End of the challenge ?

Arbitrage Wise very recently announced that JT Financials will be reshaped in SL Wallet, and amongst decisions result from the banking ban, cash deposits will no longer produce interests.

Those of you who read this blog from its inception (thanks a lot...) know that interests are VITAL for me as sole camping or similar activities are not sufficient. It that the end of my challenge ?

Not sure... At first the JT Investment Certificates still exist. They are not paying interests but dividends. Their future is not clear yet, and I will wait for further news.

Moreover I have other investment ideas, but I don't want to tell too much about it now... suspense...

Nevertheless if I decided to end the quest now, I will stick to the rule I defined in the very beginning and award all my earnings (roughly 23'000L$) to a member of the "Free Money from JohnLight Raymaker" group in Second Life. It is not too late for you to join the group !

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...

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 !

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 !

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 !

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...

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.

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...

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.

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.

Campsites directory management

The issue of bad campsites, i.e. non paying ones, but also of sharing good spots has been in the air for a long while now. I did get some hints from fellow readers and group members, and I guess it's time now to build something.

One must be careful when identifying the objectives in such a project, to avoid any possible misuse. The point here is that I don't want to create a system which campsite owners could use to attack competitors by doing faked negative reports.

Another issue is the very high rate of change on the camping situation. Despite some campsite remain open for weeks, some are created, changed, and closed daily, if not hourly. A directory would then never be accurate. Moreover, re-visiting all campsites to ensure they're still as described would be an enormous task.

My idea is then to publish reports of camping sessions, not just campsites, and to give positive feed-backs only, not negative. The principle would be that campers report (to me, to a special avatar, via an object, ... ?) the place they did camp in, and the amount they made if they are happy with a place.

All the reports would then be compiled and made available to "Free Money from JohnLight" group members in a notecard that could be obtained either via my inventory or a distributor in my shop to be.

The good point in this system is that no one could use it to attacks a competitor campsite. I won't be possible either to publish wrong positive reports, because such fake reports would always come from a single reporter and won't get lot of credibility because no one would confirm them by additional reports.

On the other hand, good sites would get confirmed quickly by other people, so they would increase their credibility. If I can build an automated and dynamic system, this could be as accurate as the reports getting in.

Any comment is welcome.

A place not to go - metropole (221, 68, 23)

According to some members of the "Free Money from Johnlight" group, there are unlimited but NON PAYING dancepads in metropole (221, 68, 23). Avoid them, you will only loose your time there.

Here we go again - My new strategy

General guidelines
After days of thinking, I finally decided how to go on. First of all, the goal of this quest remains unchange: "Earn 1'000'000 L$ with no or minimal effort". I hesitated to remove the "no", but I will finally keep it.

Defining minimal however was not so easy. I first tried to define a list of "acceptable" activities, but given the large number of opportunities, the smarter way to define minimal effort is by the time dedicated to it. I'm now convinced that camping only is no longer a good strategy given how limited the camping possibilities are now.

So the best way is to define minimal effort as follows: being in SL passively in parallel to other internet activity, and actively not more than one hour per day, as an average. This is to protect my social life. Another important point is that I won't invest any real money in Second Life.

This new strategy leaves me a high freedom of ways, so here is now how I expect to earn money now, apart from camping.

Camping
Most of my income will probably be from camping. Even if I stop overnight or overday camping, except if I find a dead good spot, I maintain the 30 L$ daily objective.

Banking
I will put 10'000 L$ by Midas Bank. This should produce 20 L$ daily in interest. To avoid having too much at risk and go through the same issue than with Ginko, I will withdraw the interests weekly.

Group
The "Free Money from JohnLight" group is still active, and I will continue to animate it, and share my best money making tips with the members. I raised the joining fee to 15 L$, and I will maintain it at this level for now. It will no longer depend of my balance. I chose a fee of 15L$ so as not to be unfair with the current members who paid from 1L$ to 15L$.

And yes, I still plan to give the 1'000'000 L$ to one of the group members at the end, but not via a lottery as this is illegal in Second Life now.

Gaming, lucky chairs and other
To make life a bit more risky, I will re-start gaming where possible, and spend some time looking for lucky chairs. I don't know if the number guessing systems are still active, but if yes, I will certainly use them again.

Creating and selling objects
During my in-world travels, I gathered tons of objects I don't use, including the polynesian tattoo, and the famous black dress JaneLight got from Platinum. As I don't use them, I will put all of them on sale.

