Funny you should ask. VLES is a virtual recreation of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York, America, Earth, Milky Way, The Universe (that‘s our entire mailing address). The main focus here at VLES is music: seeing great bands play "live" in our venues and also letting the rest of the community hear your band. We know you have a band. You must.

Anyone over the age of 18 who agrees to the Terms of Service as stated in the registration and installation process can join VLES. Anyone. A-ny-one.

Go to http://www.vles.com/the-vles and follow the steps to download and install the client application.

Click Sign Up from the VLES home page. Please fill out all fields completely and correctly, and hit submit.

It doesn‘t cost anything. Nothing really good costs anything. (See love, friendship, and flowers for examples.)

You need a PC running Windows XP with 256Mb RAM (512Mb recommended), a video card with at least 32MB RAM (64MB recommended), and an internet connection. A fast internet connection (DSL or better) is recommended for best performance and for listening to the streaming music channels in VLES.

Or

A Macintosh (Intel or PowerPC) running Mac OS X 10.4 or later with at least 256MB RAM (512MB recommended).

One way to know is just to download, install and run VLES. If it works, then your machine meets the minimum requirements. That‘s what we call the "trial by fire" method. Otherwise, you can check the various system settings by clicking Start and then right-clicking My Computer and selecting Properties. The General tab will show Operating System and RAM. Then the Hardware Tab and Device Manager > Display Adapters will give you information about your video hardware.

For PC users: Once the download is complete, go to your computer‘s desktop (or wherever your browser saves downloaded files) and double-click the "VLES-Setup.exe" icon. Depending on your computer‘s security settings, you may get an "Open File - Security Warning" dialog box. Click "Run" if this dialog box pops up. Read and follow the instructions in VLES 1.0 Setup Wizard.
As part of the installation process, read the entire License Agreement carefully. If you agree to the Terms of Use Agreement, click "I Agree". If you do not agree to the Terms Of Use Agreement, click "Cancel."
Click "Install" and wait while the VLES program does its thing. When the install completes, click the "Run VLES" checkbox and click "Finish."
For Mac users: Once the download is complete, open the disk image (VLES.dmg) and drag the rat icon to your Applications folder or Desktop.

Head over to VLES Basics.

It will become the realization of all your dreams and desires and will fulfill all who touch it and bring peace to the world and cure cancer and stop the sun from going out and the ice caps from melting.

1. Register for a VLES account
2. Download VLES
3. Install
4. Log In

No, but VLES fully supports AIM. If you supply your AIM username and password when you login, you‘ll be able to IM your AIM buddies right from the VLES client.

It is strongly recommended that you supply a valid email address when you register for VLES. Like, why not? You can then activate your account by clicking the link in the Welcome Mail you receive. By activating your account you will be able to take advantage of advanced features, learn about events, and be eligible for contests, prizes, and "things of that nature."

When you register for an account or change your email address, the activation email should come immediately. If you don‘t see it, check your junk folder. If it‘s not there, go to http://www.VLES.com, sign in, and go to the "My Account" page. This page will have a link to re-send your activation email. If you still don‘t get the mail, try registering with a different email address. gmail and yahoo addresses both work fine. If you still don‘t get it, try all the above steps ten more times. If you still, still don‘t get it, give up and stick to Friendster or whatever.

The Activation URL should come in your email looking something like this:
http://www.VLES.com/go/activate?user=phillyjohn&code=cUGyALXSGgvTA7GJF1lUYQ1

but some email programs might display it like this:
http://www.VLES.com/go/activate?user=phillyjohn&code=cUGyALXSGgv
TA7GJF1lUYQ1

In the second one, as you can see, the last 12 characters of the activation link will not be included when you click, so the activation process will not work. You‘ll need to reassemble the full URL and paste it into your browser. A bitch, we know, but worth it. Come on. It takes a second really.

Note: Neither of these URLs are real activation URLs, they are used for demonstration purposes only.

Currently, there is no way to change your username. If you want an additional account, just re-register with a different username and e-mail address.

Login to the website at:http://www.VLES.com/ and go to My Account. You can change your e-mail address there. When you change your e-mail address, your account will be de-activated and an activation mail will be sent to your new e-mail address. Click the link in the activation e-mail to re-activate your account.

Login to the website at:http://www.VLES.com/ and go to My Account. You can change your password there.

Go to:http://www.VLES.com/, click "Sign In" and then click on "Forgot Password."

If you think someone else has been accessing your account, the first thing you should do is reset your password to something difficult to guess. See "How do I change my password?" above for information about changing your password.

