Classifieds don't show in "all" search

Yeah well, what sort of month was this then?

Earlier this month, parcel descriptions in SL kept being capped. The reason is a bug in the current SL server version which randomly deleted everything in your parcel description in a new line (after a [enter]).This of course made traffic numbers go down, lowered search ranking and basically residents can't find you, since your keywords are not in search.

Shortly after a massive load of Xstreet delivery errors kicked in.
What happened was, merchants received a "delivery error message" for a failed purchase and the customer wasn't charged but in many cases received the product. Lucky enough Xstreet staff can now access resident inventories and check if the items are there or not. However, this has never happened since I use Xstreet which has always been a great marketplace to me.

Since all them issues are not enough, Xstreet changed the "session live-time" when you login to the site. For the ones amongst use who are actually pretty active on their forum this means, you have to constantly login again every time you receive a post notification for a forum topic reply.

The login wouldn't even be the problem. The thing is, if you click on a email link, login to Xstreet.. you end up on the "my account" page and you're not re-directed to the actual target. So you tab back out of your browser, bring up your email client again just to click on the link again so you can follow the topic (or whatever you do).

Finally, today is friday and the last day of this buggy month... paid in-world classifieds don't show in the SL search since today in the morning (GMT). Now don't get me wrong, we're not talking about classifieds from the "classifieds tab". We're talking about the "paid classifieds" you would see on the right side when searching under "All" or online on search.secondlife.com.

Sorry LL, but get a grip.. it's weekend, the customers are out shopping and people have thousands of L$'s in classifieds not showing up. I checked for our top keywords and I'm not very happy with the results. Anyway, I thought I share this, so share it with others...

-Wise

Configure iVend vendor's with "tags"...

Hey all,
today I'll write about a Apez.iVend vending system feature, most merchants don't know even exists.

Since the release of iVend 2.3 it is possible to create affiliate vendors and pass this vendors to other avatars. In order for your resale vendors to work for your affiliate, the collection & product names are stored in the vendors object description when you configure them on Apez.biz. Now, once you save the configuration, the system sends your settings to the vendor in-world and stores the information to the vendors object description.

In order to quick-config your vendors, or affiliate vendors from in-world, all you need is your collection names and product names. Note, the shorter and logical your collection- / product names are, the easier it is for you to config vendors by editing the object description.

The "tag" for the vendor description looks like this:
prodcut name from collection name by merchant name

Note, you should always avoid using from and by in your collection or product names. It can mess up your affiliate vendor config since both words are used to fetch the vendor setting from the database.

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Here some samples setting up vendors with tags.
I've added some Apez.tags under each line for better understanding.

Single prim vendor:
product name from collection name by merchant name

Apez.tools control-demon (builders edition) from apez.tools by ApezProducts Engineer

This will assign 1 product from 1 collection ''by avatar name'' to your vendor. The tag "by merchant name" is only required for affiliate vendors. If you're planing to use this vendor yourself, you only need to add product name from collection name to the vendor description.

Multi-panel vendor:
coll:collection name (merchant name) coll:2nd collection name (merchant name)

coll:Apez.textures (ApezProducts Engineer) coll:Apez.tools (ApezProducts Engineer)

This setup will assign 2 collections to any multi-panel vendor.
Including the (merchant name) behind the collection name allows you to give a copy of the vendor to other residents for resale. If you only planing on using this vendors yourself, you only need is:

coll:collection name coll:collection name in your vendor description.

Once you configured your first affiliate vendor, simply right-click it and select '''take copy'''. This will create a copy of the pre-configured vendor in your inventory. Repeat this step for all products you want to create affiliate vendors with, then box them up and put them on sale or give them to your friends.

Related: Apez.wiki - How-to setup affiliate vendors

Have fun playing with this,
-Wise

Remember the pins...?

Remember the good old pins we all used to have?

They are back and you can get them at the re.act main store.

Dave from re.act just released 60 or 64 of them sweet little things. He put a lot of detail into all the different pins and they are only tagged with 50L$ a peace. Beside the pins you'll find all sorts of clubbing gear, dj equipment, visuals and more at his store. Check it out, it's well worth the visit.

Enjoy,
-Wise

Got the style sorted :-)

Yeah!

1st. day of my private blogging day is over and it was fun. Got the style fixed up a little and are quite pleased with the result. Took me a few hours but I think this is it... :-)

I added a google calendar iframe to the right.
Shows Apez and the LL grid status when selected. I think I will make better use of the Apez calendar this way. :-)

I also added my google ready to the bottom, but not atisfied with the result. I wonder if there is a hack for blogger.com so that posts like the one bellow are capped with a "read more" option. Got a little carried away on that first post which made it quite long :-)

Anyone know of a widget to import my twitter timeline?

