Second Life for Dummies

You’ve heard all about Second Life. Maybe you’ve already jumped with both feet—and gotten stuck. Or maybe you’re a Second Life veteran who wants to build something or run a business. Fear not! Second Life For Dummies is hear to hold your hand, pat your back, and cheer you on through this new and enchanting reality.

Written by a pair of Second Life old timers, this easy-to-use, flip-and-find guide is packed with expert advice, seasoned insight, and handy tips and tricks to get you moving fast. You’ll find out how to set up your account, create an avatar, meet people and socialize, and find your comfort zone and stay in it. But it’s a big world out there, so you’ll also learn how to make stuff, buy stuff, do stuff, and keep track of all the stuff you’re accumulating. Discover how to

• Install Second Life get started
• Create and customize your avatar
• Meet and get to know fascinating people
• Stay safe and comfortable as you learn and explore
• Make, wear, and sell your own fashions
• Script your Second Life
• Buy land and build a house
• Become a land baron or a money maker
• Make real money in Second Life
• Get a real-life education—even a degree

Complete with fantastic lists of cool places, answers to big questions, and supplemental software, Second Life For Dummies is your ticket to a great virtual adventure.

Sarah “Intellagirl” Robbins is the Director of Emerging Technologies for Media Sauce (www.mediasauce.com) in Carmel, Indiana, as well as a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric at Ball State University, where she teaches Rhetoric and Composition by using Second Life. She currently spends her time blogging at Ubernoggin.com and researching technology trends for education and marketing. She’s frequently on the go, giving talks all over the country about Second Life and Web 2.0 topics.
Sarah is the proud mother of five-year-old triplets (Morrigan, Teagan, and Xander), who recognize her avatar as “Mommy!” When she’s not hanging with the munchkins, she’s reading a few hundred blogs daily, attending seminars, knitting, and collecting socks. And yes, she does have pink hair in real life, too!

Mark Bell is a Ph.D. student in Telecommunications at Indiana University, where he studies social networks in virtual worlds with the Synthetic Worlds Initiative. Before going back to school, Mark spent 14 years in the software industry as a trainer, a documentation specialist, and an all-about super geek. He is a Canadian transplant in Hoosier Land and gets back across the border north (where they understand “real sports”) as often as he can. Mark is the father of Jackson, who is five. Mark blogs at Storygeek.com
In their “free” time, Mark and Sarah run the Second Life Researcher’s List (SLRL), throw parties for their starving grad student friends, and play Wii games with four five-year-olds.