Never tell other users your password. Also, VLES staff will never ask you for your password in the VLES environment. If someone saying they are from VLES does that, then they are a big, fat liar.

If you cannot login and cannot change your password, you will need to make a new VLES account and keep the new password a secret and difficult to guess. VLES is not able to recover compromised accounts.

Right-click on whoever is bothering you and choose "Ignore." You can right-click on the person‘s avatar or his/her name in the chat bubble. If you need a quick timeout? Just logout by pressing ALT-F4.

If you want to report a weirdo, creepazoid, pig, or lamer, right-click on him or his name in the chat bubble and select "Report Abuse". You will be able to submit a detailed report to VLES staff. We take abuse reports very seriously. Like, it‘s scary what we do to those people.

While MODs are continually watching over the environment, they may not always be available to respond to an SOS in real-time. You can attempt to call a MOD via the "Help" button, but ignore and report abuse are your best bets. We read all abuse reports. For more information on Moderation, please see the Support FAQ

What do you mean, "Now what?" Walk around, explore, chat, dance, and have fun! Also check out The Event Calendar for parties, contests, and stuff to do.

Hit F5 to bring up the wardrobe. There are three tabs: body, closet, and profile. Set your body attributes in the first tab, then dress yourself. You can save up to six different outfits.

You may have chosen the wrong gender on your profile; Check your profile on the website and edit if necessary to make sure your gender is correct.

Mouse over the button bar (dots) in the lower part of the VLES window to reveal different settings, options, and commands. These buttons are also mapped to F keys as described below:
Places (VLES world map) - F2
People (Friends/Favorites and AIM Buddies) - F3
Actions (emotes, gestures, dances, etc.) - F7
Avatar (wardrobe) - F5
View (shows a small view of yourself) - F8
Settings (volume control, brightness, away messages, etc.) - F6
Help (Help, FAQ, & Report Abuse) - F1
Note: F4 to toggle the Music Display and Alt-V toggles orbit camera mode

There are several ways to move:
Arrow keys
Ctrl-WASD
Double-tap the up-arrow or shift+up arrow to run

Ctrl-space or Enter.

Once in a blue moon, you might get "stuck." If this happens, don‘t panic! Take a deep breath, right-click on yourself and select "Respawn Myself". Or you could also teleport to one of your friends or a bot on your favorites list.

Here are a few tips:
Use right-mouse-down for mouse look.
The mouse wheel zooms in and out.
Ctrl-up arrow and ctrl-down arrow tilt the camera.
Alt-v toggles the orbit camera.

Use Ctrl+click to get to the right-click menu if you are using the Macintosh client.

These are "interact" icons. Click them to do things like sit on couches, lean against rails, or even meditate. Yes, meditate.

Right-click on your avatar and choose "edit away message." The away message will display over your head once you go idle. You can force immediate idle by typing: /away

In the button bar, click the people button or press F3 to bring up the Buddies panel. Here you can keep track of your "Favorites" and your AIM buddies.

Favorite list groups indicate which of your favorites are online and offline (click the + or - to expand or collapse the friend categories, respectively). Bold indicates friends (bi-directional favorites.)
Right-click on an online favorite to see available options. Double-click on an AIM buddy to send an IM via AIM from within VLES.

You can teleport directly to friends by right-clicking on their name in your favorites list and selecting "Teleport To."

In Windows, you can take a screen shot of the active window by holding down the ALT key while you press "Print Screen." The screen shot will be placed on the "clipboard." Then you need to go into a graphics program like Paint, Photoshop, GIMP, etc. and select paste.
For more information, see:http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/general/ht/winscreenshot.htm .

Hit ESC or use the small x in windows, bubbles, and panels.

No, but there are three different window sizes. Cycle through these via the maximize button or by double-clicking on the title bar (cmd-1 through cmd-6 on the Mac).

Just start typing and a message box will appear. When you press Enter, VLES citizens in close proximity (whose names appear above their heads) will see your message.

Users who are out of range won‘t be able to "hear" you. You can tell if fellow VLES citizens are "in range" by their user names. If their user names are visible then they can "hear" you and you can "hear" them. Move closer to other avatars to get "in range." "OK?" "Do you get it?"

Yes and No. All conversations in VLES are public. Anything you type in your message box can be seen by others. That said, you can "Whisper" to someone by double-clicking on him/her or right-clicking on his/her name in the chat bubble or in your People panel and choosing whisper. You can also send private messages to your AIM buddies if you are both logged in with your AIM IDs.

