Sunday, December 30, 2007

2000 L$ by doing nothing !

Since I opened my account by JT Financials, the interests of my savings and the payments from the JT Investment Certificates totalize 2000 L$ !

This is only 0.2% of the million I aim for, but it is a good sign for two reasons:
  • I got these 2000 L$ doing absolutely nothing
  • The rate at which I earn interests is growing together with my savings
I also re-camped a few hours over last days, and even if I found hard to find good spots, I had the pleasure to re-talk with friends...

As this post is the last for 2007, let me wish you all a Happy New Year 2008 !

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Personal news - Season's Greetings

The time I could spend in SecondLife for the last months has been reduced to an extreme minumum for various reasons on which I can now say more...

In spring 2008, I will change job, location, and country. Job hunting, decisions, and move preparation took a lot of time. This combined with the fall in camping possibilities took me away of SL, except for very brief visits.

After discussing with Wrag about producing tee-shirts and other goodies, I made it for another blog, with interesting results. Thus I also took an other way to become a millionaire (a bit obsessive...) with a tee-shirt blog and its associated shop.

The next two weeks should be a bit quieter, so I'll try to get in SL again, to meet all my friends there again (Jo, Angle, Genie, Alex, Rev, Stroh, Wrag, ... I did not forget about you).

My experience in SecondLife does certainly belong to the good things I made in 2007, and I want to thank you all, friends, reader, commenters, guest posters, because this blog is yours before all.

So I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a very pleasant and successful Happy New Year 2008 !

End of year bonus - Thank you SLCapex !

My daily routine still do not allow for time in-world, but I keep an eye on my SLCapex accounts, and place orders when needed. End of december will bring in the second JTF Investment Certificates payment, and on top of that two good news came recently:

JTIC to offer Dividend Bonus & Early Dividend Payout
The early dividend is just fine, I would not have the JTF guys working on 1st of January, and there's not a lot to say about dividend bonus, except "Thank You".

SL Capital Exchange (SLCX) to Pay Special One-Time Dividend - 12/18/2007
As a large part of the 5'000L$ offered by Arbitrage Wise are invested in SLCX, this is quite good news.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Money flows in... by itself

Today is good... it's the first time the JT Financials Investment Certificates pay interests. So JohnLight cashed 494 L$ in, and JaneLight about 50 L$.

So thank you JTF, thank you Arbitrage Wise, and continue ! At this pace, I will be millionaire in 166 years. Hopefully I also got standard 0.1% daily interests, so it will be slightly quicker ;-)

Any support appreciated...

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Second Life Goes On... without me

Persitence... this is the key workd in Second Life. Just as in the "Just a Gigolo" song... life goes on... without me !

I just updated my balance information, and even without having been online, my money continues to produce interests. I have few more affiliates who opened SL Capex accounts via my ATM in the shop, in Club Josephina.

Some new members joined "Free Money From JohnLight Raymaker" group, to get a chance to win 1'000'000 L$. And the end of November is approaching, and JTIC hares will pay the first monthly interests... money money money, must be funny...

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Is Camping Dead ? 1 / 500 !

I spent some time today in SecondLife, and wanted to confirm what had been said in comments about camping going down because of the new search feature.

The cause is not so easy to define, but I must say that when I went thourgh campsites I had in my inventory, I was quite surprised. Many of them just vanished, or lowered their rates. Some CampMasters were still at the same rate, but not accepting any campers.

Many dancepads changed from 2L$ per 10 minutes to 1L$ per ten minutes. This seems to be the new "standard"... weeks ago my minimum was 2 L$ / 10 minutes, but this seems to be hard to find nowadays.

One of my favorite campsite even changed its rate to a ridiculously low rate... It's in fact so low that I made a snapshot, to be sure you'll beleive me... have a look.


Beleive me, this snapshot did not went through Photoshop. This bench is truely paying 1 L$ per 500 minutes, which is 8 hours and 20 minutes ! And as you see... it's full of campers ! Either camping is dead, or they did not read the rate before sitting here.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Real Life is taking over Second Life

These days my real life is just going crazy. Many changes are in the air, and managing it uses all my spare time, so I have no time left for camping. As I don't want to miss decisions that will impact the rest of my life for the next 10 years, priority is clearly to Real Life. I keep an eye to my SL Capital Exchange investments, and will place orders if good opportunities show up.

The challenge is not stopped. You can still support me by opening accounts using the ATM in the shop, or buying items from the shop. All financial products will also continue to work automatically, increasing my fortune slowly but certainly.

I'll try to update the blog regularly, and keep you informed when I will become more active again.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Second Life Is a Drug

I've not been connected intensively to Second Life for the past five days, and I somehow feel in lack of it. Ok, I don't have shaking fingers, I'm not sweating, and I don't get excessively nervous. However when I've some spare time, I'm tempted to launch the client, just to check if there is a good camping spot free, or check if friends are online.

The social aspect of Second Life makes it really addictive, and this is also reinforced by the persistence. You know, you do something in SL, and leave. When you come back, the grid has evolved, you can see the consequences of what you made...

This makes it tempting to come back for a quick look... see if someone came to your place, or if your shop is doing well. Non-speaking of your L$ balance, or the value of your stocks...

Are you addicted ? Can you stop getting in-world for one day ? One week ? I don't ask you to test it, but ask yourself... and then ask yourself what you could have done with this time.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Ooops, my mistake - On JTIC payments

No more money in the air... I misread the JT Financials Investment Certificates (JTIC) dividend payments... They start producing interests today, and first dividend payment will be on 1st of December... So no payment yesterday.

I don't have a lot more to report, as my RL is getting hectic, with potential job change, and tons of work... Even if I like being in SL, I can't be there all time so expect kind of a slow down on this blog, but certainly not a stop !

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Money is in the air...

My income from daily interests has been quite low over the last weeks, as I bought JT Invesment Certificates. I left only 5'000L$ in cash by JTF, so I got about 5L$ per day, but tomorrow (may depend of your timezone) JTF will pay interest on the certificates for the first time.

The deal with these certificates is they pay 0.2% daily, on the 1st of each month. So I expect quite a good income, and may be a party at Club Josephina after that !

This will compensate for the reduction of the Cannabis Camping, whose rate dropped from 2L$ / 5 minutes to 2L$ / 9 minutes. Anyway a bit better than my minimal objective of 2L$ / 10 minutes...

Monday, October 29, 2007

Cannabis Makes JohnLight Happy

Cannabis also makes JohnLight rich !

I did not started to deal nor smoke cannabis, keep cool, man... I just found a new campsite, themed on cannabis. The big weeds plant on this screenshot is paying 2L$ / 5 minutes... which is the double of my standard rate ! So yes, cannabis makes me happy, man !

By the way, did I say that the location of this plant has been shared in the "Free Money from JohnLight Raymaker" group, man ?

Sunday, October 28, 2007

GUEST POST from Wrager Creeley

I mentionned in yesterday's post that I met many interesting persons via SL. One of them is Wrager Creeley, which I could hardly define. Wrag is always full of ideas, of enthusiasm, and of energy.

I asked him several times to share his ideas via the blog, and he finally did it. To be fair, I don't understood myself all what he wrote in this guest post...

"
Hello readers:


Well I'd like to tell about a thing for this blog...

I must really do. About some things in Second Life, and my story... Oh and I am Wrager Creeley btw, and you may also know me as, on many other sites, as "Mrcreds", "Mrcreds\Alex", or "MrcredsAlex"

Oh and yeah I am alex11 and Ltalexgt on Anarchy Online too... you really must know about me!

Well it all started on Anarchy Online AKA AO.

Yeah I am the leader of that organization you may know as, "Sixximux", and I own the most-known nickname in all the internet...

Well believe it or not, it's just true...

After beign called "Leader of a cult", "King of Kongregate", "Kongregate's StrawberryClock", and, "OMG DA GUY DAT SUBMITS CRAP TO KONGREGATE OMG OMG I <3>

I think I should really write this...


