Second Life: where to get started

Yikes! A tree! Hang-gliding in Second Life... Perhaps I should have stayed on Orientation Island longer?

Assumption #1 You haven't been lost in the jungle for the last three years
You've heard of Second Life (aka SL), right? If not, the SL home page gives you a good overview of SL and what it's all about.

Assumption #2 Your PC is up to spec
Assuming that your computer is up to the technical specifications for Second Life, you've downloaded it, entered it, wondered who the hell wrote all the hype about Second Life but are still curious... then the following are decent places to begin:

Getting started guides

• The New Media Consortium (NMC) has an excellent Getting Started guide
  
• The brief getting started guide provided by Red {an orchestra} I found useful
• You also have the Unofficial Complete Fool's Guide to SL
  
• Inworld you can bring up "Help" by pressing F1 (note particularly the section on basics)
  
• Back in the real world, you might want to go to the Second Life Knowledge Base for further information
  

Tips I wish someone had given me

• Spend sufficiently long on "Orientation Island" in order to be able to find your way around, and do things: you particularly want to be able to move and view comfortably
• Start by attending an event people actually turn up for, or else arrange to go "inworld" with friends -- otherwise you'll probably find most islands are totally deserted, and playing Robinson Crusoe is very boring. The NWN blog has regular posts of upcoming events in SL
  
• Learn the keyboard shortcuts for things like moving, and flying and viewing (this cheatsheet of SL keyboad shortcuts is very handy)
  
• Learn how to make gestures (control+G)... they were the first thing I found fun
  

Videos of Second Life
And if you're one of the millions who can't get into to SL because your computer isn't up to spec, you could resort to YouTube, where you'll find lots of videos of Second Life which will show what you are (not?) missing... Like this one, of the NMC Campus.

Alternative sources of SL videos include:

• The videos on Second Life itself
• The videos on the unofficial fan site secondlifevideo.com