Whisper shortcuts:
/whisper or /w to whisper
double click on someone‘s avatar or on their name in the chat bubble or your friends list to whisper
/reply or /r to reply to the last whisper you received
Example usage: /whisper user37/ hi there!

You can "yell" messages that will reach a few more people around you than those who can normally hear you when chatting. To yell, type: /yell (your message here). Yelled messages show up as dark red text in your chat bubble. There is a limit on how often you can yell in a short amount of time.

During special events, virtual microphones will be used for broadcasting chat over a wider distance than yell. Microphone chat text will be in pink so you can easily read chat related to the special event.

Your chat bubble is simply a personal record of messages sent in your proximity. Each user will have different chat bubble contents depending on his/her proximity.

Yes. You will see a chat snippet "ticker" or dots above the heads of all in-range users who are typing.

You can right-click on any user (or his/her name in the chat bubble) and choose ignore. If anyone is bugging you and you don‘t want to deal, this feature will be your best friend. You can always right-click > unignore if you change your mind. Ignored users names will appear in strikethrough.

Bring up the People panel with F3. Click on the AIM icon, and then double-click on an AIM buddy to send an IM via AIM from within VLES.

These folks are "bots" or robots. These characters are automated by VLES and are not real people. For example, the bartenders are robots. Just like in the real world.

Sure! Then you can teleport to them to get around quicker.

Sometimes another window or panel grabs the window "focus". With your mouse, click on the main part of the VLES window and you should be able to enter text again.

We don‘t enable chat logging, but you can use the mouse to select text in the chat bubble so you can copy/paste into another application. You can also click the chat bubble and hit Ctrl-a, Ctrl-c to select all and then copy, and then save it from there.

F9 and F10 are shortcuts for two dances. The rest of the dances are available in the Actions panel (F7). With the dance tab of the Actions panel up, click on the name of the dance you want your avatar to perform. You can also type the name of the dance in the message box. PS: Dancing is fun.

Hit F7 to bring up the emotes and click on the emote you want your avatar to perform. You can also type the emote on a blank line (or its ASCII equivalent) name of the emote on a blank line. For example: lol or :) ) will make your avatar emote a "laugh."
Precede your text emote with a forward slash if your want to type an emote without it appearing in the chat bubble.
For example: /sit or /rotfl
Some phrases will trigger emotes too. For example, cya or ttyl will emote a "wave."

F8 shows you a mini-view and Alt-v orbit camera mode and lets you see what you look like from the front.

There are three "styles" for your avatar: Hip Hop, Indie, or Preppy. You can set this in the wardrobe (F5). Your gesture animations will be different depending on your style.

Staff or Moderators have red names.

Staff are VLES employees who are hanging out in VLES. Most of the time they wear a virtual staff shirt (with STAFF on the back). Staff can give you basic pointers and information about VLES.

Moderators are official online VLES representatives. Moderators wear special shirts (with MOD on the back) and are available to help users with emergencies. Moderators also patrol VLES during busy hours. Moderators will often ignore FAQ-ish questions or answer by saying "Press F1" (which launches this FAQ.)

Sorry, Mods don‘t add people to their buddy lists. They are way, way, way too important and serious to have buddies.

Mods are here to help with trouble and to help keep the place safe and fun. They are not taxis. God!

Check out VLES.com for the latest details on when events are happening in VLES. Read the Lowlife zine too.

The good sort. OK, OK. The cool sort. Alright, alright, sorry. Indie rock, punk rock, rap, oldies, 80s stuff, doo-wop, weirdo avant garde stuff, and like... anything we think is great.

Just walk down the street and walk into bars and clubs. There is music everywhere

Move your mouse to the lower-left of the window or hit F4. This will to display the "Music Panel." It shows the current artist, song and album information for the song or video that you are currently hearing.

Move your mouse to the lower-left of the window or hit F4 to display the "Music Panel."

The music panel will show five stars. These stars will be blank if you haven‘t rated the song. If you have, it‘ll show what you last rated it, the average rating, and the total number of votes.

To rate the song, simply move your mouse over the stars (one star = hate it; five stars = Love it!). You can change your vote next time you hear the song. So, if you first gave a song three stars, but want to change it to four or five, no problem just click and drag.

Check out the VLES.com to see how your favorite songs are being rated!

The latest music schedules are available right here.

Hit F6, click the sound icon, and drag the sliders according to taste. There is also a mute button on the music HUD (F4).