My Second Life is like everybody's. I(must say first I am a BOY in Real Life) have, my first-created, (NOW NAME REVEALED YAYAYAYYAYA) Super Sexy Outfit, who is just a woman with photo-textured eyes and hair, avatar... I rarely show it now. Only to early-known friends who first seen me with it. I have too my created big avatar, a Mario and Sonic one... and yeah, my Second Life is like yours. I keep hearing "OMG UR A MOTHERFUCKER UR GOING DOWN >.<" sounds, I sometimes get banned for doing good things, and, this is less-known, my nickname is MrcredsAlex... on the internet... and when playing MMORPGs, I too see names like "OMGLETSPVPIPWNUURASUCKERRUBBISHIAM1337YAYAYAYAYAYAY"

You may not expect this, but... I DON'T PLAY WORLD OF WARCRAFT! I play RuneScape currently...

I am not a big-earner, not a poor guy, in Second Life, but I really have big dreams... I am scriptor of things done in 5 minutes that are sold for 50000L$ at least and I sell it for just 100L$... I never use BIG prices...

People hates and loves me, and I believe in the fact, that even applies to myself, "a person is a retard or a complete idiot"

Second Life is not a game... Second Life is a big-earner for Linden Labs... I love it, I play it very, very, VERY, VERY REALLY, VERY REALLY OFTEN! Almost every day. Well, EVERY DAY for around 6 hours if nothing stops me from doing it.

I have a premium account, and, as of this year, I get it free selling the stipends using pay-per-year...

Love, but sadly, unfortunately, this is exactly how the life is... you do good things to get bad things back at you... MrcredsAlex. Oh, by the way, I am NOT crying now because I know life will FOREVER be this, not life, but retarded-brains of people who can't think of things before doing them. I love myself, life, my friends, everyone. But I know everyone except some of my friends hates me... Forever remember... this... I have not lied in this, it's all truth... Talk to you later when you guess the name of a person who has the fake lastname of Loire. (Serously) (not me)

BTW: I love Super mario 64 YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY

Again, love, MrcredsAlex. Love, MrcredsAlex. Love, MrcredsAlex... lololololol... g0mlawlzma0...

Think of that again. Yes, I know what you're thinking of. Because you must OZEY... (yeah, the z is on purpose)... "

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Post number 201 - Looking back

This blog was born on the 1st of June 2007, 4 months and 26 days ago, and this is post number 201... a good time to look at all what I've done in SecondLife since.

I started with the goal of making money easily, using camping and banks. Simple plan, just a matter of how long I could camp and how much I could get out of the bank. I quickly learnt how find good camping spots, and how to re-configure the Second Life client to avoid being disconnected after 30 minutes of idle time.

While camping, I met people who are now good friends and who teach me a lot. I particularly think of Josephina Bonetto, who is now running Club Josephina. Jo also suggested to create a group to share ideas and good camping spots with other campers. I made it, and we are now 82 members in "Free Money from JohnLight Raymaker". Campsite sharing continues to go on, I regularly post good adresses to the group, and some other active members do it as well. It even happend that I used the group to find new campsites for myself ! I also decided that when I will get the 1'000'000L$, I will give it to one of the members of the group.

Jo also suggested to create an alt, a second avatar so as to be able to camp more, using my spare computer. I knew later than some SL players are running up to 8 avatars simultaneously ! When I met Jo, she was envisaging to buy a small piece of land to be able to change clothing in a quiet place... Not only she made it, but she is now running a night club and renting appartments !

As my wealth was increasing, I lost nearly all of it (10'000L$ by that time) when Ginko bank collapsed. This has been hard period, and I one lesson I learnt was to keep a separate reserve in a safe place. Since then I keep 10% of my total earnings apart. At this point an other important people comes in the story: Stroh Bing. He was kind enough to put me back on track, with a gift to compensate for what I lost in Ginko collapse !

Another problem hit the camping community at the same period: LindenLab made gambling illegal in Second Life. As gambling was a main source of income for camping operators, the number of campsites was strongly reduced, as well as the payrates and maximal earnings.

Another important people in my story is Arbitrage Wise, CEO of JT Financials, and SL Capital exchange. Apart from giving me very interesting inside views of a SL bank, he gave me 5'000L$ to invest on SL Capital Exchange ! Until now my results as a day trader are not exactly good, these 5'000L$ are now worth... 3'800 L$. Ooops. I'm still looking for better investment strategy.

More recently, I organized two contests to animate the little commuinity that is forming arount me and this blog. This was a good opportunity to reward friends I met through the group. They are way too numerous now to be all mentionned here, and I don't want to make any jealous... I won't cite bad people either, I'm in a positive mood right now.

To close this mini restrospective, I can say that what started as a purely economical quest turned into a passionating human adventure. It had up and downs, I met all kind of people, we exchanged views and ideas. I want to warmly thank all of you, who made SecondLife part of my Real Life...

And now, turn towards future, and see how to get this million Linden Dollars !

PS: Genie, you're the sweetest person I met in SL, I could not finish this post without talking of you.

Friday, October 26, 2007

GRRRR ! Fake Benches F....d my 200th Post !

This was supposed to be a happy, festive, funny post, but it has been RUINED by bloody fake camping benches !

I found a spot cracked-up with 3L$ / 15 minutes benches. I was so happy that I sent a notice on the "Free Money from JohnLight Raymaker" group to share it with all the members ! I even teleported some friends there, before starting a long camping session.

When I came back, what a surprise... I had earned 26L$. Those of you thinink "lucky JohnLight" shall explain me which number multiplied by 3 can give 26 !!

After some trials of few benches in this place, I found out that two out of three of the poseballs there are paying only (2L$ / 10 initial version) 2L$ / 15 minutes (corrected after Sylver's comment) ! I just feel disgusted, and my blog-iversary is wasted, to say the less !

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Do you like Second Life goodies ?

T-shirt ? Cap ? Mug ? Mousepad ? Sticker ? Calendar ? Magnet ?

Would you like a JohnLight Raymaker customized goodie ?

Wrager Creeley (a very creative friend from SL) sent me today to the website of cafepress, a company producing t-shirts, caps, and goodies on demand, with customized look.

Before starting such a business, I wanted to see if you would be interested... so please let me know via a comment, or a mail.

(N - 1... suspense...)

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Failed transaction - Trouble report - (N - 2)

I got bad news today... Angle Binder just told me she did not get the 100L$ I paid her for her second place in the non-human avatar contest. A rapid check on the SecondLife website confirmed that money left my account, but did not reach hers.

After a second look on the website, I filled a report in. Apparently this kind of issues is quite frequent, because there is a template specially for it ! I will post again when the issue will be investigated and hopefully solved by LindenLab.

From a financial point of view, this is quite interesting, because it means money disapeared, or more precisely went back to LL. Just is when paying someone, the money would go back to the bank itself.

My question now is simple: How much money is lost this way in SecondLife ? Let me know if you had similar experience. May be LL is getting huge ammounts of money back this way...

Post N - 2... stay tuned

Monday, October 22, 2007

Non-human avatar contest - And the winners are...

The non-human avatar contest is over now... here is the enveloppe...

3rd, with 4 votes, earning 50L$... Wrager Creeley !

2nd, with 5 votes, earning 100L$... Angle Binder !

Winner, with 6 votes, earning 250L$... Reverend Chapman !

Congratulation to all of you, you will get your money very soon...

Thanks to all contestants, stay tuned for the next contest. Thanks also to Kadena Whitfield who sponsored this contest. If you want to be a sponsor of the next contest, contact me.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

New rumor - LindenLab to close alternate accounts

Rumors are permanently running in SecondLife, sometimes they become truth, sometimes they're just silly things.

Two friends of mine reported a new rumor to me: LindenLab would close alternate accounts. Alternate accounts are various accounts held by the same real-life person, like me with JohnLight and JaneLight.

The question of verifying accounts is not easy to solve, but it could be based on credit card information.

For the time being this rumor is purely un-official. There is no information on the official SecondLife Blog nor anywhere else... so wait and see

Second Life is not all about money...

I started this quest with a financial plan. Camp... bank... interests... million...

After few month, I must admit that I got caught by the social aspect of Second Life. My list of friends is quite long, and not only of people who added me because of this blog. Some people I met here helped me in my quest, I helped some others with their goals, and just shared thoughts with some.

