A bit of trivia…
When Catwa released their beta mesh head membership in the Firestorm Preview Group shot up to about 4,800. So, the Firestorm team has been getting feedback on their viewer’s changes and Bento features. That is a good thing. It isn’t solid technical information but, problems are being noticed and …complained… about. So, the team can track them down.
. chouchou . Cynthia (Catwa Catya)
Seems the Catwa people posted a link to the Firestorm download. You may have noticed I’ve never posted a link. I told you you can find it by joining the Firestorm Preview groups and becoming a tester. The links are there. The Firestorm people apparently weren’t happy with Catwa. So, when they released a new version they changed the link URL, it would change in any case, and blocked the old preview viewer that Catwa linked to. I am sure a large number of people were complaining to Catwa about not being able to log in with he preview version they got.
The team fixed the link in a couple of days. The point of the Preview group and viewer is to get test information back to the FS Team so they can fix problems. Catwa posting a direct link circumvented the feedback system based on people being a member of the FS Preview group. I gather from comments made in TPD’s meeting the team figured they would leave the problem Catwa walked their selves into in place and let Catwa deal with it to wake them up. The team isn’t mean but, step on their toe and they will push, as they should.
The team has also has had numerous reports of better performance from the FS Bento beta version viewer. Word from the Linden side is the process for rendering avatars, at least that part that looks at the skeleton and attachments, has been optimized, which is why there is no performance hit from having all those extra bones to deal with now. So, when those bones aren’t used we see a performance improvement.
We should see the improvement in all Bento capable viewers with Bento code written 4 to 6 weeks ago, mid October. So, for the Linden RC’s I think that would take us back a couple of updates. I suppose older systems would see a more noticeable difference.
Once upon a time, Norton Anti-Virus and Firestorm were having problems. Each time FS updated Norton would start identifying the new viewer as malicious malware. Jesse and team contacted Norton. Norton actually had a person log into Second Life with a viewer, contact the team, figure out the problem and fix Norton AV to eliminate the problem. Since then the FS/Norton problems have stopped. Yay, Norton.
I’m not a Norton AV fan, but they do deserve props for supporting the FS Team and SL. So, if you are deciding on an AV program for use with SL, give consideration to Norton.