Monash Chinese Island

Like to have a look around Chinese Island or Second Life in general but not sure how get started?  Please read on!

Getting started

To enter Second Life you need to open an account. This is free and easily done.

1. Open www.secondlife.com

2.  Look for the ‘Get Started’ symbol on the SL home page and click

3. You will then be taken to a page headed ‘1. Create an Account’. On this page you will:

- Create an ‘avatar’

• An avatar is your virtual ‘body’ in Second Life
• Choose from a range of basic ‘looks’
• Your looks – shape, gender, skin, hair, eyes, clothes, etc. – can all be customised once you enter Second Life

- Create a name for your avatar

• You can use any first name you desire
• Some people like to use their real first name for ease of remembering. Others, however, prefer to choose something completely different as they wish to create a persona completely different from their own
• You must choose a surname from a set list provided by Linden Labs, the providers of Second Life.
• Choose your names carefully, as you will not be able to change them once your account is established (unless you establish a totally new account, which becomes more complicated once you begin to accumulate a few ‘things’ in SL as many things are not easily transferred)
• Be aware that if you are going to use your avatar for professional purposes some names may be offensive to others and may harm you professional image

- Input an email address

• This must be a ‘real’ email address so that Linden Labs can send you a confirmation email
• Some people prefer to establish a new email address for their SL persona rather than use an existing work or private one

- Enter country

- Date of birth

• The critical thing here is that you must be over 13 to enter the ‘main grid’ (i.e. the birthdate you enter must indicate this)

- Real Life first name and surname

• Here you need to consider if you are going to upgrade your account from a free one to a paying one so that you can own land and access Linden Lab support services. If so, you should enter your real details. If you are going to be using your avatar for professional purposes you should also consider giving your real details
• Other than for the above reasons, you do not have to enter your real details here

- Complete entering other details and read TOR

4.  Once you have received the confirmation email, you can then move to the next stage and download the Second Life viewer and install it on your computer (free of charge)

• Be sure to check the minimum computer and Internet connection requirements ( http://secondlife.com/support/sysreqs.php)

5. Once the viewer software has been downloaded and installed, if it doesn’t start automatically, look for the Second Life hand icon on your desktop and double click or click ‘Start’ and ‘All Programs’ (Windows), then scroll down and look for the folder titled ‘Second Life’ and click on the hand icon with ‘Second Life’ next to it.

6. Enter you avatar’s first name, surname and password, then click ‘Log In’.

• The first time you log in you will go straight to a location pre-determined by Linden Labs
• Once logged in, click on the following link to get what is called an SLURL (Second Life URL) to Chinese Island. Clicking the link will open a separate browser page with a map and a clickable SLURL icon on it that is labelled ‘teleport now’ which you should click:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Monash%20University%202/201/176/26

• You will be asked to ‘Allow this website to open a program on your computer’. You should click ‘Allow’
• After you have clicked allow, a new smaller window will open up in your SL viewer with information about the destination that you will be teleporting to. You should click ‘teleport’, after which you will be automatically ‘TPd’ to your destination (just outside the front door of the Tongfu Inn)