Second Life Translator Broke?

This translation thing is present for me now. I decided to try and get the Bing Free Translation API working in my viewer. That would save me using Discord’s Metanomics, that he really doesn’t seem to want out there.

The result of my effort is: BUG-8794The Bing API used by the viewer is depreciated.

Tameless Green With Envy Outfit - St. Patrick's Day
Tameless Green With Envy Outfit – St. Patrick’s Day by Nita Bracken, on Flickr

The Lab was making the change over to a viewer based translator in late 2011. That was in response to Bing, Google, Yahoo, and other players in the translate game deciding they would charge for their translation service.

Read more

Second Life’s VWBPE Starts

Seems we are hosting an in-world meeting for educators. The Lab published the information today about 10AM. See: Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Starts March 18th with Keynote from Ebbe Linden. So, that starts off tomorrow. News leaked of this event in several places and it has been covered in the SL blogosphere.

@ work
=”@ work by Caitlin ‘Caity’ Tobias, on Flickr

It will be interesting to see what Ebbe has to say. 

Read more

Firestorm Activism

As I and several others have reported, the Lab is thinking about removing the Restore to Last Position (RTLP) feature at the server level. No one really knows how many people use the feature. The Lindens only heard about use of the feature when people showed up at support wanting things back which they lost by using the feature. So, the Lab has a bad taste for RTLP. No surprise there. And they don’t build IN Second Life the way users do. So, they see no use for the feature.

Jungle Ruins
Jungle Ruins by Carthalis Rossini, on Flickr

But, there are possibilities for keeping the feature and eliminating the problems. Firestorm has disabled the feature for No-Copy items in there viewer. If you screw up, at least you have a copy left. Other viewers have done similar things. This is a rather simple fix.

Read more

Second Life: Skin Fair 2015 Review

I finally made it in Sunday Morning about 4 AM. There are some pronounced changes since the 2014 fair. For one, Appliers are much more prominent.

Skin Fair 2015 - Appliers
Skin Fair 2015 – Appliers

Makeup is changing too. Brows, lipstick, eye shadow… they are all more likely to come separate, which I like.

Tattoos are changing. Better, more detailed, and more tats targeted at various body parts. Appliers let us target various parts of the body. They also let us vary how they display via HUD. It is a new world of tats. 

Read more

Second Life Bits of News 2015 Week 11 TPD

Avatar Layer Limits

The Lindens are back on this project. The idea is that the current limits we have will change. As it is now we can wear up to 5 items on each of 12 attachment points – 60 items. The Lindens are changing that so, that you can wear 60 items (layers) any where you want.

This is going to really help with tattoos and alpha layers.

"1920s
1920s Berlin: Talking Shop by Marion Beresford, on Flickr

This change will affect viewers and servers. Viewers don’t have to update to be compatible with the changed servers, but that would restrict that viewer’s users.

The avatar bake engine is going to be updated to enforce the 60 item limit.

No projected ETA.

Read more

Second Life Viewers 2015 Week 11-12

RC & Project Viewers

RC Maintenance Viewer version 3.7.26.299610 – This is the version with lots of bug fixes – It has problems. So, it’s a weak candidate for promotion next week (12).

RC Hover Viewer version 3.7.26.299635 – This version is considered very new and therefore needs more testing. However, word is it is working very well. So, we may have our avatar hover issues resolved soon.

@coldwater
@coldwater by Sannita Cortes, on Flickr

RC ToolsUpdate Viewer version 3.7.26.299443 – This one might be promoted. It is Oz Linden’s choice and it is looking good for being the one as of Friday.

If it promotes, it means all future viewers will use the new tools, VS2013, for compiling. 

Read more