* Pure Neglect *

Is this the most neglected blog you have ever read?

place your bets NOW!!

I'm HERE!

I'm here and can happily report that memory failure doesn't have to be forever! It's a long story but don't worry I'm back now..... all that remains is for me to remember where I am!!

So it must be March now? yes? I best get my spring range on sale ready for Easter then. OOooo I should have a fashion parade..... ok no, I'm not reliving the April 5th day of doom. Merry Christmas, the best present I have had *so far* this year is remembering my password after it completely vanished from my memory! Now I just need to remember my chip & pin number so I can buy everyone some presents!

Here

No, not 'here' as in my blog! Not even blogspot! I'm talking about HERE ;p

I've just visited Torley's island 'Here' in Second Life and it's awesome. If you haven't visited yet WHY NOT? Go now and get your teeth into some of Torley's video tutorials. Even when you think you know it all, you don't know everything... but don't worry... Torley does!!

Did you miss me? I have information that could change your life forever!

Has it really been a month since my last post? No, that has to be a mistake.... where does time go? OK watch out for a few posts this week because I have some new releases and some more Linden Bears!!!!

Back to the reason for this post! I have just heard about a superbly rewarding contest that is happening inworld this week. Shep Korvin of Lucky Designs (inventor of the 'Original Lucky Chair') is offering you a chance to get your face on his latest world dominating product... You could be FAMOUS, this is not like a 'Face of XYZ Inc' contest, this is BIGGER! In addition to some juicy L$, you could win the chance to have your face in not just one, but hundreds of stores, malls, clubs and other miscellaneous venues throughout Second Life. For full details see *this* post on Shep Korvin's blog.

The closing date is 'probably' 25th July 2008.... so Hurrrrrrrrrrry!!

Soooo Cuddly!!

I've been meaning to post this one for a few days! I got my first Linden Bear from Sidewinder when I met him! I thought I would share him... so here he is!!

Watch out for 'impostor' Lindens!!

I've just been having a little walk to clear my mind and I came across a real 'impostor' Linden! Now this is sort of cool because I have never met a Linden before... but look... OMG.. it's Sidewinder! You know who I mean, he's responsible for Havok4 (love it or hate it... as you wish!). Now I think Havok4 is great, wasn't so sure in the early days, but who likes change? anyway I can prove it was an 'impostor' because I snapped the above screenshot :)

Remember when impostors were first introduced in 1.19 and society crumbled because people were pixellating left, right and centre? then came the news that it was a new feature!! Hey guess what.. I hated it so much I still have it turned on!!!

Hold on.... that's not an impostor... it's the *real* Sidewinder!!!! OooooMG ok ok ok calm down, he's just a Linden and I'm behaving like I just met Val Kilmer... actually... get a closer look and he looks a little like Val Kilmer!! See the piccy below if you don't beleive me!

Anyway, I just wanted to share my wonderful news... I met and had a conversation with a Linden, and not just any old bod, a real, known, hardworking one!

(disclaimer: All Lindens work very hard so please do not read anything into my 'hardworking' comment!)

Making my mind up...!

Remember how many times I have rebuilt my main store? That was necessary to find what I was going to be happy with. The moment I finished that build I knew *that* was it. The same with the logo. I have been through a few now, but finally have *the* perfect one!

I am lucky to be blessed with good friends and certainly couldn't have got to where I am without them. Now that I am happy with my store & happy with my brand I can dedicate myself to meaningful content creation.... bringing my imagination into your world !!

So, when you are looking for genuine VR Designs merchandise.... this is what you are looking for....

Multi-Tasking Rules!

Now... I'm not going to tell anyone what exactly I've been up to because that *would* be telling!! But a friend very recently asked how I've managed to prepare some new releases while I'm doing all the *other* things I've been doing lately! Well it's easy! I can multi-task!! As a matter of fact, I probably work better when I dip in and out of different things because I get to approach things with a fresh mind time and time again ;)

Anyway I'm only preparing this post to save my bacon.. I promised.. so here it is!!

I have just been taking some pictures of new releases, so..... hot off the press... here they are!! These two are called Jenni & Jolie, they will be in the store by the end of the day! (Darn there goes another promise!)

Oh... did I forget to say... NEW LOGO... so I want some comments because that is something ELSE I've been upto... and it took me Hooooooooooouuuuuuurs!!

In my multi-tasking frame of mind I'll leave you with something a little fun that totally fits in with this post!!!! Enjoy!

Look at me! Look at me! Look at me NOW!

It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how!

I can hold up the cup, and the milk and the cake!

I can hold up these books! and the fish on a rake!

I can hold the toy ship and a little toy man!

and look! with my tail..

I can hold a red fan!

I can fan with the fan, as I hop on the ball!

