John "Pathfinder" Lester Runs OpenSim, Transfers Objects From a USB Key & Explains Why It Matters To Educators

Here's an amazing innovation explained by metaverse consultant John Lester, once known as Pathfinder Linden during his days as education evangelist with Linden Lab. Using the Second Life compatible Imprudence viewer, which can easily log into numerous OpenSim worlds and save back-ups of objects you create within them, John was able to make an object in one grid and then move it to another OpenSim grid. Which is very cool, but that's not even the best part. This is: He did it with a USB memory key, even putting his own OpenSim grid on it, and explains how he did so here.

The implications of this are enormous, but I'll let John explain the practical applications he sees for educators:

"I'd say the real practical win is in portability. People use USB keys to move documents and files around between different computers. And to do things like load powerpoint slides when giving demos and presentations. In this case, you can go up to any decent PC anywhere and in minutes have your own virtual world loaded with all your content right there. You can then show it off to other folks, or even build new content on the fly."

But wait, there's more:

The hand of Pathfinder and his cat, Izzy

"Also, in education (and many work environments), it's very hard to get new programs installed on computers. It's hard enough for educators to convince IT staff to let them install SL viewers. Then there's the whole firewall issue and trying to open ports."

"Many educators get around this by installing SL viewers on USB keys and running the viewers that way. With the OpenSim USB key solution, you could go up to any workstation and just run everything off the USB key. The viewer and the world.

"Students could take their USB keys home to work on their projects on their own PCs. All their content would be saved in OpenSim on the USB key. Then they could go back to the classroom, plug the key into their class computer, and work on it there.

"And if they wanted to share their content, they could just use Imprudence to download their stuff, then use Imprudence to upload it to SL or any other online OpenSim."

So a very powerful solution for many needs, especially now. Read more on John's blog here.

Comments

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

This discovery is outstanding. I recall that Penn State was running the SL client years ago on USB sticks for Windows OS machines, to get around software-install limits. But that was only a client, not a grid.

We had folks mentioning this technical breakthrough last night's VWER meeting where Jokay Wollongong spoke (and John was in the audience).

Nice to see educators laying our plans for things not previously possible. Onward.

[LokiLoki]

Exciting yes, is there a way to back up my Avatar from second life to use in these open sims?

[Komuso Tokugawa]

"Here's an amazing innovation from metaverse consultant John Lester"

No offense to pathfinders implementation, but this is a patently untrue statement.

If there is any innovation (and associated research) it appears to be from Roger Stack - as clearly written up on Pathfinders blog.

"Finally I found Roger Stack’s detailed research explaining in simple steps how to get it all set up."

Hamlet...stop with the hyperbole and stick to the facts, and credit where credit is due.

[Graham Mills]

More to the point, virtual worlds akin to SL can now be used far more readily by school kids and in countries with poor or expensive internet access.

[Pathfinder Lester]

@Komuso

I did my best to explain how I was simply following the instructions of pioneers who had figured all the pieces of the puzzle. I mentioned them all by name and linked to their published information. Thanks to the hard work of folks like Ener Hax and Roger Stack, and all the pioneering developers of OpenSim, I was able to do what I did.

The goal of my blog post was to document my own journey and show how simple it was to accomplish. And by doing so, to hopefully help other folks who may be beginning a similar journey of exploration.

[Pathfinder Lester]

@LokiLoki

Ener Hax wrote a bit about how to accomplish that. http://iliveisl.com/save-yourself-exporting-your-shape-from-second-life/

[Adeon Writer]

@Ignatius Perhaps, if you noticed students doing this there, one of those students was me.

Putting Second Life on a flash drive to access SL at college was standard protocol for me.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I can see a future in which Second Life exists only as a central map and service provider for sims hosted by users, and ephemeral nodes twinkle on and off like stars as people plug and unplug their portable universes from the grid.

Some of the more boneheaded decisions LL has made would actually make sense if they're deliberately trying to push the fledglings out of the nest to fly on their own. I doubt it. But it could happen.

[Robert Graf]

Welcome to Opensim. Portability, Backups, No Tier, and No Lindens. No Offense... lol! ;)

[Silverfox Rainbow]

Impudence is not the only viewer that lets you backup things, opensim's hippo viewer can also do similar, it is still also being worked on, and has its bugs as well, but does the same thing
i was running SL off the USB, when i first started, casse my computer was not powerful enough to run it, directly at the time.

[Adeon Writer]

Emerald used to be able to do it too, but nerfed the ability at Linden's own request, back when being on good terms with Linden was something they had in mind.

[Francis_7]

The nice thing about this is that you can backup your entire sim rather quickly in case of database corruption. You can run the hippo viewer and OpenSim on a 2gb flash drive with room to spare! You do need PC's with USB 2.0 on it to make the system work well. Many machines used in education are aproaching the 8-10 year old mark due to cutbacks in education in the past few years and may still be running USB 1.0. Oh and yes.. with Hippo you can run this (server and client) on your basic netbook if you turn the settings all the way down! This really is a fun thing to try. I wonder if Pathfinder was able to use anything besides the default database that comes with Open Sim?

[Hamlet Au]

Komusu, you're right, that was poorly worded on my part, I should have said "an amazing innovation explained by" instead of "an amazing innovation from". And thus I have changed it thus.

[Maria Korolov]

Also, whenever you're on a computer with Internet access (and where you can open a port in the firewall) you can make your little mini-grid visible to the outside world and teleport out to other grids -- and invite people to come visit you.

And if you're on a college or business campus network, then other people on campus can log in -- or teleport into -- your minigrid without the whole hole-in-the-firewall thing.

-- Maria Korolov
Editor, Hypergrid Business

[Graham Mills]

It scales as well. You can run a class for 200 students as easily as for one of 20, simultaneously, on a sim running without undue lag.

[Pathfinder Lester]

Thanks Hamlet. :)

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[Komuso Tokugawa]

@pathfinder np, as I mentioned in my comment you referenced everybody quite obviously

@hamlet ty

[Dave Bell]

I've been trying out OpenSim with this, and doing things I just wouldn't be able to afford to pay for on SL.

There are barriers. Limited content for one. But I have a few things I made myself for SL, such as clothing textures, which I can easily load into my own little Grid. And OpenSim does have some excellent tools to load items into a standalone system.

This also could be a valuable tool for people collaborating within SL. There's a lot which they could do with this approach, before uploading a clean build through a single SL avatar. Having multiple creators on an object in SL can be such a nuisance.

[Ener Hax]

lol, how is it that Pathfinder gets the credit for this? i believe he read it from me and i got it from Roger

and i like that i "wrote a bit" about this! if you want to read more than anyone ever should about sim on a stick, see the 7 or 8 posts i have talking about everything from stick speed to importing OAR files

Roger did not invent this but has written the best and easiest directions on doing it

if i can install it, then i must be easy

proper respects must be given to Crista Lopes for creating the OpenSim distribution that works on sim on a stick and then to Roger for pulling it all together

no disrespect to Pathfinder but i hate seeing credit given to the incorrect people

OpenSim people like Crista work very hard to make OpenSim usable by everyone

in fact, donate to OpenSim, to OSGrid, and to the viewer you use. you can also donate directly to the developers like Crista and Justin CC

[Niko Donburi]

I'll just echo what's said above, and stress that with Roger's video walk-through (http://blip.tv/file/4164705) you can get up and running on your own with minimal time and effort.