[Updated with new information August 14] I should have said, much better, in the headline, but was worried about space! Skidz Tweak’s new way to bookmark places in SL and link to them from the web is really useful and, after a couple of weeks of beta testing, GVURLs have become part of my short list of must have items.

The traditional SLURL website gives you a rather dull and sometimes misleading picture of sims in SL. If I search for a sim called Agravain, what I typically see is something like this (I closed the balloon with the “click here to go there” link):

Okay, you can vaguely see some property boundaries. The objects in the picture are a bit irrelevant, because you cannot tell if they are on the ground or a few hundred meters above it. Oh, and that sim to the right, what is it’s name? Hmmm… no sim names except the one I searched.

I think the new GVURL tool does this a whole lot better.

Here is the same search and the same two sims using GVURL:

Now I can see the sim to the right is Dindrane Elfor. I can see that both sims are PG rated (mature sims show “Mature” in the top right corner of the sim box—thanks Ann for the suggestion!). I can also see the property lines in each sim, including the quite large number of tiny, 16 sq. meter plots created in Agravain by SL’s destructive rodents, land cutters and extortionists. Actually, I saw some more useful information in the balloon over the pointer before I closed it. Here it is:

Note that Gridaverse tells me how current the image is (indexed today) and that there are 8,665 prims in the sim (if the prim count was high, I would worry about lag in the sim). And there is more. Clicking on the More info on Agravain link opens a full new page. Here is part of it:

This page lists every plot on the sim, with a Teleport (TP) link to the left, then the plot name. The column headings in the table are:

I have truncated the Description header, which is normally a lot wider than you see above. So now you have the owner's name and description for the parcel, the size in square meters, and if the plot is for sale, the price being asked and the cost per meter.

It gets better! Click on a name in the Parcel Name column, and an arrow points to the parcel on the map (the red circle below is my addition, to indicate which one I clicked).

Buying Land?

Another really nice feature of GVURL is the ability to search for land to buy. Anyone who has used the usual resources in SL, such as the inworld search, will know that it is not an easy process to find land.

With GVURL you can search for land that is offered for sale using a variety of search  parameters:

In the above image, I have searched the Agravain sim for land priced at more than L$3,000 and less than L$5,000 and told the tool to sort the results based on price and to show the results in ascending order. You can search all of SL by not entering the sim name/title. Search using a description like water, or beach, or island. Sort results by Price, Size, or cost Per Meter.Very cool!

But Wait, There’s More!

You can get an unobtrusive little HUD from Skidz and use it while you are in SL to create your own collection of GVURLs. You store them in your personal page on the website, in folders you can create. When you use one, it hands you a landmark in SL and does not open the big map.

Where to Get This

The home page of the tool is here.

Next, in SL, go to Skidz place on San or the one on Snowcrash and look for this sign:

Click the sign to get the HUD, go to someplace you can rez the box, and follow the instructions in the box to use it. Like I said at the start of this review, this has quickly become a must have gadget for me!

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sim classification?
written by Ann Otoole, August 13, 2008

Any way to add the PG or Mature sim type info?
Good to know before you teleport in case you don't like mature sims (or vice versa).

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sim classification?
written by Alto, August 13, 2008

Good idea! I will pass the question along to Skidz and see what kind of magic he can work!

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Update: Sim classifiaction
written by Alto, August 15, 2008

Ann, your suggestion has been implemented by Skidz! Each sim is now marked either PG or Mature in the top right corner of its map. I have updated the images in the article to show this.

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More suggestions
written by Ilsa Munro, August 21, 2008

Don't know if this is the place for suggestions, but is there any way to report prim usage in a parcel through this system? My thought is that vehicles passing from one sim to another and traversing a parcel which is at or near prim capacity tend to run into problems (they also run into the ground, the sea, outer space, and occasionally the subterranean kingdom of Garnak, Lord of the Mole Men). Being able to check one's course in advance for potential danger spots would be swell beyond measure.

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Re: More suggestoms
written by Alto, August 21, 2008

The system does show the prim count for each sim. If you look at the third illustration from the top in the article, the one showing the information about the Agravain sim, the "Prim count" shown there is the sim total. That shows up if you use the Search option on the left of the map.

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