Yea, I Use Bots, and How Not to Buy a Landbot
Yesterday I received an im asking where to buy a landbot, since I "obviously use one", and it's not the first or last time someone has said something of this nature to me. So may as well get everything out in the open here (again). These are all of my current thoughts and views on land buying bots. I could be wrong on some points, but I can't script to save my life so I don't know jack about the technical side. First off , the only people who have land buying bots are scripters. And these scripters would never dream of selling or sharing a decent working competitive land bot. Why on earth would they sell something that can easily make more money on by running it than anyone would ever pay for it. It makes no sense for them to sell. From my experience anyone claiming to be making one for public use, or willing to sell one is just a scammer or misleading. Remember Bob Perry was claiming to making one that he would sell at a low price to all? What ever became of that?? And Fword Utorid, remember that joke? He took money under the belief that he was perfectly capable of making landbots and would script one for Project Public Landbot. Still haven't seen anything come out of that. NEVER pay someone to make a landbot for you. I can't stress this point enough. You'll just lose money because your either being scammed or buying a product someone is getting rid of because it wasn't competitive. And like I said I can't script to save my life but from what I understand the competitive working landbots take a lot of maintenance every time there is an update to sl, the bots need tweaked in order to function. You would need to ask one of the bot runners for specifics on that. But again my main point from my experience, and everything I have witnessed, You will NEVER be able to buy a working competitive bot and if you really really want one, your only hope is to learn how to script and figure it out on your own.
Now with all that said and out of the way, I use a bot. But not that kind of bot! I use Landmachine.com, a land maintenance system for mainland dealers that use's a bot nicknamed Annie. I just buy my mainland, and walk away. Thats it. I click and drag a few things on the Landmachine.com website and Annie handles the rest for me. She cleans the parcel, she sets up the objects I'd like on the parcel, and she sets it for sale for me. If mainland values change, or I decide to change my prices for any reason, I click a few things on the website and Annie changes the parcel prices for me on endless plots of mainland. Basically what used to take me hours and hours, landmachine.com allows me to handle in a few seconds. It's been a great tool for me that allows me to be more efficient and allows me more time to work with my customers, on other projects, and more time for real life. And since using it, I haven't had one mis listed parcel. When I was pricing everything by hand, every now and then I'd have a mind fart, miscalculate, are have a typo that resulted in me losing money. Using Annie has eliminated the human error for me. So yea, if you see a bot on my land, I use one, but a good one!
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The technical side...
Just to clarify - creating a landbot isn't through scripting, it's through re-programming the client. The difference is that scripting is LSL, and the re-programming is done in a language that is compiled into a binary file for use on a computer - on Windows systems, commonly known as an EXE file. :-)
Second Life Consultant
FWord Utorid says Yep
I sold a landbot yesterday, and mine has been in operation since february. I also have helped people repair three different landbots.
the joke was that people in the public landbot project thought that by harassing a developer and publishing things of this nature, it would compel me to work for them.
Just because you pay someone to do a job doesn't entitle you to treat them like crap and publicly harass them with impunity.
No one likes to work for a bad boss and no one will deliver a complete, profitable product into the hands of demanding mobs if they have an alternatives.
I don't remember being a bad
I don't remember being a bad boss. As I recall, I was very patient as there were several delays in December and January. This after you told initially that you could make a landbot in two weeks. People like Sarah Nerd were critical of the project but the best way to have proven them wrong would have been to produce something. As for the other landbot people like Yohan, of course they would be critical, its not in their interest to have lots of competitors.
Land Shepherd
Well I guess that answers my
Well I guess that answers my question about what came out of project public landbot. You have always seemed like a very honest patient and fair person to me. Obviously much more so than I would be. Whatever crap he got from me and others doesn't change the fact that you were the one who paid him, and you were the one who did not recieve the product you had paid for. And yea, he has yet to prove what I think about him wrong.
Awesome, glad you turned
Awesome, glad you turned your ways around. I know 2 people who paid you to do so, that never recieved a landbot. So who did you sell functional bots to and what are the bots being used names? Anyone who watches the mainland list is really familiar with the names of the fastest bots that are jumping to the deals first. We see them though out the day. Would love to see your completed project, and I'm glad that you finally came through for project public landbot even if it took months. I haven't followed project public landbot for a few months so if it was finished I wasn't aware.
FWord Utorid says Yep again
Your statement that 2 people paid me to deliver a landbot did not receive it is in error.
Land Shepherd received the code to a landbot that *was* functional. AFAIK he was unable to make a determination as to what to do with it. The last communication I had with him is documented here:
http://landbotlobotomy.wordpress.com/2008/02/05/meeting-with-land-shephe...
He has not chosen to communicate with me since this conversation, which struck me as odd, because the tone of the conversation was not outlandish.
Changes to SL and libsecondlife have since rendered that project inoperable, as is typically the case with programs based on the platform.
As I was not being compensated and there was no direction except continued abuse in my direction, I did not see fit to continue on the project for the 'public'.
Thai Racer also received a completed landbot last year, AFAIK *if* he was being truthful he never downloaded the finished program. WHY? I have no idea, and I have no way of knowing if he had it reverse engineered or simply gave up.
It seems at this point that he would prefer to call me incompetent. His principle complaint was that the project took a while to develop. There were RL issues here, as well as the loss of a friend in SL who was also a resource on the project. I found Thai's character to be questionable when he chose to disregard the loss of a friend and insisted on expedited delivery of an untested program.
That program is depicted here, and yes, it did work:
http://www40.websamba.com/fwordutorid/sekrit/step2.gif
And Thai did try it on numerous occasions throughout the development cycle, indicated being pleased with progress, and I believe now simply has joined a crowd who wants to throw tomatoes without thought by claiming I am not a capable developer. I am glad to not have customers of that sort.
AFAIC, this Public Landbot Project process was simply a mechanism for people to spread rumors and misinformation about me, my capacity as a software developer, and on a daily basis to cause me added stress.
If I were employing someone on a project of this nature and I saw that people were basically abusive to my employee, I would step up and take the stress off of them, because I know that people will not turn out product when they have other things on their mind, like a mob of thirty people daily hurling accusations and blog posts that are completely full of misinformation.
The people who need to 'turn it around' are the ones who believe that it is ethical to publicly dispariage someone's name and reputation, and then wrongfully expect to receive a reward for it.
The only thing I know for sure that you can make are excuses.
Well Land Shepard has always seemed like a wonderful honest person to me, and Thai, I've been dealing with Thai for a few years now so I know damn well how honest he is so I think I'll go ahead and take there word over yours. Whatever you gave them, they obviously did not get a working product they were satisfied with and that reflects on your work or lack of ability. I don't know anyone who has seen a working landbot from you, all I hear are storys from people who feel you have wronged them and they did not get anything that they feel they hired you for. The only thing I have seen you produce is excuse after excuse after excuse, and I guess thats still the route your taking and the way you "work". I consider sharing situations like this a public service. You took advantage of a few great people I know, and if I can stop a few more people from losing money in this matter, then it's well worth blogging about.