But that's not all. Oh NO. That's not all....

disclaimer: I did not write and do not have any claim to the
above extract!

Mile High Club

Has it really been over two weeks since I bored you silly with my windlight delight? Well it's also been almost two weeks since my last Fashcon notice. This doesn't mean I haven't done anything for two weeks, though some may argue that point quite sucessfully!

So, where have I been for two weeks? take another look at the title....
.... no, not what you think *tut*, that's really naughty! I've been hanging around in my mile high(ish) skybox making things! I've been quite productive actually! I just haven't had a moment to take pictures, make boxes and communicate!! How about this... the first person to IM me and correctly tell me why the chosen picture is sooo wrong wins L$500 worth of goodies from my store.

I currently have two events running in the store. The first one (that ends soon) is a treasure trail. To take part all you have to do is click the treasure trail welcome board at the landing point and follow the clues until you find the box of goodies at the end!! The second event is a straight forward treasure hunt... no lollypops to lick this time round, just ten high quality designer items (in their original wall vendors) marked down to just L$1. All you have to do is find them!!! Good Luck!!

The group has not yet reached 100, I am still planning to send a goodie box to the whole group when it hits 100 so spam... no, I mean 'invite' your friends to join!!!

I have changed the music stream at the store to VoltRadio in support of my old friend DJ Sly/DJ Drew who is now a fully fledged DJ! Funny how virtual friends don't have voices... but OMG I just realised... Drew does!! (and I knew him before he was famous!!!!!) Anyway, if you are reading.... I wish you every success in your DJing career and look forward to listening to more of your superb music - any chance of some Meat Loaf?!

I guess this is where I sign off for today. Nag me a little and I will get my new released on sale!! If I haven't posted again by Friday feel free to IM me and call me naughty names!!

It just goes to show, money doesn't make the world go round - nVidia does!!!

Has it really been over 2 weeks since I last updated? I've been so busy! Doesn't time fly!


SO, here is my latest news. I have just signed a 12 month L$95,000,000 contract with the hottest modeling company in SL.



Actually, I have just installed my new graphics card and this is a picture taken for my favourite stalkers. I cannot believe how much difference a decent graphics card makes! I can wazz everything up to highest quality ..... am still able to walk, fly & tp!!! Magic!!

The morning after the night before

Thank you Second Life® (no generic nouns here to keep my blog PG).

Thank you models, you did a great job with all the odds against you.

Trademarks & Political Correctness

I have been making changes to old posts as would certainly have been noticed by my regular stalkers. Now why oh why would I waste so much of my valuable time? Here is the short, straight forward story!

Linden Lab® have released the 'Second Life® brand centre' and issued guidelines on the legal & acceptable use of all terms that may be related to the Second Life® virtual world. It does not matter that the only people interested in reading my ramblings are Second Life® residents and are part of the same SL™ community as I am, therefore knowing that I do not own or in any way claim to own the Second Life® virtual world or any of the 'tag words' associated with it. Now what happened to Your World. Your Imagination.™ (tagline owned in whole by Linden Lab®, the creators and owners of the Second Life® virtual world).

I apologise if I have missed any registered trademark during my editing, this does not constitute me expressing any ownership or rights to them.

Thank you for reading

Second Life and LindeX are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.

Under Construction *AGAIN*

Sometimes it feels like all I ever do is build and rebuild. I call myself a fashion designer but feel like I do more building than I do designing! One day I'll be happy with my store *maybe*, but until then I'll probably continue with this endless feeling job.

I'm on a pretty quiet little sim, lag is usually not an issue and after looking at the *small* details that I wish to change I finally decide that the time has come to get this project pushing the boundaries of architecture. I don't know exactly what I'm doing or how I am going to do it... but here goes! I have put the boards around my development area - better than closing the store down completely, that's what all the big RL stores do isn't it?

I'm getting started on the work and before I know it I have to stop for a while and tend to RL....... ok back now! I really should be finishing the photoshoot I started.... it'll take maybe 20 minutes out of my busy building schedule. Once that is done my 'things to do urgently' list will be looking a little better and I don't have to feel guilty about moving some walls around in my possibly already *adequate* store.

Photo number one comes up trumps, I'm just about to take number two and................ OH NO not NOW. My region will be restarting in 5 minutes. I can't really move because these 6 pictures have to be identical poses in an identical position from an identical angle. I best rush through them or I'll have to start over. I don't have time to waste. Hold on, only a mere 30 seconds has passed and I have another of these irritating blue boxes.... Region restarting in 3 minutes. Are minutes in the Second Life® world much shorter than RL ones?