As in real life, meeting key people and building a good network is important. I will not make a list here, but knowing all these persons definetly made a difference in my results, and motivation.

May be this blog will change a bit now, and I will enlarge its scope to something like "how to be successful in Second Life"... stay tuned !

Saturday, October 20, 2007

10'000 and beyond !

The visits counter of this blog turned 10'000 yesterday ! Other important steps will come soon: 6 months (on the 1st of November) and 200 posts.

I wanted to say a warm thank you to all of you, readers who contribute to this success, and I will continue on the same way to help you even more with camping and other easy ways to earn linden dollars. If you have any wishes or suggestions to make the blog better, feel free to comment...

May be some kind of celebration will take place for the 6 months... May be a group photo with all my SL friends, or a new kind of contest... will see...

Speaking of contests, Kadena Whitfield sent me the 400L$ for the non-human avatar contest... you can still vote until monday !

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Making 30L$ each day is hard work

Each time someone asks me what are my goals in terms of camping, I answer 30L$ daily, according to my strategy.

Each time I say that, I got the same answer: "It's too low, you will never get millionaire, and it's easy".

Each time the discussion starts, and I have to explaing why it is hard work to earn 30L$ each day. The keyword is not earn, nor 30, and not even day... but E-A-C-H ! Ok, I don't camp each and every day, but I manage to maintain a weekly average of 210L$, and beleive me, it's not so easy. Between job, private activities, campsites closing, Second Life maintenance and bugs, it requires quite a discipline to maintain it...

Next time someone will ask why I have such a "low" objective, I'll say that the answer is worth... 30L$ !

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Finding good campsites...

This seems to be more and more complex. Good campsites are just closing one after the other. Even the good old apfelland reduced its rates...

So times are hard for campers, but sometimes we find a gem ! I located today a 1L$ per 5 minutes campmaster, limited to 20L$ daily. Not so bad, but not exactly a gem... except that the limit was indeed much higher.

I logged out at 35L$ because I had to leave SL... I will try again tomorrow, and report again about it. By the way, I gave the address of this wonder to the member of the "Free Money from JohnLight Raymaker" group... So if you want this kind of info as early as possible, join the group !

Monday, October 15, 2007

Non human avatar contest - UPDATE

Because of a terrible and unfortunate mistake on my side, I forgot to include the picture of Reverend Chapman in the contest. To restore a fair situation, I added it in the post with all the pictures, and I restarted the vote.

ALL PREVIOUS VOTES HAVE BEEN CANCELLED ! PLEASE VOTE AGAIN IF YOU DID !

To stick to the rules, the voting phase will last for seven days, straring from now !

All my appologises for this error, and good luck to all !

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Non human avatar contest - Picture are here

Here are the picture of all participants of the best non-human avatar contest. Vote for your favorite one in the right-hand column. Good luck to all !

1) Wrager Creeley
2) Sylver Vuckovic


3) Venix Scofield

4) Angle Binder


5) Stroh Bing

6) Reverend Champan

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Back for more - High Yield Deposit: Done !

I've been away, and then busy over the next days, so I don't have a lot of things to report. The most important thing is that I finally achieve to get 8'000 of the JT Financial High Yield bonds ! Thanks a lot to Reverend Chapman who mentionned in a comment that these bonds can be exchanged on the SL Capital Exchange !

This makes these bonds much better than the term deposit that Ginko issued before they collapsed, because they can be sold at (nearly) anytime. If I feel any risk with JTF, I will sold the bonds.

I also decided to put only two thirds of my JTF deposit in the bonds, to avoid losing too much in case of trouble. So my strategy is now to put my camping savings by JTF on my standard account, to let the bonds generate interests, while still having 10% of my balance safe by APEZ.

The non-human avatar contest with 400L$ to earn is still open, you have until tomorrow 12PM to send your best non-human avatar. I already got some really surprising ones !

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

GUEST POST from Stroh Bing - New type of campsite directory

Here is a post from Stroh Bing (thanks again) about a place located in Ratmaw (183, 33, 451)...
This should help you (and me...) to find good campsites easily.

"Hey Campers!!

Stroh Bing here with a new way for us to make sure
no campsite sits empty....

The Freemoney Group has it's very own camp bench..

Not just any campbench, we got the biggest one
in SecondLife.. AND It has links to camping benches
all over SL.

If you need a place to camp, drop by and check out
the globes on the wall..

If you find a new place with camping sites sitting
empty, you can make a land mark and drop it on
any globe that is labeled "drop camping landmark
here"

Coming soon are free avatars to get rid of noob
skins that many campsites operators do not like..
Camping gear.. etc..

Don't let good camp sites sit empty!!!
Don't let Free Lindens go to waste..

Camp On!!"

Monday, October 8, 2007

No high yield deposit for me - Away from home

I have been waiting for days now, expecting to buy some 0.2% daily bonds from JTF. These have been anounced days ago, and I was thinking about how many I should buy, and so on...

But all of this has been canceled. JTF did issue the bonds, but they all sold within 5 hours, and I got no chance to get some, as I was offline by that time...

No change in my strategy then, I'll continue to camp and use my saving account. If any of you was lucky engough to get such bonds and wants to keep me informed, I'd be really happy.

Nothing else to report today, as I'm away from home on a business trip. I found an internet connection so I can go in-world (call me addicted...) and I will camp a bit this night. I also had time to meet Stroh Bing who had a surprise for me... but this is still a secret now. More on this later (call me teaser)...

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Non human avatar contest - 400 L$ prizes

Send me a snapshot of you best non-human avatar, and you will get a chance to win money ! 250L$ for the best, 100L$ for the second, and 50 L$ for the third ! Many thanks to Kadena Whitfield (VP of JT Financials) who is funding this contest.

You have until next sunday October 14th 12PM SLT to send me your snapshot at johnlight.contest@gmail.com ! I will then publish all the pictures on this blog, and the voting phase will then be open for one week. One picture per contestant, be sure to include your avatar name in your message !

Good luck to all, and be creative !

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Financial update

My financial strategy is still the same, I put all my earnings (camping, group fees and shop income) on my JT Financials account, where they generate new income via interests. Parallely to that, to be able to restart in case of major issue with JT Financials, I put at least 10% of my total money by APEZ. I don't get any interest from the reserve, but it's not at risk.

I could also use my cash accounts for the reserve, but this increase the risk of doing silly things with it... For the time being, the reserve is at 2'000 L$, so I don't need to do any transfer today.

To show again how good is a bank paying interest, here is an overview of my JTF account since I opened it...

Total Deposit: 13'257 L$
Total Withdrawal: 1'201 L$
Total Interest 476 L$
Total Affiliate Bonus: 15 L$
Total : 12'548L$

If I consider my total balance, excluding the gift from Arbitrage Wise, it reaches 14'548 L$. The interests represent 3.3% of the total, which is not negligible !

In fact the percentage of interests in my total wealth is higher, depending how I consider Stroh's gift after the Ginko crash, because my losses included some ineterest generated by Ginko. Anyway, this would make the interest proportion higher.

This clearly shows how important the interests are, and with time they will be more and more important with the growth of my total balance.

If you're convinced it's time for you to open an account, you can do it via the ATM in the mini-shop (SLURL in the right side column)...

Regarding the 5'000 L$ gift from Arbitrage, my results on the SLCapex market are not exactly outstanding, as by the time I'm writing this post the total value of my stocks is 3'777 L$ ! I'm still working of strategies to get it better, and will post about it when I'll have found a working one !

Friday, October 5, 2007

High Yield Deposits Announced By JTFinancials

JT Financials promised for a while that high yield deposit will become possible soon. Now the soon seems sooner than ever. There is an entry in the SLCapex forum about what JTF will offer.

From mid of October, it should be possible to buy 1.00L$ bonds, and JTF will re-buy them mid of April, at 1.44L$ each. It is quite a long period of time, particularly as time in SL is much quicker than in real life, but it's also a very interesting deal. 44% increase over half a year ! This corresponds to 0.2% daily.

As I don't need the money I'm saving, this will be perfect for me. The only remaining question is "do I trust JTF enough to go for a long term investment ?". This is by far not an easy one to answer... hopefully, I've got until mid of october !