-Wise

I guss I'll start blogging..

Wohoo, finally I decided to keep my own blog online about my life in the Metaverse - or the virtual world of Second Life.

I joined SL after a report on TV (yes, me too) after I been doing scenario design for games like Operation Flashpoint, Armed Assault and the military version of it Virtualbattlespace 2. Joining SL sure was a change from what I was used to from being a active combat simulator freak for many years.

If you compare for example VBS2 to Second Life, it's 2 different worlds.
VBS2 is a simulator for the serious games market, used by law enforcement agencies and the military around the world. In VBS2 you create (or play) scenarios staged on islands up to 400 square KM in size. Operating anything from vehicles, choppers, small squads, platoons up to controlling whole operations as forwrd observer or instructor.

Yes, you can see how different this is to what you'll find in Second Life.
However, somehow SL got a hold of me and wont let go any more, which is fine with me btw. I started in SL with a very small Department Store, or Mall on the themed Knighstbridge Sim. Learned a few important SL lessions in that time, but let's not look back and talk about people. ;-)

Knightsrbidge is also the place where I first met Snap Spitteler.
Snap became a good friend of mine in the last 2 years and still is my Sl business partner today.. He hasn't gotten an easy partner - no asking - but we get along great and I'd like to thank him for being a friend for the last 2 years.

Snap, I know I can be a pain, but I love you bro!

With Snap I later formed [SLCI] or SL Content Innovations.
[SLCI] used to create residential and comemrcial prefabs, custom building and we had a small selection of building tools, textures and gadgets on sale. We enjoyed creating the products for [SLCI] so much that we certainly spend some insane hours online in SL over the last... 1 1/2 years. We sure had our up and downs in SL, learned our lessions, had our losses... but even today I still enjoy Second Life a lot. Maybe not as much any more as I did 2 years ago, but I still enjoy my virtual life, with all it's up and downs on a daily base.

Early in October 2008 I got chatting with Cenji Neutra who owns and operates Apez.biz in SL. I have been using the Apez.products and services since my early SL days and always loved it.

Apez is one of SL's largest provuder for web-enabled lease and vending systems called Apz.auto-lease and Apez.iVend. I don't want to start advertising on my private blog right now, so please visit the Apez.site or the Apez.emporium in SL to see "our" whole product range and services. I think I'll have enough to blog about Apez and other things in the future.

Cenji wanted to know if Snap and me would be interesed in merging SL Content Innovation with Apez. Like I said, I always loved the Apez system and while (at first) it is difficult to get the hang of, the infrastructure Cenji has created around Apez and SL is some amazing work. The current website doesn't do it justice but - thank god - this will change soon.

After I discussed the pro and con's of a possible merger with Sanp for a while we finally agreed to go ahead with it and give up [SLCI] which was quite sad. I'll sure keep our [SLCI] logos, signs and other stuff for a long time. To always remind me of the last 2 years.

And this is what I do today in my Second Life.
Officially I'm the Apez Public Relations Manager. Part of my job is it to enforce the apez brand, public presence and coordinating advertising across SL and related web sites.

As part of this I also manage the Apez.promote network. Apez.promote is a web based banner network for SL related web sites. With currently 20 participating sites advertisers reach thousands of residents with their campaigns from 1 central point. Please view the Apez.wiki for more details if you'd liek to advertise or participate in the network.

I'm also part of the Apez.support team to assist in the daily ticket workflow we get from Apez customers about products, services, the promote network etc. If you ever talked to Apez.support chances are big we met. ;-)

Now, if all the above leaves me some spare time.. I edit the wiki :-)
While Cenji has created a great site, service and products since 2005, maintaining the products and services didn't leave much time to structure the wiki and keep it maintained. If you recently looked at it, you'll see that it has changed quite a bit - but is still not complete and we're basically working on it now on a daily base.

So yeah, this is me and what I do in "My Virtual Life".
I could write on now for a while, but would most likely end up talking 5 hours about Apez.. and this is not the purpose of this blog.

So yeah, I type and type and type and all of ya think "Okay, so what does he want to say?"

Nothing... just trying to get the blog started somehow and this is the result.
In the future I will write here about the things I encounter in SL, teh stuff that wants to make me rant, and anything I feel a urge to share. You're welcome to follow...

Thanks for stopping by... -Wise