Second Life

Things about SL

Firestorm Beta 2.5.2 (16922) Release Review

by

A new Firestorm version is out. Apple, Linux, and Windows versions are available. This is the big step up in Third Party Viewers for builders. The development team has added the build tools. I think it was the lack of this feature most holding Firestorm back. Following is my experience with the new Firestorm.

Firestorm Viewer Beta 2

Download

Tuesday and Wednesday the download process was very slow. I am guessing lots of people are finally making the change over to a V2 type viewer. I certainly see patience with anti-V2 people running out in the support groups. Not Firestorm’s support people. They are great. But, the Firestorm users that chime into help other Firestorm users are getting an edge. After they made the change and survived.

May be I’ll make a T-shirt that says I survived the change… ummm… maybe I could word that better.

Read more

New Avatars and Cars

by

Linden Lab has just added a new flock of non-human avatars to SL. See: July Update

New Second Life Robot Avatars
New Second Life Vehicles
New Second Life Animal Avatars

These avatars and vehicles are in your Library folder in your inventory, now. They will soon appear in the Basic Mode viewer.

Chat Lag

They Lindens are saying chat lag has been greatly reduced. I haven’t heard of any new technical details since my last update on the subject. So, I’m assuming it is just old news making it to the forum.

Read more

Hair Fair 2011

by

No server updates last week. No Mesh meeting this week. So, I went down to the Hair Fair. That was an expensive adventure. But, the prices are amazing and most vendors are contributing 50% of the cost to Wigs for Kids, a worthy cause. Stop by and donate even if you don’t buy anything.

Hair Fair 2011

Getting In

The Hair Fair is popular. Lots of people are going. Especially as they learn about the prices. So, getting in can be a problem, lots of server full messages. There is a way around that problem. Open the World Map and search for Iridium. You’ll see four regions that are obviously related; Osmium, Rhodium, Iridium, and Platinum. Find one of those areas with the fewest people and TP in there.  Any area with less than 45 people will probably let you in.

Read more

Second Life Server Update Week 26

by

This week saw the Mono2 update roll out to the main grid. This update has cycled through the testing process for weeks. Many were looking forward to its roll. Things did not go as well as expected. The problem, new fixes and coming fixes are discussed below.

The Seljuks Empire

Homestead Problems

The Mono2 roll out revealed a structural problem in the testing cycle. The percent of homestead regions in the release channels was too small to catch a problem in this upgrade. Hours after the Tuesday roll out the Lindens knew they had a problem. By noon Tuesday they knew the problem was big. None of the homestead regions were working well. By Wednesday morning they realized the scope of the problem.

Read more

The Phoenix-Firestorm Survey

by

The Phoenix hour is a bi-weekly show facilitated by Phaylen Fairchild (the nosey heifer – hilarious inside joke – see 52:00±). In the video Jessica Lyon is speaking for the Firestorm/Phoenix team. This week’s meeting is mostly about the recent survey on five features in the viewer, which the Firestorm team ran. The following is a summary of the meeting. The times are HH:MM:SS or just MM:SS and they are approximate. The words here are my paraphrasing of the video not a transcript. So, my take may be different than yours was or would be or than what Jessica intended. Simply it is what I took from what they were saying.

The Phoenix Hour

If you watch the video be warned that while the video starts at 00:00:00 the sound failed until about time mark 07:00±. So, you can skip into the video without missing anything. Also, the video is mostly just talking heads. So, if you listen without watching, you won’t miss anything. The only URL presented I give as a link below.

Read more

#SL Server Updates Week 26

by
Servers - Image by: dumbledad @ Flickr

Today one of the long pending updates has finally rolled out to the main grid. With any luck, it will work fine and a roll back can be avoided. So, what is in this new roll out?

Mono2

The big gun in this roll out is Mono2. Kelly Linden is generally blamed for the Mono2 Update… well… attributed is probably a better word. But, since no good deed goes unpunished… we can thank him while gathering tar and features. Whatever your feelings on Mono2, it has been a long time coming. Today it was rolled out to the main grid.

Mono2 is an update to the Linden Scripting Language (LSL) system. The original language is one created by Linden Lab for use in Second Life (SL). Scripts are used by residents to make things like doors open and teleports teleport. Scripts are written in a language. Many of you will have heard of JavaScript, which is used widely with web pages. LSL is a somewhat JavaScript like language used exclusively in Second Life with a dialect used in OpenSim (OSSL). I suppose one could say the relationship between JavaScript and LSL is a bit like English and Spanish being Latin based languages. Your ability to speak one does not allow you to speak the other, but any other Latin based language will be a bit easier to learn.

Read more