I plan to post a detailled post this week-end about my financial strategy, and compare how I'm doing with what was planned. And may be some fun post on Sunday...

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Triple Lucky Day in Second Life - We need more Genies

I've been lucky three times today in Second Life. First, I could get a 4L$ / 15 minutes camping spot in Rumpus. Secondly, the region has been restarted. You might think that this is no luck, but it was... I came back as soon as it restarted, and because of a bug, some of the benches were still displayed some amounts earned, with no one on sitting. By sitting I could get that money, so I made 12L$ within seconds. It is the second time I see such issues with camping benches and regions restarts.

But my bigger luck today was to camp beside Genie Demina, as you can see on this snapshot.

Genie is an awsome suntanned blondie with deep blue eyes which I could look at for hours, but moreover she's a true angel. She helped me several time with SL, gave me tons of stuff, and she's very generous with all her friends. Genie is never short of time for others, and is always available. I met her months ago, and I can say she's a person I can rely on, and a trustable good friend.

To be brief, Second Life would be much better if there were more Genies there... Thanks for being You, Genie.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Camping together again - Bye bye JTFinancials contest

Busy, busy, busy ! This has been the keyword for today. Busy at job, busy at home, so not a lot of time to camp. Hopefully I had a short slot of time to start camping, and to make it more profitable, I started camping with JaneLight and JohnLight simultanously again.

The new SL client seems much more stable on my old computer than before, so I got quite good result. May be I should look for free old computers, but strong enough to run more SL clients...

Anyway, twin camping has been good, and I will report more about it later on. By the way, I did not decided yet if Jane and John are twins or lovers...

Sadly, I must report that I did not won the JTFinancials affiliate contest. During the contest period, I had 6 more new affiliates, and the winner had not less than 35 new affiliates ! Congratulations to him... May be next time... Bye bye 10'000 L$ prize :-(

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

And the winner is... Sylver Vuckovic

The voting phase of the camping photo contest is now over, and I'm happy to declare Sylver Vuckovic winner of this first contest ! This is the picture of our winner !


I paid Sylver his 100L$ immediately after 12SLT today, and he declared : "Hmm...thanks to everyone who voted for me :)"

Given the success of this contest, I'll run another one in a few weeks, probably on theme "Best non human avatar"... but all other suggestions are welcome.

Thanks again to all participants, and congratulations to Sylver for this brilliant victory !

Monday, October 1, 2007

I'm camping for YOU !

As the end of the voting phase of the Camping Photo Contest comes close, I'm now camping to earn the 100L$ prize I'll have to give to the winner. I could obviously take it from the bank, but I prefer accumulate it right now, so as not withdraw too much.

You can still vote for your favorite camping snapshot, all the photos are available here. I don't have a lot to report, as I was off for three days. Three days away from Second Life were just good, and I'm happy to say that I did not missed it. No guilty feeling or anything like that. I'm probably not that much addicted...

A new tren makes me a bit worrying... it seems that even 2L$ / 10 minutes campsites become harder to find these days. It's certainly time for me to start a new search phase, I'll keep you informed. Any tip welcome.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Second Life vs. Real Life - 10 Questions for the weekend

Before leaving for a three days week-end (lucky me !), I wanted to post some questions for you ! They might seem slightly off topic at first sight, but they somehow relate to Second Life economics...

1) Do you behave the same in Second Life and real life, or do you feel different in SL ?

2) What is your avatar ? A copy of you ? Your ideal view of yourself ? A puppy ? A fantasy ?

3) Do you have control over the quantity of time you spend in Second Life ?

4) Do you consider Linden Dollars as real money ?

5) Is there something equivalent to camping in your real life ?

6) Do you consider what you say in Second Life as binding as what you say in real life ?

7) Can Second Life be a viable source of income ?

8) Is Second Life different from any other internet based chat ?

9) What if Linden Lab decided to shut Second Life down tomorrow ?

10) Do you have true friends in Second Life ?

I will give you my own answers in a later post, and I'm really interested in yours. Feel free to answer one, several or all of these questions in your comments...

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

The t-shirt your Second Life avatar wants !

Look at that ! Stroh Bing made this t-shirt for me today, and I'm sure you are all jealous now... It's so good that I don't know what to say.

The "JohnLight Raymaker" marking in the back makes it unique, as well as the serial number on the front side !

If you want your own, IM Stroh Bing... but he will increase the number each time, so I'm the unique number one camper !

Stroh sell these t-shirts for 150L$ (500 L$ full perms)

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Camping Photo Contest - Photos are Here !

The submission phase of the camping photo contest is now over, let's start voting ! Here are the pictures of the contestants. Choose the one you prefer, and vote in the right hand-side column ! The winner will receive 100 L$ !

1) Sylver Vuckovic


2) Sb Babii


3) Hernan Fitzgerald


4) Angle Binder


5) Vicky Lilliehook


6) Quebec Debevec


7) Clive Forcella


8) Clyde Otsuka


9) Bia Mertel

10) Genie Demina

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Shields up! There are monsters in Second Life (by Clyde Otsuka)

This is a guest post from Clyde Otsuka, about some attacks he underwent recently while camping. I personally never knew why the clients where sometimes crashing during camping sessions, and this could be part of the answer... Thank you Clyde for sharing the info.

"Recently, I have noticed that I get knocked off some very good camping spots. One time I was floating in gray space, other times, I would just be standing there, next to a cute girl. I asked some friends, and a very nice girl - Angelsky Shepard gave me two shields. She said to wear them when I camp. So, what the heck, I tried them.

Yesterday, while doing work on another computer, I noticed that my avatar had gone berserk! There were boxes flying around in a crazy pattern in a big circle.
The computer is new and high end, I wondered if the object was trying to crash the machine or the graphics card? When I checked it out, there was a huge octopus/squid creature hooked onto my shield. It was black, and pretty evil looking.

Taking a quick look around, I found a cute girl standing there, so I imed her.
She was from Italy, but spoke English. Evidently she had been given this object to knock people off camping spots that she wanted. I im-ed a few folks and they tped in and we had a long talk with her. She promised not to do it any more. I have her name. If anyone else runs into her doing this, we should probably report her?

A little more research, and I now have 4 shields. If anyone needs a set, please let me know, we seem able to give away copies.

Clyde"

Saturday, September 22, 2007

SecondLife goes on... without me

Weather in Switzerland was just perfect today. What has the swiss weather to do with getting a millionaire in Second Life ? The link is quite obvious indeed, I'm leaving in vicinity of Geneva, and weather was so appealing today that I spent my day outside. The computers were off the all day, I went online for a very short while.

One of the funny things with SecondLife, which also makes it really addictive, is that it runs even if you don't get connected. The value of my stocks changed, my bank accounts generated interests, some people went to my shop and bought items, some other joined the group, and so on...

Because SecondLife's world is persistent and going on without its users, one is always tempted to go back and see how it changed.... especially people having financial interests in it. And this is not saying anything about emotional involvment...

Nevertheless, a day without any SecondLife activity (ok, only a few...) was perfectly survivable.

Friday, September 21, 2007

A bad day in Second Life

After earning nearly 1'000 L$ over the last seven days, two bad news hit me today. Both the unlimited dancecage in Newt and the 8L$ / 10 minutes benches in Multiply disappeared ! On the plus side, the three lucky chairs in Terra Nexus are giving quite high ammounts, sometimes over 25L$ !

I also discovered a new kind of dancepad, combined with a jackpot. For each period of ten minutes:
  • the camper get 2, 1, or 0 L$, depending the amount of the jackpot
  • the jackpot is increased by 1 L$
  • the camper has a chance to get the jackpot
One of the pads had a jackpot 0f 730L$ but a rate of 0L$ per 10 minutes. Camping there gives the camper a chance to get the jackpot each 10 minutes... but could also lead to a very long fruitless camping ! Personally, I don't like it...

Thursday, September 20, 2007

A good day in Second Life

I said something wrong in a previous post. The 2L$ / 10 minutes dancecage in the Italian Sexy Club in Newt is not limited to 100L$. As stability is good these days, I left JohnLight here the whole day, and when I came back, he had earned 124 L$ and was still dancing ! I had to stop it because the client was showing unstability signs...

