ross here.

Welcome to The Traveling Avatar’s Quick and Dirty Tips for a Better Second Life.  On this show we discuss tips and tricks for the game Second Life, created by Linden Labs.  Today’s topic is chatting by e-mail; annoying your friends when you can’t log on.

We’ve all been there. You’re at work, you just finished putting the cover pages on your TPS reports, and all of a sudden you’re jonesing for a Second Life fix. You’re not allowed to install anything that’s fun on your work computer, and you search the Internet in vain for an offline chat program. But alas, you find nothing.  You can’t take it anymore!  You go feral, attacking your boss with a Swingline stapler. Next thing you know you’re hugging yourself in a padded cell waiting for nurse Ratchet to bring you your meds.

Yes, it’s just another senseless tragedy that could have been avoided with a little technical know-how. Luckily, I’m here to help. Here’s how to send IM’s to Second Life when you can’t log in.

The first thing you need to do is set yourself up to receive “offline” IMs to your e-mail address. Now, all you need to do is follow these instructions. But since procedures aren’t exactly entertaining, I’m going to explain while fighting pirates.

Log onto www.secondlife.com.

Log in by clicking “Resident Log In”

On the left side of the screen click “My Account”

Chose “Email Settings.”

Enter your e-mail address and verify your password.

Check “I would like to receive offline IM’s via e-mail”

OK, I think that’s the last of them [pistol shot].  OK, now that’s the last of them. 

Next, have your friends send an IM when you’re logged off of Second Life.  You’ll now receive the message in your e-mail. It's going to  come from an address that’s a long string of letters and numbers followed by @im.agni.lindenlab.com.

Now you’ve got a connection, and that address will work for a few days. If you reply to that e-mail, whatever you reply with will show up as an IM from you in Second Life! Now, if your e-mail likes to quote your past e-mail, make sure you delete that before you send the message.

Cool huh? Now I know what you’re thinking. Won’t this clog up my e-mail with a ton of garbage? Well, here’s what I do. When I get an offline IM, I mark it as spam. That moves all of them to my spam filter, which keeps my e-mail clean and on my e-mail it automatically deletes the e-mails after a few days, which is good because you don't need to keep offine IMs for a long time. Even if you have a lot of spam, every offline IM will come with the message subject “Message from Second Life,” so you’ll be able to sort by subject.

Term to Know

Today’s term to know is “sim.”  In Second Life, the term sim actually refers to the hardware holding the region, but it’s also commonly used to refer to a region or private island. So, for example, “My friend just won her own sim,” “The sim is crashing,” or “Get off of my sim before I orbit you,” something like that.

Etiquette Tip

This weeks etiquette tip is all about weapons.  Second life has a VAST selection of very cool weapons, from handguns, to samurai swords, to combat helicopters, to watermelon launchers. Yes, you heard me correctly, I said watermelon launchers.

While they can be a blast to fool around with, you've got to remember a few things:  First, engaging someone in combat in a non- combat region without their consent is not only rude, it can actually get you in trouble. Second, some clubs, stores, or even whole regions don’t allow weapons, EVEN DECORATIVE ONES.  So be prepared to put them away if asked. 

That’s it for this episode!  I’d like to briefly say thanks to everyone who’s listening. This podcast has succeeded beyond my wildest expectations, and I appreciate the opportunity help you have a little more fun.

Send your feedback or question to secondlife@quickanddirtytips.com, the comment line is 206-888-6975, that’s 206-888-MYSL. The Traveling Avatar’s Quick and Dirty Tips for a Better Second Life is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips network, so make sure to check out other great shows like Mr. Manners, and Money Girl, and our new show Legal Lad at QuickAndDirtyTips.com. The first episode tells you what you legally do and don’t have to say when pulled over by the police, so how cool is that? I'm not sure if that applies to when you get in trouble with the Lindens, but I'd like to find out.

So until next time remember, in Second Life a girl can never have too many hairstyles, and a guy can never have too many light sabers.

The Traveling Avatar theme song is B-Roll by Kevin MacLeod.