Luckily I got the 6 pictures I needed just before my time was up. In panic i'm scrambling around with my mouse trying to get on to the map to TP away before the land is ripped from under my blingy prim shoed feet. Everywhere around me will be restarting too I suspect..... quick.... think of a sim, any sim... just not too local to here.......... Got one.... right, where do I want to land.... Clickety click...TP QUICK


Phewww I did it! Having lived a very boring life recently I can only think of one sim name in a very, very split second.... but I'm there! I've landed in a classy, executive looking courtyard. I'm surrounded by crazy paving and palm trees on the edge of a tropical looking sim. Behind me is the deep blue ocean... I walk forward and see a great sight, Smith Jacobs; a skelleton, clearly he's been camping so long that he's dead! (how many points do I get for working that out?) the hover text reads "Smith Jacobs earned 239l$ so far - time: 27 years 54 days". Now that gives me an idea... I'd like to vaporise all soul-less campers because they drive me mad! I refuse to rent a shop in a mall full of campers because the land traffic figures are nothing more than a fraud.

Anyway, back to the classy place I now find myself in.... the owner of the establishment has a tip Jar, I tip him $50 because he saved me from the darkness and doom of the region restart that threatened to eat me alive! While I am standing here looking upon *hopefully* the fate of zombie campers in the Second Life® virtual world, two people arrive, I wonder if they like this place as much as I do? I'll never know because when they start speaking.... it's in another language!


So 41 minutes after I arrived and hung around making this lovely place look untidy (while I typed this!!) I am going to leave Smith Jacobs to rest in peace! My host will by now have received his *small* token of appreciation and know exactily where I took refuge!!

(and just in case you missed the point of this ramble - I'm making improvements to my store!)

Itchy Feet And Virtual Removal Vans

I’ve been around the (virtual) world, oh yes! I’ve had shops in the strangest of places! Some successful, some not so successful and some expensive mistakes! I have learnt some lessons and no doubt I have more to learn. My main store has had to grow with my business so I have had to move around quite a bit but have hopefully now settled happily on my very own 4096 square metre parcel in Plush Rho.

Initially I ran my business from a 20 prim ‘pod’ at TE’s mini mall in Dingo, then realised that 20 prims just wouldn't do! I moved up to a rented 512 square metre parcel in Bunyip but within three months was running so short on prims that I packed up and moved to a rented 1024 square metre parcel in Canfield.


Canfield was a busy place! I spent a lot of time there in my basement designing, picturing and boxing up lots of new designs, until eventually in October 2007 I outgrew the store.

I moved back to my original starting point in Dingo where I shared a 2048 square metre parcel with TE Yates (around ¾ of it was for my use). This was one of the highlights of my time in the SL™ community. I had great neighbours at 'Knuckleheads Tatoos & More' and it was Halloween - wOOt! I decorated my store with webs and ghosts, dressed up for the occasion and best of all.... I took part in Shep's Hallween Hunt 'Trick or Treat 2007'. I rented a vendor spot over at the central hub and designed some great themed outfits for the event.

Unfortunatly - I knew it was going to happen - TE sold up all her land in December so that she could enjoy a more ‘come and go as I please’ life. I considered my options and decided it was time to buy my own land so I headed over to Anshe Chung’s Dreamland.

On December 23rd 2007 I bought a lovely, peaceful, lag free 3072 square metre parcel in Plush Eta, built my store and installed all my wonderful Lucky Designs paraphernalia. I was happy! I had never imagined life could be THIS free from lag! Not complaining though, it was wonderful to teleport in and have everything there, rezzed and ready to use! But one morning I logged in and was a little confused, was I back on the mainland? I’ve never known lag like it; not even on the mainland to be perfectly honest. I went over to the central island to check the SIM stats and found that performance was running at 20%… ohh dropping to 16%… ohh no dropping again to 12%. I contacted the wonderful Dreamland Angels and the SIM was restarted, there was clearly something wrong as it was only running at 30% after the restart. On my way back to my parcel I noticed some new buildings on the previously empty parcel adjacent to mine. Assuming this probably had something to do with the drained resources I took a look and found that they had built a casino and nightclub. They were running so many scripted items, spinning, flashing lights, particle emitters, moving light rails that were entirely voice activated. I couldn’t believe it. One inconsiderate neighbour had destroyed my peace and 50% of my store wouldn’t even rez. Dreamland restarted the sim several times a day but the situation got worse as the ‘Lag Monster’ neighbour continued to install more and more flashing things. I battled on for a further couple of weeks before getting in touch with dreamland and requesting a move. Within 24 hours I had found the perfect spot, a 4096 square metre parcel in Plush Rho…. My current haunt!!!

Now remember the ‘learning curve from hell’ I spoke of earlier? I really hope I have finished climbing it now!!! I think it’s about time to sit back a relax a little and start designing again !!