So it is now an open question: what is the limit of this cage, if any ?Any information is welcome... and answering it will help you ? I made 420 L$ in this cage over two and a half day !

On top of that, Genie gave to the group the location of a sim where are 3 benches with 3 camping seats each... paying 8 / 10 ! Ok, they are limited to 24L$, and very busy, but getting one is really rewarding... and good !

Once again, creating the "Free Money from JohnLight Raymaker" group helped me a lot, this was a damn good idea ! You want the address of the 8 / 10 campsite ? Ok, I will publish it in a few days. Join the group for fresh information.

Don't forget that the Camping Snapshot Contest is still open, with an opportunity to earn 100 L$ !

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

The 200L$ camping day !

As I wanted to know the limit of the dancecage in Newt, I left JohnLight there yesterday evening. This morning, he was off the cage, with 100L$ more ! Given this good result, I decided to make something I had stopped for long, a daylong camping.

When I came back, JohnLight had been disconnected because of a planned maintenance. Apparently there is still a strong causality link between my long un-supervised camping session and SL going down !

Anyway, it's not that bad, as at maintenance time JohnLight already earned 98L$. I just had to camp for 5 minutes to get 2 more L$ and reach 200 ! So in one day I get enough money to pay the camping photo contest prize, plus the equivalent of three days of camping.

The contest is starting well, I've already received some good camping pictures. You can still take part and try to earn the 100L$ !

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Earn 100L$ in Camping Photo Contest !

Do you want to earn 100L$ easily ? Take part in my Camping Photo Contest !

The rules are really simple. Make a snapshot on the theme of camping, mail it to me, and readers will vote for the best one. One picture per contestant, one vote per reader. Only camping related pictures will be accepted !

You can make picture of yourself, of other avatars, in SL, RL, a hand drawing, a scrap-book, a patchwork... There is no other topic than camping, so you can do something sexy, funny, artistic, symbolic, poetic, ... anything you like ! Be creative !

You can send your pictures at johnlight.contest@gmail.com until 12:AM SLT next Tuesday, 25th of September ! Don't forget to include your avatar name in your mail !

Lot of camping - Losses on SLCapex

I have had some delays in reporting recently, as I was incorporating the results of the poll and your feed-back in my most recent posts. I also try to maintain the pace of my posts slow enough to let you time to read them !

Most of my camping time over the last week-end has been spent in the "Italian Sexy Club" in "Newt (107, 69, 53)". They have quite various rates, 2 / 10 (no limitation known yet), 5 / 20 limited to 80, and one 2 / 5 but limited to one cycle ! Some of their pads also require to be member of "Italian Sexy Club of Newt" group. I made over 300 L$ there over 4 days.

My investments on the SLCapex are not exactly doing well. The market is oriented downwards, so only long-term investments have luck to produce benefits. Day trading is really hard. For the first time today, the balance is below 4'000L$, representing a 20% loss ! Nevertheless, I still beleive that this will improve.

Security issue - Don't let the SL client remind your password

I know this post is slightly off-topic, but given the induced risks, I want to share this infomration with you. The Second Life Insider reported a security issue with Second Life. If you let the client remind your password, to avoid having to type it each time you go in-world, there is a way for hackers using a malicious web-page and InternetExplorer to gain access to your SL account.

All the details (and the way to do it as well) are explained on http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/ie-pwns-secondlife. I did not test it myself. Anyway, I never let any software remind passwords for me...

I won't turn this blog in a hacker / safety oriented way, nor as a hoax spreading tool, but this vulnerability seems serious enough to deserve being comunicated widely.

Monday, September 17, 2007

How to Find Good Camping in Second Life Part II

In a previous post, I explained my startegy to manage a good campsites lists, so as not to loose time with no campsite available, and how to check if a campsite is good or not. So now, it's time to answer the key question: how to find campsites ?

The first method is quite obvious: use the "Search" feature of the Second Life client. Just click on "Search", then select the "Places" tab, and use a good keyword. You can get good results with keywords like:
  • camping
  • dancepad
  • dancing
  • camp
  • free money
  • free linden
  • camp master
Before going to one of the places you found, just have a short look to its description and traffic.

Another source of good campsites is the tons of landmak that other people are distributing on campsites. In popular campsites like Apfelland or Newt, you frequently receive landmarks while camping. I systematically accept all of them, and take some time to check them while searching for new campsites.

Finally, I get many good campsites via the "Free Money from JohnLight Raymaker" group, which I founded for this very purpose. Many active members do share their best camping adresses. It's very good because it's not just adverts from campsite operators, but from fellow campers proud to share their adress book !

To summarize, I get campsite adresses using searches, landmarks distributed while I do camp, and from the group. As in real life, it's all about of getting the good connections !

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Help me - help you - open a JTFinancials account

Starting on the 17th of September, JTFinancials is making a contest amongst its affiliates. The winner will be the affiliate with the larger number of new accounts opened within a given period of time !

So if you want to help me, you can go to the shop, in Club Josephina (SLURL in the links section), and open an account by paying the ATM on first floor ! So you will also receive 0.12% daily on your deposit, and may be I will be the winner of their contest !

I'm expecting you ! Contact me if you need more information or instruction how to open your account !

Saturday, September 15, 2007

How to Find Good Camping in Second Life Part I

As the proverb say "Give a fish to a man, he will eat one day, teach him fishing, he will eat for the rest of his days". Many readers and group members asked me how I proceed to find good campsites. I have no special procedure, and I think it's all about common sense, but here is how I do.

Let's start by defining what a good campsite is. First, the payrate must be acceptable. To make comparison easier, I check it on an hourly basis. I don't camp for less that 12 L$ per hour. This is equivalent to the frequent 2 / 10 or 3 / 15. This is what I consider standard. Anything above is good, but 12 per hour is ok.

As the campsites change very quickly, I do share my time between camping and searching for new spots. The objective is to always have at least a couple of 12 / hour sites available so I never wast potential camping time because of no campsite available.

When I teleport to a new campsite (I'll say how I find them in part II), I expect the camping device to be easy to spot. Given the number of campsites out there, I don't spend time flying or walking through all of an island to find them. Using the mini-map is helpful here as it makes easy to find where crowded areas are, and crowds most of time are due to campers.

Once the device have been easily located, I have a look for other camper earnings. If campers have earnings in the 20, 50 or even 100 range, it's a good sign of unlimited camping. If decide to give the new site a go, I camp for about half an hour, keeping an eye on the process.

This test run allows to check for any blue box popping-up asking if I want to continue. This is quite common now, and makes any unsupervised camping impossible. The test run is also good to make sure that the device is actually paying, before starting spending too much time. To be fair, most of the camping devices are paying, but it's worth checking.

To sumarize this first part, here are my rules:
1) No camping below 12L$ per hour
2) Camping device must be easy to find once teleported
3) Use the mini-map to locate camping crowds
4) Check how others are doing
5) Have a test run before camping too long

In part II, I will explain how I find new campsites to be checked... stay tuned !

Friday, September 14, 2007

Reverse use of the group

Until now, I always used the "Free Money from JohnLight" group to post good camping adresses to the fellow members. Sharing such adresses has always been encouraged in the group, and frequently members do send some.

Today however I used it a different way... As I did not made a lot of campsites search recently (I'll explain a bit later how I do this...) it happend today that all my usual spots were busy or switched off. Instead of starting a search, I just asked on the group if someone had some free pad in sight, and ... Bang... Angle Binder gave me the best tip, and I could start camping immediately. Thanks you Angle... you're really sweet !

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Camping and investing

While I continue camping actively (as far as camping can be qualified of active...), my investment knowledge is slowly growing. Aldon Hynes, who was kind enough to give some advise via comments, also sent me a very interesting post of his own, about Second Life Day Trading Strategies. It is really good reading for newbies...


My big problem with day trading is that I don't have to possiblity to monitor the market closely and permanently enough, nor to spend time reading SLCapex business news. Long term investments are probably better for me.

I'm also still waiting for your feed-back and improvement proposals (click the link on top of this page...) about the blog, so as to incorporate them in the next change.

Finally, on the social topic, I restarted dual camping, so it is possible again to meet JaneLight and JohnLight camping together... how sweet are they ? This raise a funny question to me. In your view, Jane and John are...

