Folk Cafe Does OpenSim Right: How to Visit

If you’re looking to see what a good OpenSim deployment looks like, I strongly recommend the Folk Cafe and the surrounding German village region on the Grid4us OpenSim grid.

How to get in:

If you already have an OpenSim account, see below.

If you are new to OpenSim:

Step One: Create your Grid4us account

Don’t be scared by this form — it just asks for your name and email address.

Step Two: Download the Hippo OpenSim browser

Both Grid4us, and I, recommend Hippo for browsing the OpenSim worlds. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good. You can download it here:

http://osgrid.org/index.php?&page=smodul&id=7&btn=7

Step Three: Plug the matrix into the back of your head.

No, I mean, run the Hippo program after you’ve installed in. Don’t sign in too fast — you have to specify that you want to start in the Grid4us world, and not one of the other virtual worlds out there. (You’d be surprised how fast they’re promulgating.)

German instructions for your Hippo settings
Instructions in English (Google translation)

The folks at Grid4us provide a very useful screenshot in these links that shows you exactly how to do the initial setup of your Hippo browser. And the screenshot is in English!

That’s it.

If you’re still not wandering the matrix, drop me a line, and I’ll hook you up with some help.

FOR OLD HANDS

If you’re an old pro at OpenSim, you can still set up a new account at Grid4us, as explained above, or you can take a StarGate in from another world.

My personal way to do this — let me know if there’s a shorter StarGate travel path! — is to go to Redsun Village on the OSGrid. Lots of things start on the OSGrid since it is currently the single largest OpenSim deployment, so I start out there as well.

From Redsun Village I take the StarGate to RedSun Hyper. At RedSun Hyper, there are three more StarGates — the one on the left is the one for Grid4us. It takes you straight into the Grid4us airport, when you can take local transport — an old, beatup taxi, around the grid.

Happy travels!

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Maria Korolov

Hypergrid Business editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist. During the day, Maria Korolov is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. Her first virtual world novella, Krim Times, made the Amazon best-seller list in its category. Her second novella, The Lost King of Krim, is out now. She is also the publisher of MetaStellar, a new online magazine of speculative fiction.