In Second Life, you can walk or fly up to a height of about 100 meters. Use the keyboard and your mouse for walking, running, flying, and teleporting.

Press the “Fly” button on the bottom of your screen to fly. If you type F, you start to fly. Type F again and you stop flying. Or hold down the "Page Up" key on your keyboard to ascend and "Page Down" to descend. If you want to fly slowly, hold down the space bar along with your arrow keys.



Press CTRL-R and you will run. CTRL-R again and you walk again. Hold Shift and right (or left) arrow to walk sideways while looking forward.

Short video that shows you the basics of how to move around and interact in Second Life:



Type M to get into camera mode so you can watch the environment with your virtual eyes. The easiest way to move inside and around buildings is to press F and M so you can move with your mouse while flying.

Camera positions are also important regarding orientation. You can change camera view by pressing the left ALT button (zoom in and out) or the right ALT button (rotation) on your keyboard.

This short video helps you how to use the camera options:

To get directly to a place in Second Life, use SLurls. When you click on an SLurl (e.g http://slurl.com/secondlife/Help%20Island%20Public/132/69/28), it takes you to the location in Second Life it represents. It will automatically bring up the map and offer you a teleport.

Another way to find places is by co-ordinates: every location in Second Life has an x, y and z co-ordinate. If you know the co-ordinates of your destination, you can put them into the map of Second Life and teleport there.

There are actually many ways for communication:

1. Text chat: You can talk with the avatars around your location and you can also log and save the whole discussion. To do so, choose Edit -> Preferences from the upper menu bar. Choose Communication and click on Log Chat, now your messages will be saved. Text Chat is only displayed to those who are within 20 meters.



You can also log your chats automatically. Choose Edit -> Preferences:




Click on Log Chat and set the path where text messages will be saved


2. Instant Messaging: It can be directed at a single individual or a group of individuals no matter whether they are online or offline. It allows for some form of privacy. If you leave a message, the person will receive an e-mail about it while being offline.


3. In-Voice: If you have speakers and microphones and press the Talk button (image below), you can speak as well. The faster Internet connection you have, the better quality you will have. What you need is a microphone and headphones. It features audio location (if the person on your right is speaking to you, you hear him or her on your right, and the same in the case of the left). If the person moves away they sound fainter and if they come nearer they sound clearer) making communication much easier.

Sometimes we have to use the built-in search function to find avatars, places or events.

1. People: Click on the Search button below and choose People from the tabs. Make sure you type the proper name as Second Life does not work like well-known search engines. It only finds the exact names. Please also note last names are not real ones.




2. Places: When someone creates a place, it must be tagged to make it easier to find it later. If you do a search for the term healthare, you should receive more results than expected as users creating inappropriate content will also tag their sites with common terms.




3. Events: Choose the date, the type of the event and a key word if needed. Click on the Today button to see what kind of events are currently taking place.



The new search engine of Second Life may help you find places, people and groups at the same time.



You can do searches without opening Second Life by using the Second Life Search site.

What can you do if you would like to know what kind of scientific and health events you should attend in Second Life? Here are some useful links:

1. Calendar of SL Health Events: Maintained by the SlHealthy Wiki




2. Home of Second Nature (island of Nature Publishing Group): All the events organized on the island of Nature Publishing Group




3. Scifoo lives on : A series of sessions focusing on the impact of web 2.0 on medicine and science. One of the last events was organized for 23andMe, the Google sponsored genetic company.




4. SL Science Center: a public Google Calendar with listings of all upcoming science-related events in Second Life

Or join the SL HEALTH mail group to get up-to-date information about all the events and articles dedicated to the health aspects of Second Life.

By creating landmarks, it becomes much easier to find a place again later. When you are on an island where you would like to create a landmark, just choose World -> Create Landmark Here from the upper menu bar.



Manage your landmarks by opening your inventory and click on landmarks. Now you can open landmarks or delete them.