We are streaming high quality 44kHz ogg vorbis at 48kbps (q: -1) All streams are DCMA compliant. You can‘t really mess with that.

VLES will fully comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Copyright infringing materials found within VLES & VLES can be identified and removed via VLES‘s DMCA compliance process per below. But why wouldn‘t you want your stuff played on here?

For more information on the DMCA please see: http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

VLES will respond to copyright violations that fall under the restrictions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Reasonable efforts will be made to contact the relevant parties involved.
Parties will be able to file a counter-notification via the same process (per the DMCA sections 512(g)(2) and 512(g)(3) if the removed material was not infringing on a copyrighted work.

1. Identify in sufficient detail the copyrighted work that you believe has been infringed upon.
   
2. Identify the item that you claim is infringing on your copyright.
   
3. Provide a method of contacting you; phone number and email address would be preferred.
   
4. Provide any possible information, sufficient to permit us to notify the user(s) who posted the content that allegedly contains infringing material.
   
5. Include the following statement: "I have good faith belief that the use of the copyrighted materials described above and contained on the service is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or by protection of law."
   
6. Include the following statement: "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."
   
7. Sign the paper
   
8. Send the written document to our DMCA Agent:

Place your mailing address here.

Alternatively, fax the document to ???-????. On the cover sheet.
Please write ATTN: DMCA notifications.

This either means that you need to download and install the latest video driver for your video device or you need to acquire a better graphics card for your computer.

To find out your video device manufacturer and model:
- Right-click on your desktop background and choose "Properties."
- On the Settings tab, you can see your "Display."
- In this picture (link: display-settings.jpg) it‘s a ATI RADEON X600

You can google for "RADEON X600 video drivers" and try to find a site with the latest drivers. You‘ll have to download and install them, restart your machine, and see if that fixes the problem.

Some older computers with primitive video drivers may not be able to run VLES at all. You need something with 3D hardware acceleration and/or 3D OpenGL. There are lots of graphics cards available for most machines. Depending on how new or old your computer is, you‘ll need a specific type of card.

Really old computers: PCI card (e.g. NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 PCI)
Semi old computers: AGP card (e.g. NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT - AGP)
Newer computers: PCI EXPRESS card (e.g. NVIDIA PCI-Express GeForce 6800 GT)

You can get these at places like Best Buy, CompUSA, or online via places like newegg.com − see http://tinyurl.com/qswsf for a starting point.

Notes:
- Most newer computers will run VLES just fine out of the box.
- Most laptops do not have upgrade-able video cards -- if your laptop can‘t run VLES even after applying the latest drivers, you may be out of luck.
- Some folks have reported better results on laptops with an Intel graphics chipset when running at High Color (16 Bit) instead of True Color (32 bit)

Note: VLES has no affiliation with NVIDIA, Best Buy, CompUSA, or newegg. These are just examples of well-known services.

Click on one of the pink icons. These represent different virtual places that you can land on to begin.

Cause 1: This error usually indicates a problem with your Internet connectivity.
Remedy: Check your network connectivity. Try launching a browser and see if you can hit your favorite web site. If you can, but continue to receive this error, please post on the Help Forum.

Cause 2: Sometimes this error happens when there‘s an issue connecting to AIM.
Remedy: Try bypassing AIM in the main login screen and see if you can login to VLES without AIM.

Cause: This error occurs when the system cannot recognize your username/password combination.
Remedy: Make sure you are typing your username and password correctly (is caps lock on?) and try again. If you have forgotten your password, you can send it to yourself from the "Sign In" page at www.VLES.com.

Cause: VLES is down for maintenance or otherwise offline.
Remedy: Check the "System Status" announcement area of the Forums to see what‘s up.

Cause: You have successfully registered for an account, but the account has not been activated.

Remedy: Check your email for the VLES admin message with your activation link. If you cant find that email, go to the VLES website, and send yourself another activation email.
Website URL is: http://www.VLES.com/

Cause 1: This error generally occurs when the system has a problem with your AOL Instant Message (AIM) username/password combination.

Remedy: Make sure you are typing your AIM username and password correctly (is caps lock on?) and try again.

Cause 2: This error can happen if you disconnect and attempt to reconnect to VLES quickly.

Remedy: Wait a few seconds and try to login again.

Cause: This happens when VLES is up, but the client cant figure out how to talk it.

Remedy: Its possible that your need to (get your network administrator to) open up port 28000 for UDP.

Cause: This error occurs when theres an internal communication problem with VLES

Remedy: None. If this occurs, please post on the Help Forum.