You will then be able to support my quest by buying some objects I colleted. And I could even create some of my own goodies, and sell them... more on this later...

Here we go !
I will update the strategy and ways to earn Linden Dollars easily as the process will go on, so stay tuned, Chapter 2 of JohnLight's adventures is starting... now !

Everything clear now about Ginko

As announced by Ginko, I got an account by WSE (www.wselive.com), and I received one Ginko Perpetual Bond (GPB) for each Linden Dollar I had by Ginko.

I had to go to a WSE ATM to obtain a password, and then I could access my account. The next bad surprise was that these bonds are currently worth 0.16L$ each ! So I lost 84% if my total in the Ginko crash.

As I'm back, I was able to get back online as well, and I saw that many campsites did vanish, and the lands are now for sale. This is probably becasue they got all their money from gambling, so they have nothing left to redistribute via camping.

The group "Free Money from JohnLight" is still active, and I got some feed-back and support from various member, and I want to thank them for that, it is good to feel such interest in what I'm trying to do.

The next steps are to decide what to do with the bonds, sell them yet and loose 84%, or hope they will get more value, which is not so likely, and keep them for a while. I must also find new campsites, and I hope the group will be helpful for that.

The quest for the 1'000'000 L$ is not yet stopped, so stay tuned !

Summary before leaving

I will be on vacation for the next week, and I will probably not have an internet connection there, so here is kind of a summary post before this.

From the beginning, I could earn about 13'000 L$, part of them being interests from Ginko interests. I used various camping places, have been banned from some because I was saying too much about their rates.

The media ball mechanism also helped me to earn some more money, being a reseller. In the misc category also comes the trick with the Debug Menu, making possible to stay connected permanently, without going idle or disconnected.

But the "creation" I'm more proud of the certainly the "Free Money from JohnLight" group. It was originally intended as a way for me to inform members about good campsites, but it is actually going much farther than that. It became kind of a community, in which active members also share their campsite locations, tips for easy money, views of the Second Life future.

We also had interesting discussions about the gambling ban, what SL economy will become, and so on. And as you know, Josephina, the very first group member, is now running a club, an she shares her feed-back on that with the group, making it really interesting.

I wish all readers a good next week, have fun, take care, earn as much free lindens as you can ! See you soon

Opinion polls to earn money in Second Life

A common way of earning free lindens is to take part in opinion polls. There are even islands specialised in that, and this can generate lots of money.

I don't use them personally for two reasons. Firts it's needing some time, not like camping, and to be eligible to most of polls, you have to reside in the US, which is not my case.

Nevertheless, if you're interested in this activity, you will find a blog on this topic called Earn free lindens in SecondLife. I got this link via a member of "Free Money from JohnLight" group, so thanks again.

This afternoon I will give a refresh to the blog. Post number 100 is approaching, and I want to change a few items, I hope you will like it. You probaby already noticed that the posts are now signed "JohnLight Raymaker"...

The place that can't be named !

I discovered a new SL feature today. There is a 3 L$ / 15 minutes camping spot, apparently unlimited (at least up to 33 L$). I then wanted to landmark it, to then be able to share it with the "Free Money from JohnLight" group members, and then with readers of this blog.

When I clicked "Create Landmark", I received a blue box saying that I could not bookmark this as the owner did not wanted. The name of the Island is camazotz... I hope you will enjoy it.

For the time being, I still can not understand why someone would not its place to be landmarked. I can see why for a very private place, but then why having dancepads ?

One more Second Life oddity.

Lack of unlimited camping sites

Today has not been as good as expected. I've been pushed out of my spot in Apfelland after 28 L$, probably by the owner. He starts talking to campers, and the one who does not react are simply ejected from the campsites. That's the hard life of parasites like me.

Nevertheless, I could camp with JaneLight on a 3L$ / 10 minutes tonight for quite a while as I was working on a website project, and JohnLight was on a 2L$ / 10 minutes. Together with the small ammount from Apfelland, I just made 100 L$. Not so bad.

However, the lack of time unlimited campsites makes my task harder. I know that Skye Club in Oceania is still open, with 150 L$ max Dance Dance systems, but they have so many pads paying nothing that I think it's too risky. I prefer 18 L$ in one hour granted in Banquo than a whole night in Skye for nothing.

I hope to find soon a new unlimited camping site, may be with some help from you, reader, via a comment, or from a member of "Free Money from JohnLight" group. Remember, as member of this group, you will have a chance to earn my million linden dollar in the end !