... brother and sister ? twins ? friends ? lovers ? couple ? freudian sides of myself ?

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Here we camp again

Since I got my computer back from the maintenance workshop, I restarted camping as much as I can, and I'm reaching daily amounts of about 5o L$ on week days and 100 L$ on week-ends. At this rythm, I will need 35 years to reach the million.

Hopefully, interests and other activities will help to make it shorter ! I can't imagine me still camping in 35 years. I can't even imagine what computers will look like by this time, and the current SL version would probably seem as old as pacman games do today.

There have been some changes in camping since I started this quest. The unlimited campsite are not so frequent, and many include human vs. robots checks. This can be in the form of a question when starting camping, or a warning while camping to which you have to respond, otherwise you get ejected.

Another new thing I found out recently are campchairs that can be used by members of a certain group members only. And obviously one has to pay to join the group ! As you can imagine, I don't exactly like that, especially as the chairs are not paying super rates.

There have been discussions today in the "Free Money from JohnLight" group about a camp master that is not always paying. Some members were there for as long as 23 hours, and got nothing in the end. It is not confirmed yet, and apparently the owner is temporarily short of cash...

Please continue to give me feed-back via the polling in the right hand column, or by clicking on the "help improving this blog" link on top of the page. I plan some changes soon, so it's right time to tell me what you would like !

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Attack on Josephina's 9 / 11 tribute - Shame on you morons !

As announced in my last post, Josephina Bonetto was holding a tribute to 9 / 11 victims yesterday evening (european time). This has been broken up by some "flying dollars" which made the sim quite hard to use, as you can see on this picture. The notes were flying around in large number and were completely out of control.


If this has been caused by some idiot neighboor, it's really stupid and demonstrates bad handling of SecondLife capabilities... But if this has been done intentionally, which is quite likely, it is then the mark of infamy. This kind of action, managed remotely, without any reason, just to harm someone's projects is really mean, especially when it ruins an event dedicated to heroes like those of 9 / 11. I can't find any strong enough words to say how disgusted I am...

Jo filed an abuse report to LindenLab, and I sincerely hope that they will react strongly, and make sure that the abuser will never ever do that again !

Monday, September 10, 2007

9/11 Tribute @ Club Josephina

Tonight (european time), Josephina is holding a tribute to 9 / 11 victims and survivors in her club. The event will take place in the "Club Josephina", all details below. I personally support this cause, and will join it. See you there !

Host: Bio
Music: Modern Club/Pop
Location: Club Josephina
Time: 11 Sep 07 @ 1:30pm SLT

No contest - Just an evening (or day depending on your time zone) in tribute of not just the lives lost but the survivors too.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gula/72/239/113
http://secondlife-clubjosephina.moonfruit.com/
http://secondlifeclubjosephina.blogspot.com/

IM Josephina Bonetto for LM/TP/Further Info and/or join Group "Club Josephina"

Self-traped in SLCapex

My investments on SLCapex are temporarily frozen, as I made a bad choice. To increase my potential benefits, I wanted to do a quick buy, and sell at a slightly higher price, but a large quantity of shares. The idea was to benefit from market fluctuation, but with a sufficient number of shares to make such a fluctuation interesting.

That's the theory. In practice, the price of the share in question is just falling down since I bought, so I can't sell now, and have to wait for the price to come up again ! Bloody beginner !

Improving this blog ?- Express yourself !

To get a better idea of what you like, I opened a poll in the right hand column of this page. Please take 30 seconds to vote, so that I can improve the content of this blog.

If you have other wishes / tips / remarks, they're all welcome via comments on this post, or per e-mail if you want more privacy.

Now, the floor is yours !

Sunday, September 9, 2007

SLCapex end of week 1 - Can you beat the market ? I can't

The adverts for JT Financial SL Capital Exchange asks "Can you beat the market ?". About myself, the answer is clear: no. One week after receiving 5'000L$ from Arbitrage Wise, my portfolio has a market value around 4'300 L$. Even if the loss is virtual only as I did not sell yet, I can't say it's a great victory.

Neverthelss, I will contine to work on my investment strategy, and I'll report here when I will find a startegy... that works. But for the time being, here again no wonder: no money without effort !

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Week-end post - Family camping - New type of pad

It's saturday, let's have some fun and personal information. I found today a new very quiet campsite, offering many 3L$ / 15 minutes, the limit is not known yet, but they allow at least 18 L$.

This picture has been taken there, after fellow campers and readers Genie Denima and Stroh Bing joined me.
Stroh is the insect. We had some good contact with the campsite owners, who were still putting things in place.

There is also a new kind of camping device there. They look like standard camping mats, but while camping, the avatar is kneeling, like praying. Will religion get into camping ?

JohnLight's landmarks book XIV - 2 / 10, 3 / 10, and 5 / 15 camping

This spot which I already mentionned in other posts is located in Brasil Paquera (196, 174, 22). The camping there is time limited, to relatively short times. The 5 / 15 is limited to 15L$. It is an orange towel, on your left when you teleport there.

I received this spot via the "Free Money from JohnLight" group last week-end, and group members could profit from it quite a long while before I published it here. To get such information more quickly, join the group now !

Friday, September 7, 2007

Shop is re-open !

Just as Club Josephina re-opened (great party, thanks Jo...), my mini-shop is opened again as well ! It also had its first customer, in the (very good looking) person of Genie Demina ! To visit it, use the "SLURL to the shop" in the right column, go in, first floor, to the left.

The vending pyramid is full of t-shirts, jeans, watches, and other items, for 2L$ each ! There is also the JT Financials ATM where you can open an account and become my affilate, helping me to reach the 1'000'000 L$ quickly !

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Resuming normal operations

After eleven days runing the SL client on my old computer only, the main one is at least back from maintenance. I can at last resume my normal operations, meaning runing the client on a more powerful then stable computer, using the older one for JaneLight only.

By luck, I could go directly to a campsite reported few days ago by a member of "Free Money from JohnLight", and get the only 5 L$ / 15 minutes spot available there. It's limited to 45 minutes, but it's still a very good rate. I will publish its location here soon, but I will let the members of the group profit from it. Remember you can join the group at anytime for 15L$...

This week, all the camping money will go to APEZ, to build up the strategic reserve. My new idea about it is to have the reserve being 10% of my total wealth at anytime, so if I experience massive losses again, I will not restart from zero. I will make the corresponding transfer on next Saturday.

The mini-shop is also ready, and I changed the watches seller in a more general 2L$ vending machine. It contains may items (t-shirts, jeans, a couple of tuxedos, a skin, ...) , which you can buy for 2L$ each.

On the SLCapex front, nothing new to report today. As it was a day off in my location, I did not had many time to invest...

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Help me... for free !

If you want to support my quest, but don't want to give me money, you now have the opportunity to open an account by JTFinancials. It will allow you to invest on SL Capital Exchange, and you will also get 0.12% interest daily on the cash you will deposit there. Sounds good ?

Once you're decided, just go to the mini-shop, which is on top of Club Josephina (see like beside...). Go on first floor, on the left hand side, you will find the mini-shop, and a JTFinancials ATM. Just pay it to open your account. You can then use any other JTFinancials ATM for your operations. This will help me reaching 1'000'000 L$ via the JTFinancials affiliate system, and it won't cost anything to you ! How sweet is that ?

SLCapex Day 4 - First dividends

This is the only thing I've got to report from my investments on the SL Capital Exchange for today: I reveived about 7L$ in dividends from one of the companies I invested in. It was not a surprise, it was announced by the company, and discussed in the forums.

Apart from that, I placed sell orders for all my shares, so if the price raise enough, they will be automatically sold. No need to monitor them constantly then... which helps focusing on other activities while my money works for me.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

SLCapex Day 3 - Still learning

By the end of my third day on the Second Life Capital Exchange, I still did not loose all my money. Not so bad for a beginner ;-).

The lesson for today relates to the quite low liquidity of this market... be cool. The value of my portfolio changed, from 3'700 to 5'200 without any transaction. High volatility results from a combination of very low stock prices, and proportionally large bid - ask gaps.