Cause: This error occurs when theres an internal communication problem with VLES

Remedy: None. If this occurs, please post on the Help Forum.

Text: "This account is already logged in on another connection. Would you like to close the other connection so that you can log in from here?"

User Action: Click ?"Yes?" so your other session will be logged out and you will login from this session.
Note: This alert may come up even if you have no other sessions logged in. This is a known bug, simply hit the "Yes" button to continue logging in.

Text: ?"Could not connect, you may be connected elsewhere.?"
This alert usually comes when you try to reconnect after an unintentional disconnect. Click OK and try to login again.

Text: ?"There are no servers compatible with your version of VLES. You can get the most recent version of VLES here.?"
Note: Click the link to download the new client.

‘There is a new version of the VLES available. You can get it here.‘

Note: Your current client will still work, so you dont have to get a new version of the software now. However you should get a new version to take advantage of the latest features of VLES.

Lag? What lag? Har, har, har. Seriously, though, if VLES is laggy its probably just internet traffic or a slow video card.

If you think it doesnt look right, then it probably doesnt. Most graphics "weirdness" can be solved by downloading/installing the latest drivers for your video card.

To find out your video device manufacturer and model:
- Right-click on your desktop background and choose "Properties."
- On the Settings tab, you can see your "Display."

Lets say its a ATI RADEON X600.

So you could google for: RADEON X600 video drivers and try to find a site with the latest drivers. Youll have to download and install them, restart your machine, and see if that fixes the problem.

This might be a problem with your screen depth. Weve noticed some problems on certain notebook PCs.

The short-term fix is pretty simple:

1. Close VLES.
2. Right click on the desktop, this will bring up "Display Settings",
3. Click on the "Settings" tab
4. Select "Medium (16 bit)" from the color quality drop down
5. Click on the "OK" button
6. Restart VLES and you should be good to go.

Most new video cards have anti-aliasing settings, which can make the environment look a lot better.

1. Right-click on your desktop and choose "Properties."
2. In the Settings tab, click "Advanced"
3. Find the tab(s) with anti-aliasing settings.
4. Uncheck "Application Preferences" and explicitly set the anti-aliasing to at least 4x.

Note: Most laptops do not support anti-aliasing.

We think the brightness/contrast is just right, but if you want to change it, you can hit F6, click the icon that looks like a computer monitor, and adjust the brightness slider as you wish.

Note: Any setting other than the default will incur a small frame rate hit.

On the VLES Forums: Here

We do our best to squash the crashing bugs, but if you are crashing a lot, its probably a memory issue. Reboot and make sure nothing else is running when you run VLES. Also, if you get the "VLES has crashed" dialog, click "Yes" when it asks you to send a report to us.

Please read the Support FAQ.

User Support is currently handled through this FAQ and the Forums. Please read all sections of this FAQ before posting on the Help Forum .

Go to VLES.com/forums…

Yes!

Check out the VLES Accounts FAQ for information about account management.

Use the Bugs Forum. If its not really a bug, consider using a different forum :)

Post your ideas and suggestions on The Suggestions Forum .

Make new friends, and ask around. Dont ask the MODs, they‘re good at keeping secrets.

VLES employees often hang out in VLES. Most of the time they wear a virtual Staff shirt (with "STAFF" on the back). Staff can give you basic pointers and information. Staff usernames will be displayed in red.

A Moderator is an official online VLES representative. Moderators wear special shirts (with MOD on the back) and are available to help users with emergencies . Moderators also patrol VLES during busy hours. Moderators will often ignore FAQ-ish questions or answer by saying "Press F1" (which launches this FAQ.) MOD usernames will be displayed inred.

No. Staff members and Moderators are employees of VLES. In the future there may be programs for experienced users to have more formal roles within the community.

Yes! Be a great citizen. Help the newbies, give tours, spread the good vibes, tell people about cool events, and get active on the website. More official programs are in the works.

Before you call a MOD, you should right-click > ignore whoever is bothering you. If you ignore the yucky people, they wont be able to bother you!

If you want to report an offender, right-click on him or his name in the chat bubble and select "report abuse." You will be able to submit a detailed report to VLES staff.

While MODs are continually watching over the environment, they may not always be available to respond to an SOS in real-time. You can attempt to call a MOD via the "Help" button, but "ignore" and "report abuse" are your best bets. We read all abuse reports.

Yes, its right here.

Right here: Terms Of Use.

Right here: Privacy Policy.