There's been some changes to ITG over the last month, so I thought I'd sit down and finally get them written up for the blog...

--First, it's my sad duty to bid a fond farewell to Steven Cann, the designer of the print (PDF) version of ITG; happily for him, things there in Australia with his band are going better than expected, which unfortunately for us means that he no longer has time for the magazine. Anyway, I wish him the best of luck with all his future projects, and am hoping that we'll still see him at future ITG events.

--And speaking of which, with Steven's departure I've decided to just make things official, and shut down the monthly PDF version of ITG altogether. I'm still a believer in electronic documents, and will undoubtedly be doing other SL publishing projects in the future; it's just that the monthly PDF version of this blog is such a labor-intensive exercise (easily 30 to 40 manhours per issue), versus the tiny minority of ITG's readers who keep up via the PDF versus the blog. Anyway, I know that some of you will miss the monthly version of this magazine, and in some ways I will as well; that's the breaks, I suppose, of micro-funded publications, is that sometimes you simply don't have the resources to do all the things you want.

--This decision, then, is also changing the nature of ITG's features; instead of having a new theme monthly, like I've done it in the past, with a larger amount of articles related to the theme (typically five to ten), I'm now going to focus on themes more intermittently, and limit coverage to typically three to five articles. Anyway, so that's now going to let me cover some subjects as features that maybe weren't of large-enough interest before; if you have ideas and suggestions for such features, as always you can drop me a line at inthegrid [at] gmail.com and let me know.

--And speaking of editorial policies, the entire nature of ITG's is slowly being changed these days, mostly because of the technical problems regarding the grid that I've ranted about here before in groan-enducing detail; to be blunt, I'm having a harder and harder time anymore attending popular live events with my crappy little Mac Mini at home, meaning that I cannot dedicate much space anymore at this blog to covering such popular live events. And it's a shame, too, because such events are one of many "crucial experiences" one can have while in the grid (if I may pull a phrase out of my a**), one that I think any resident is missing out on when they can't access.

So instead of shutting this blog down (like I was briefly thinking of doing), I've decided to gently massage its focus, in order to start concentrating more on the things that I can readily accomplish in the grid from a technical standpoint; things like tours and photo essays of great builds, boating and other transit adventures, and of course the in-depth interviews with SL's most interesting creatives, like I've been doing since ITG started. It's a compromise for now, I know, one I'm not entirely happy with -- I wish instead that I just had the money to go buy a new mid-level Windows computer, so I could be going to those popular live events in the first place. (Of course, as long as we're wishing, what I really wish is that I could simply pick up some more freelance work; here's my LinkedIn profile, hint hint, for any dear readers in the tech industry who would like to add me and help spread the word, hint hint.)

--And then finally, as some of you may have guessed already, all these technical problems with the grid have put a kibosh for now on the new adults-only SL blog I was going to start up, one I was going to call -avatar-; and that's because the bulk of -avatar-'s content was going to focus on all the adults-oriented clubs around the grid (both community and commercial), and I simply don't own a computer that can handle the high lags and flashy graphics that come with most such clubs. And that's a shame, too, I know! Believe me, I was looking as forward to this new publication as you were as well.

But never fear, intrepid gridhopper; for yes, I have yet another scheme in the works as we speak, to replace the new blog that apparently was not to be. You see, one of the other ideas regarding SL that I've been tinkering with almost since joining, besides opening up a blog about the environment, was to become a more serious architect as well and to establish my own prefab building business. And with things in the grid being as they are these days -- that is, with me standing around alone in a low-lag environment being the easiest thing I can do these days -- I decided to take that as the sign it is, and to finally start getting more serious about my building skills. There above, for example, is just the roughest start on my first-ever prefab design; it will eventually be a three-story bungalow for beach environments, with a 20 x 30 meter footprint (that is, for use with 1,024 m2 plots or larger), hopefully all cool and modern and with several fantastical elements intuitively baked in (like a waterfall floor and wall system, for example, much like the ITG headquarters has).

As you can tell, I'm not nearly even at the first stages yet of making this a mature prefab; but I'm poring through the advanced tutorials as we speak, seeking recommendations for great classes in the grid, and hopefully by this time a month or so from now will finally be ready to start selling my first creations. As always, I'll keep all of you updated on the process here at the blog; and I'll also make a point of posting some tutorials and tips as well, based on what I'm learning about the building process at the same time. So anyway, that's the latest from around here at ITG: and as always, I appreciate you sticking around and being a regular visitor.