Typically, when a stock price changes from 0.40L$ to 0.41L$, this single cent represent 2.5% ! Some stock prices are evolving quite slowly, there are sometimes hours between transactions. For the time being, my strategy is to place sell orders immediately after I bought, so I won't miss any sell opportunity. This obviously applies only to the short term part of my portfolio only. I try not looking at the long term part, to avoid any quick move temptation.

We will see in the next days if this strategies will lead me to my million or not...

JohnLight's landmarks book XIII - Lucky chairs paradise

This landmark is dedicated to all readers who like lucky chairs. You know, the chairs that give you a prize when you seat on it if your name starts with the indicated letter.

In Hairy Canary, you will find some of them.... not 10... not 20... not even 50... but not less than 84 lucky chairs ! There is also a Dance Dance with quite good rates, and limited to 400 (very good), but it's always full.

Oh, I was about to forget it... this place has been indicated this week-end by one of the members of "Free Money from JohnLight" group. Join it if you want such tips quicker.

Monday, September 3, 2007

SLCapex Day 2 - Short and long term... 24 / 7

On SLCapex as on any market, there are two ways of investing, short or long term. For my first moves on this market, I decided to be very conservative, so as not to lose everything the first week.

I invested about 95% with a long-term view, and I kept the remaining 5% for daily investments, and very quick moves. Typically when there is an interesting bid - ask gap, and some persons placing market orders, it gets possible to gain money very quickly. The only risks are to be locked with unsalable stocks, or not to gain enough to compensate for the 2.5% fee on the sales.

However for very small amounts, the fact that the fee is only proportional makes it quite good. Many real life markets have minimal fees, so if you make very small transactions, all your potential benefits are canceled by the fees.

Another major difference between SL Capital Exchange and other markets is that... it never closes ! One can argue that any major investor in real-life will use many markets worldwide, so time differences will make it like a global 24 / 7 market... but such guys also have traders working for them on all these markets !

Managing a short term portfolio on a 24 / 7 market can quickly become an addictive and exhausting activity !

Campsite directory - Prototype 1

If you're a good observer, you probably noticed a new element on this blog, as the very bottom of the page. Scroll down, you will find three lines stating that someone earned a certain amount at a certain place.

This is the visible part of an inventory system I developed today. Yes, I went to SL scripting again. The idea is quite simple: when you want to report a good camping session, you just say the amount you earned to a "JLR camping reporter". This (ugly looking) bracelet then gets your name and location, and your report becomes visible on the blog ! It's so easy, and then all campers can get fresh updates about good campsites.

During the prototype development I already identified a few issues, but before fixing everything I will distribute 10 of them for testing. So if you're interested in one, IM me. First come - first serve !

A special thank you to Angle Binder, who kindly accepted to be the very first tester, you're soooo sweeet.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Stategy update

Investment activities
As I started to invest on SLCapex, a strategy update is needed. For the time being, and as long as I will consider myself in the learning phase, I won't put any of the camping money at risk. I will only invest the 5000 L$ I got from Arbitrage Wise. To keep them separate, I'll use JaneLight's account for this.

Interests
Given the information published here about JTFinancials, I trust them a bit more than Midas, from which I had no info until them. As a consequence, I moved the 10'000 L$ from Midas to JohnLight0s account by JTFinancials.

I also topped this account with my camping income from last week. The previously defined strategy consisting of taking interests away and put them in APEZ is still valid, and I will use APEZ as kind of a strategic reserve, in case of major and undetected trouble by JTFinancials.

The mini shop
For the time being, Josephina is unfortunately experiencing troubles with the club building which is also hosting the mini shop. I must mention however that she does a great job as holding her famous parties in the garden. For more info on that, check her blog (http://secondlifeclubjosephina.blogspot.com/).

When the building will be fixed, probably today or tomorrow, I will restart vending watches there. I will also place an ATM, and a donation box.

Camping
Last but not least, I will for sure continue to camp and explore SL to find the best camping sites, being supported in this task by the members of "Free Money from JohnLight" group. And remember, I by the end, on of the group members will get the 1'000'000 L$ as a prize !

SLCapex Day 1 - Learn the market

This post is the first in an hopefully long series about my investments in the Second Life Capital Exchange market (SLCapex - www.slcapex.com). As you know if you're a fellow reader, I started investing on this virtual stock exchange after Arbitrage Wise, the boss of JTFinancials, offered me 5'000 L$ as an initial fund. The deal is that I can invest it, and count it towards the 1'000'000 goal, but not withdraw before the goal is reached.

So I'm now starting to learn about this market, its tools and possibilities. I will probably give investment tips, but for the time being, I'm just a very newbie... so let's go for a very simply description of what SLCapex is offering.

There are for the time 16 companies offering stock on the market, and two Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) going on. As on any stock exchange, you can place market or limit order. To make it clear for non-market oriented people, here is a brief summary:

Market buy: you buy at the price of the lower sell offer on the market
Market sell: you sell at the higher buy offer on the market
Limit buy: you buy at the price you define, as soon as someone agrees to sell at this price
Limit sell: you sell at the price you define, as soon as someone agrees to buy at this price

These are quite usual tools. On top of that, the SLCapex website offers announcements from the companies being trade, and users forums. There are not costs for buying stocks, and a 2.5% commission when selling, so any sale at a price more than 2.5% higher than buying price is a benefit.

As the market is no as liquid ("active) as RL markets now, there are sometimes quite large gaps between "Bid" (highest limit buy offer) and "Ask" (lowest sell offer), so limit orders can take time before being settled, and portfolio "market" value can fluctuate strongly.

So you must keep in mind one of the very basic market principles: "No sell - no loss". Even if a share you bought has now a lower market price, you do not loose money as long as you don't sell it. The loss occurs only if you sell at a price below buying price.

GUEST POST from Reverend Chapman - Chino Yray's prize

Three weeks ago someone of the group (can't remember who exactly) told me about this competition on Chino Yray's blog (link: http://www.chinoyray.com/) to win L$5000. To participate you had to post a link to his blog on your own blog. It was a small effort so I posted something about Chino Yray and the competition on my MySpace-page and gave him the link in a blog-comment. I already forgot all about it untill today, when Chino mailed me to tell me that I won and sent me the money. I'm glad that I finally have some L$ again after the Ginko debacle most of us experienced. I just want to say thanks to Chino and the group, and keep in mind that these small efforts sometimes do pay up. ;-)

JohnLight's landmarks book XII - The submarine camping

One more thime, I got this camping spot via a member of "Free Money from JohnLight" group, so thank you for that ! Many group members already profited from this place, so after a few days it's time to publish it here for the non members... but remind you can still join for 15 L$, and have all the best camping tips as soon as they are known to one of us.

This one is located in Adobe (146, 155, 11). There is a green-ish object there you have to touch to start camping. Touch it again to get your money. It is paying 1 L$ / 5 minutes, and when reaching 24 L$, you'll have to restart. Don't sit on it, it's not needed, and while camping you can still more around.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

From Camper to Investor - Much to do

As you can imagine, my encounter with Arbitrage Wise and his 5'000 L$ gift did slightly change my view of the quest. Until now I used to be a camper, and occasionally a gamer, but now a new way of earning money appeared, and will require a strategy adjustment.

The possibility to use an SL stock exchange to invest my money and possibly gain some more is not new to me. However until now I did not had enough money nor time to start such an activity. Now, this is no longer an option, as the deal with Arbitrage is that he gave me 5'000 to invest on SL Capital exchange. I promised not to withdraw any money from there until I reach my goal of 1'000'000 L$.

So I'm now investor on the SL Capital Exchange (www.slcapex.com), with an initial balance of 5'000 L$. I will have to update my strategy, and define and investment plan. I'll also have to update the "My Balance" widget, as I moved my money from Midas to JT Financials as well.

On top of that, Josephina had troubles with the club building, and the mini-shop is out of order for the time being. Moreover, my normal (read powerful enough for SL client) computer is still not fixed. I also have to publish the underwater campsite address, and I've got a report from a member of "Free Money from JohnLight" about a prize he won on the net.

As you see, I've got tons of things to do, so I'll have to work hard to stay up to date. I will do my best, also considering RL and other projects. Stay tuned...