Moving every three months is not fun at all so I wouldn't advise it to anyone!! I've got more prims than I could have dreamed of last year so I certainly wont be outgrowing the new store!!

Lag, Lost Inventory & Objects that Vanish On Rez!

If you don’t know what lag is you have clearly never been to the Second Life® world! If it wasn’t such a great place to hang out I’d have jumped ship long ago. I’m not even talking about NOW, I’m talking about more like April 2007. I know the lost inventory problems have been going on since long before I joined SL, but I learnt yet another lesson. One weekend every third item I rezzed vanished and I had quite a few customers ask for another copy of a ’No Copy’ item they had purchased, since I had suffered myself I obliged and made my decision to set everything to Copy/No Transfer.

After making this change, only a copy of the item would be eaten, as the original was still (hopefully) safely in the customers inventory! So there you have it… another valuable lesson learnt and eradicated! (also the answer to a question I have been asked time and time again - Why are your items set to No Transfer?)

Empire Building Take Two: One Part Cement, Two parts Sand & One Part Water!

I may have climbed the ‘learning curve from hell’ but things would get much easier from here for sure! I had shown my work to my friend TE Yates along the way and she offered me a small shop in her mini mall. Thank you TE, where would I be today without you? In return for her kindness I gave her a full perm copy of my two dresses for her to put into her Lucky Chair - whatever that was - and asked her to set the perms for next owner to ‘No Copy’ when she distributed them. She did exactly as I asked and I tested it with her - though it took many resets to get the chair to call a V - I figured that it would be nice to let people pass the dress on to a friend if they hated it or had already won one. Mistake number…. What am I up to? Three??


One morning I logged in and went over to my little shop only to find somebody had rented the shop next door and put my dresses up for sale at half the box price. How could this be? I was very upset, after all I had gone through, someone was trying to sell MY hard work as their own. As it turns out they were single copies that he had won from the Lucky Chair a mere 20 metres away. Once TE came online and I spoke with her it was cleared up quickly but I my confidence had been dented. The freeloader himself actually became a friend, though sadly he has since left the SL™ community completely. SO just in case you ever read this, thank you Ernesto, you helped me in the hardest of ways!


So having learnt a lesson about the lack of morality in our previously lovely, happy, flowery world I decided that freebies were best set to No Transfer! I continued to grow my collection and opened a bigger store on a rented 512 square metre parcel in Bunyip. I installed four of these ‘Lucky Chair’ things that TE had and business started booming. So my third big thank you is to Shep Korvin of Lucky Designs for his fantastic invention. If you don’t know what a Lucky Chair is… where have you been? Get yourself over the Bermuda immediately and start living a lucky life!!





Pictured Right: Bunyip April 2007- my first 'real' store... featuring my four lucky chairs (spot me on the left in my 'little black dress')

Empire Building Take One: The Sand And Water Way!

I started building my empire in January 2007 and had lots of fun learning about the wonders and pitfalls of working with flexi prims! Ok I admit I was useless! I made some lovely skirts and as soon as I added flex they drooped and hung around my knees and ankles! Mmmm I must have been doing something wrong! I worked on it for a few days before realising that the flex clearly works from bottom to top rather than top to bottom! I had cracked it! I made my first two flexi dresses, Lava Queen and Blue Lagoon.

Ok so that was surely it, I could just make clothes now! wOOt! I decided to make a cute black leather zip-up corset and thong set; your virtual life isn’t complete until you own one and ladies can wear them too!! I downloaded a set of Chip Midnight templates and set to work. It didn’t take very long and soon I was ready to upload. First was the corset, everything went great and it looked cool, not bad for a first try! Then time for the thong, how could anything go wrong now? I paid my L$10 for the texture upload and created a new set of underpants but strangely something HAD gone wrong!! My thong - from the front - looked like a pair of shorts that had split up the inner leg. I took another look at the texture and decided I had obviously created too much fabric so I started to reduce it, shorter and shorter. A dozen or so uploads later I gave up, I was defeated. It was a painful experience and I couldn’t think about anything else for days. “OK one more try” I thought to myself, and this time….. It worked!!! I wished there had been a way to test the textures without paying L$10 each time, but accepted that succeeding was worth all the L$ I had wasted! It took me many more months, but I finally found the preview clothing feature on the upload screen!!! “Can I get my wasted L$ back now please?”!!

Hello and welcome to my first ever blog!

Ok so the title is a little unimaginitive! ..but it is a description of the aim of my new blog!

I am VictoriaRose Daniels and I own 'VR Designs Ladies Fashion' in the Second Life® virtual world. I hope to have some lovely pictures and information here very soon so watch this space! In the meantime why not check out my store inworld at Plush Rho.


This picture is of me at a friend's wedding in one of my earliest outfits, made especially for the wedding. I also made this outfit in Blue and Green!