saving the appearance of your avatar

there's an old adage: "if it's important back it up. if it's really important, back it up TWICE"

I strongly advise saving the appearance of your avatar - you really want to do this, often!
consider it a backup of your body shape, just in case things go wrong.

the Appearance of your avatar has to do with body shape, and features.  i.e. you've made your avatar a certain height, feet a certain size, eyes, ears, nose, etc...

right-click on your avatar, select Appearance

when the Appearance Window opens, look at the bottom.  select: Save As 
another window will open

for the file name I suggest this format for saving your first body shape:

! My Body Shape [current date]

• exclamation point
  
• two (2) spaces
  
• My Body Shape (just a suggestion :)
• current date in square brackets (using the date for reference)

this format serves three purposes:
i) the exclamation point denotes this as very important! :)
ii) because of the ASCII values of characters, the ASCII value of the exclamation point (33) will place this at the top, preceding all common characters.
iii) only a space (32) precedes an exclamation point, hence the 2 spaces :)


click: Save; OK

this file will end up in the system folder: My Body.  located at the top of the inventory window.

if anything goes wrong with your avatar shape, you just WEAR your Shape again.

using this method you can make other shapes with the same body, or try different body shapes and save those under a different name.

Step Closer Instead of Cropping for More Interesting Photos

Step Closer Instead of Cropping for More Interesting Photos [Photography Tip]: "
Nowadays, we can do so much photo editing after the fact that we often don't realize what a difference framing makes. Despite what you may think, stepping forward will probably be better than cropping later (or digital zoom) when taking photos.
Photo by ralphbijker.

Helen Bradley explains on her Pro Photo Blog:

If there is one technique most digital camera users can use today to instantly improve their photos it is to stand at least two or three steps closer to their subject. Most photographers stand too far away from their subjects so the subject ends up being very small relative to the rest of the photo. When you move closer to your subject you make them larger in the viewfinder so they fill the photograph.

When you're taking a picture of an actual object, like a person, a tighter photo is far more interesting and dramatic than one with lots of background. In the age of digital cameras many of us less seasoned professionals often think that we can just crop and zoom after the fact, but that isn't necessarily so—cropping and digital zooming do not achieve the same effect as actually getting the lens closer to the subject (note that optical zooming does work, in this case—most cameras have both, so if you have to use the zoom, make sure you're using the right one). Got any other tips for more interesting photos? Share them in the comments!

Better Photos Tip #8 - Take 2 steps forward [Pro Photo Blog via Lifehacker Australia]

Logins, Inworld Services and Support Down for Maintenance February 8th at 5 a.m. Pacific

Logins, Inworld Services and Support Down for Maintenance February 8th at 5 a.m. Pacific:
Monday, February 8 2010 at 5:00 a.m. Pacific, we’ll be closing logins and disabling major inworld services for ninety minutes of upgrade work on our databases.
During the maintenance, logins, account registrations, XStreetSL, and the land store will be unavailable, along with Support Ticketing, Live Chat and telephone support.
The Knowledge Base will remain available.
Residents who are in world will not be disconnected when maintenance begins, but will lose access to services such as mapping, teleport, inventory, object and L$ transfers, and LindeX.
We’ll warn in world several minutes before the outage begins, and we’ll post any changes to the scope and schedule of the work here as they develop.
We appreciate that this will inconvenience a number of our Residents. The maintenance work is to enhance the stability and performance of our database-backed services.

new photos online

I have new photos online in my portfolio.
Romano Photography
My girl, who is also my business manager, also doubles as my very gracious and wonderful model :)
If you would like unique profile and/or portfolio photos done, contact me in Second Life and request an appointment for a photo shoot.
Go to my profile for prices and details.

second life tips

I've learned many tips and tricks in Second Life, and I'm happy to share them with others.
hey, we were all newbies :)
so I will be posting tips, tricks, settings, and such, on my blog.
check back often. heck, become a Fan of my Blog :)

however, my passion, my business, in Second Life is photography.
I specialize in portrait and fashion photography.
Click on my Google Profile for details, and check out my online album :)