Friday, August 31, 2007

GUEST POST from Arbitrage Wise about JT Financials

Most people already know who JT Financials is. And I think most people want to know how we can possibly provide the interest rate we do. Well, believe it or not, we do some sophisticated RL arbitrage trading that CAN provide us the interest. But, let's assume we didn't and just take a look at things from an in-world perspective.

SL is growing exponentially right now. It may not seem like it, but we are barely the seeds to the beginning of virtual worlds. I can't remember what article it was, or the exact numbers, but I believe some article said that by 2011, 80% of the population will be in virtual world. If you believe that, and you feel that SL may be the main platform (as I do), then you have to think that with JT Financial having a strong position in the financial sector of SL, that we will benefit the most as we grow with SL. We operate one of the biggest banks in SL and have one of the best managed stock exchanges in SL. That alone should have some merit for growth and a potential buyout by a RL company.

But let's take a look into some of the other things we are doing. First, based on our interest rate of 44% annually, and our total deposits of 70M, we are paying about 2.5M a month in interest. If you look on our ATM, you will see that we have turned our ATMs in to ads - the first grid wide advertising network. And we are going to cater to Real Life corporations who can afford to have ads on there. In short, our goal is for those ads to bring in about 2M a month, and as our ATM network grow, along with our customer base, so will the revenue from the ATM ads. Let's assume we only pull in 1M a month, that leaves us with about 1.5M of interest we have to cover. We'll leave out profits from the stock exchange (www.slcapex.com) for now since profits will have to go to paying off the purchase debt, which I think should be paid off in about 6 months. If we can achieve that, we've basically bought a stock exchange for 1M from the upfront cash we paid out, is that not a sweet deal?

Now, let's look at my profile and the businesses we're trying to start up or have. These businesses will end up helping one another grow because there is some synergy in them.

-SLReports.net: already generating revenue from ads. Let's assume we can make 200K from this business a month.

-Wisemetaverse.com: this is our advertising engine that is located on all of our ATM. The system is a very sophisticated system that allows you to control textures and what item the textures give, as well as keep track of clicks. We are still trying to make this system commercially ready. Let's assume we can get 500 users to pay us 2000L a month to use this system, that's 1M in revenue

-www.slmarketlive.com: This is our retail site. It is currently up and only sells virtual items, but we're going to rebuild it so that we can sell Virtual and Real Life versions, or Sell Virtual Versions while advertising RL versions. Let's low-ball it and say we only make 100K a month (by the end of the year), even though a site selling Real Life items should make more.

-www.helpture.com: If you are a small e-commerce business and sell RL items, but need virtual versions of it built, you need a solution to find builders. Helpture will be a site allowing you to post images of your items so that others can bid to build it. The site is up, but not ready. This one can be a goldmine if you have hundreds of thousands of people needing virtual versions of their personal items built, or thousands of home-based eBay businesses needed virtual items built. Shall we peg potential profits at 1M a month?

There you have it, all of our current businesses that are in operations, or should be by the end of the year. If we add up the guestimates we just made on revenue, that's about 2.3M. We only had to cover an additional 1.5M.

Now think about this. This idea is still just a thought, but the wheels have been set in motion. We have reserved the domain www.slwallet.com. As SL gets bigger, and more retail sites get into it, they will want to accept L$ as a form of payment. By then, we'll have a VERY large customer base from JT Financials. Think BIG, as in SLWallet can be for SL what Paypal was for eBay. Instead of "We Accept Paypal", it'll be "We Accept Lindens". Someone has to provide the payment gateway, why not us? We're heading towards that direction.

So, do you see all of the dots starting to connect now? And after reading this long essay about our in-world business, you probably forgot that I've mentioned in the beginning we do RL investments that can pay back the interest alone. So if EVERYTHING I've just written about completely flops, we'll still be OK. That's putting your money to work right there.

Finally, we're also going to be donating 5000L to Johnlight strictly for trading on www.slcapex.com, as a separate portfolio to help his cause and see how he does. We have set some term limitations with him, but he'll probably provide you more details in his own blog.

Very good new from SL capital exchange / JT Financials

After my visit by JT financials yesterday, I had a chat with their CEO, Arbitrage Wise. First, it's good to have a bank where you can talk to some top managers. Even in my RL bank, this is not possible. Second, he accepted to write a guest post for the blog, saying more about the bank, and possibly answering my old question about SL banks: where do the interests money come from !

I received his post today, and as you will see it's quite detailed, and a bit longer than what I usually post, but I'm sure you'll enjoy it. And as you will see, this could give kind of a new start to my quest for 1'000'000 L$ !

Thursday, August 30, 2007

SL Capital Exchange - 50 L$ for free

In my tour of banks, I visited today SL Capital Exchanges (www.slcapex.com), which offers savings account (0.12% daily) but also operates a virtual stock exchange.

There was a big difference going there compared to other banks, as I could meet some avatars employed by the bank to inform and help customers ! So I could chat for a while with on of them, and I opened an account for JohnLight and a second one for JaneLight.

The very good thing is that they have a special promotion running until mid of September. If you open an account via one of their agents (not directly yourself at an ATM...), you will get 10 L$ for free immediately, and 40 L$ in one week, on the account. The only bad thing is that I did open JohnLight's account before meeting the advisor... Silly me !

It is possible to check the account status and to trade on their virtual market from the website, no need to be in-world. They also offer an ATM service. You can become an ATM owner for free, and then earn money via interest from accounts opened on your ATM. So you will soon see a SL Capital Exchange ATM in the mini-shop !

Discussing with them also unveiled some information about how they get the money to pay interests. At first, they get commissions on all operations on their virtual stock exchange. They also sell adverts on their ATMs.

This makes the whole thing look quite seriously operated... time will tell.

PS: I will upgrade my balance with the new accounts later on. Stay tuned for the next surprise to come !

Group is good - Submarine camping

Yesterday, a member of "Free Money from JohnLight" shared one of its favorite camping places on the group. This is a new kind of camping location, as it is located under water ! The design is funny, as there are fishes, sharks and other sea animals moving around. We will see now for how long JohnLight can stay under water !

I will certainly publish the address of this 1L$ / 5 minutes here in a few days, to let the members of the group profit from it ! The last spot I published became saturated quickly after my post.

My normal computer is still not fixed, and the SL client crashed right now, as I'm composing this post... Camping is really hard with this old Mac, so I will probably take some time to explore new banks. I seriously envisage to move to another one on Saturday, so as to test many of them.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Not fixed yet

This is what the guy in the shop supposed to repair my main computer told me today. The new due date is mid of next week, so until then I will have to continue working on the older one, which is not so good at running the SL client for long times.

It's so slow that it makes any shop development or search for new campsites really painful. Nevertheless, I won't let this small problem stop me, and I will may be inspect the new bank that Anonymous mentioned in its comments, and camp as much as I can.

Sorry not having more to post about.

Monday, August 27, 2007

About the shop and the campsite directory

As my first customer bought the polynesian tattoo, I replaced it with a female blondie skin, which is for sale at a price of 25L$. You can still find the watches vendor, offering various kind of watches for 2L$ each, and a donation box.

The next step will be the development of a notecard or landmark giver. My plan is to use it to give away my favorite campsite addresses to the members of "Free Money from JohnLight" group, for free. One more reason to join the group, apart from the chance to win 1'000'000L$ when I will have them. This notecard / landmark distributor will be the first step of my campsite inventory project.

I've nothing else special to report, I'm camping again as much as my computer can, and my money by Midas is producing interests, so everything is under control... stay tuned !

JohnLight's landmarks book XI - Ilha Riot

I notified this place to the members of "Free Money from JohnLight" group a few days ago. It is located in Ilha Riot (70, 123, 22) and offers many pads at rates, including 3L$ / 20 minutes, 2L$ / 10 minutes and 3L$ / 13 minutes (what a strange one...).

The good thing is that they seem to be UNLIMITED ! My client crashed each time after hours, but I saw there an avatar with more than 141L$ accumulated. This kind of campsites become quite hard to find these days, so profit from it !

Remember that you can join "Free Money from JohnLight" for 15L$, and then get such information before I publish them here.