Second Life

Things about SL

Kokua Beta Status & Review

by

Today I see a post on the Kokua/Imprudence blog. NickyP wrote about the problems added when a developer moves from a Beta release to a production release. They are the reason that the Kokua viewer is staying a Beta Viewer.

The Team is able to develop faster because they keep it a Beta release viewer, which is a good thing.

Kokua/Imprudence Viewers

Back when the Viewer Policies changed some developers were warning that development would slow down because of all the stuff they were required to do. Now developers are finding their way around some of the more tedious requirements.

Kokua and Exodus both release numerous beta versions. They release few production releases.

The Firestorm viewer is infrequently released as it mostly comes out only in production releases. The typical beta release for Firestorm is to their QA people or maybe we should call them beta testers. Beta releases when they are released are versions that are intended to be a future production version. Some other TPV Dev’s are releasing beta versions that are much more in the line of experimental viewers that have fewer restictions.

Read more

Mesh Rendering Quirk

by

Honor McMillian found a glitch in one of her photos. It has to do with how the viewer renders reflections of mesh objects. Bounce over to her site and see: Redefining Avatar in Second Life. Notice the ship’s reflection. One must include avatars in the reflection settings to get mesh items to show a reflection. … Read more

#SL News 3 Week 41

by

Server Updates

This last week we did get the roll to the main grid and a couple of small release candidates made their way to the RC channels.

The main channel got the package from Blue Steal as previously reported. That was a server crash fix package.

Server & Scripting UG Oct 2012

Blue Steel and Le Tigre got the same package, one that has some fixes for group SQL queries. These are not the Large Group Editing fixes. Those are still stuck in QA… I understand it is more the package they are in that is stuck rather than the actual group queries that are stuck. Simon Linden is NOT expecting the package with Large Group Editing to make it to an RC next week (42). Bummer.

Magnum continues to run last week’s (40) package, the backend infrastructure changes. The package that rolled to the main grid was added to this package. The combined packages will test this week.

The comments in the Deploys thread are few. So, it is probably safe to assume things are working well for everyone.

Read more

Sudden Massive Lag Update

by

This continues to be a problem for event managers. Toysoldier is getting more and more Lindens to look at the forum thread for BUG-355 – Increased Instant Sim Lag & Avi Crashes During Major Events – sim network issue. (Limited access) Andrew did not realize people were putting in the tech info needed to actually … Read more

Second Life Viewer Statistics PING

by

If you have looked at the Viewer Statistics (Ctrl-Shift-1), you have likely looked at PING. The term comes from the use of echo location in submarines and other marine uses. The active echo locators make a distinctive PING sound as the send a sound wave out. Electronics hear the echos coming back and create picture for human use.

Lots of PING – Image by: mknowles Flickr

When testing network connections we use a ping. It is actually a command to send a network data packet to a remote location and request a packet be sent back. The travel time tells us how well the connection is working.

What most people likely don’t think about is whether the Viewer’s PING is the same as the PING our operating system generates. For your information it isn’t.

Read more

Second Life Market Place

by

A little bit of dialog has started between merchants and Linden Lab. Rod Humble has engaged in the conversation. There is lots of history, debate, drama, and a ton of frustration. If you have never heard of the Lab’s Commerce Team you’ve missed one of Second Life’s great sagas. Well… may be not so great.

International Commerce Center by: jimbowen0306 – Flickr

The short story on the team is: the Commerce Team is responsible for the SL Market Place and I’ll guess more than half of all complaints about Lab’s poor communication ability coming from residents. I’m one that believes they are hiding.

The short story on the Market Place is: It doesn’t work. Yes, you can buy stuff. You often actually get what you buy. But, that does not mean the merchant gets paid. Merchant’s paying for advertising often don’t get the ads. They are often billed for what is supposedly free advertising. Merchant’s product promotions often end up in another merchants store and product images get mixed up between products and merchants… the list of failures is long and this is supposed to be the short story.

Read more