Changes

Second Life Mute-Block Changing

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Second Life users have the ability to block/mute those that people that annoy them, both voice and chat. One can also mute objects that are spamming them. Once blocked you cannot:

  • See text chat, hear voice chat, or receive IMs from that person or object.
  • See particles emitted by the blocked avatar or object.
  • Receive items from the blocked object.

But, muting is not fool proof. You can mute someone in-world and it has no effect in, I think, group chat, the market place or in the new social features. I don’t do much muting…

Running on the release channel Magnum is a new update that has the code to move muting from the simulators into what the Lindens call the People API’s. These are the API’s that will become the primary call for all communication tasks in Second Life. The People API is or will be queried to get the information needed to establish a communication cannel. So, it is in a perfect place to control the communication.

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#SL ARC Replaced

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ARC denotes Avatar Render Cost. We have had this tool in the viewer for some time. When used we see a numeric value that is green, yellow, or red. Red denotes the avatar’s render cost is too high… according to someone. It tells me I’m almost dressed…

New Draw Weight Shown Above My Head

You can enable ARC reporting in Viewer 2 and 3 via the top menu. It is in the Advanced item. If you do not have an Advanced item in your menu press Ctrl-Alt-D (viewer 3 is a little strange, if you have a problem try using ‘D’ or ‘Q’ with Ctrl-Alt to get Advanced open). Then in V2: Advanced->Rendering->Info Displays->Avatar Rendering Cost. Or in V3 use: Advanced->Performance Tools->Show Draw Weight for Avatars. The change from old ARC numbers to new Draw Weight numbers is about 10 times greater.

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Where is Torley?

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I am a Torley Linden fan. I’m not a video tutorial fan. I like Torley’s video tutorials more then I like most video tutorials. I’ve watched a large number of them and sent out loads of links to them. I recently noticed the new Viewer Interface tutorials are not made by Torley. (See links in: #SL’s … Read more

#SL’s New Linden Helpers

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I am seeing blogs on Second Life’s Beta Helpers project. I am wondering what is going on. Second Life used to have volunteer mentors helping on the SL Welcome Islands. These were the people I went to for answers early in my SL experience. The mentors program was closed and now the Lab seems to be starting over with Helpers? So, what’s up?

Volunteers? - Image by mrsdkrebs at Flickr

The Blog View

Danial Voyager is always curious and blogging about interesting and new things in SL. His post gives about the most complete coverage of the new helpers I’ve seen. See: New Linden Helpers Beta Program.

The Problem

Once upon a time… volunteer mentors manned the Linden Welcome/Help Islands. The Lab ran the Volunteer’s group. It is hard to trace that history in the SL Wiki and the forum, as both have changed since the group was disbanded. However, Massively reported on the disbanding in an article by Tateru Nino in November of 2009. See: Linden Lab to disband moribund mentor group.

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Second Life Inventory Beta Tests

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Yesterday in the Server User Group Jenn Linden attended to request help with testing coming inventory changes. These tests are in progress now on the ADITI grid. This set of changes is about speed and reliability. This set of changes is not part of the Direct Delivery (DD)feature. It is expected to improve DD’s performance too, but the change is for improved speed and reliability.

Want to Help and Test?

The code for the change is deployed on the ADITI grid. Instructions for the test can be found in the SL Wiki. See Inventory Beta Tests. The page includes the regions names of the areas using the new inventory code.

It helps if you take someone with you to test or make a friend while there. Part of the test is about giving inventory items to others and receiving items from others.

There is also an odd step where you are asked to: Remove an attachment such that it tries but cannot rez and must be returned. That could have been worded better. It sounds a bit over educated. Basically, you need to DROP and attachment in a no-rez area. Oskar Linden set up some no-rez areas in the test regions for that part of the test. Pay attention to parcel names within the regions.

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