Second Life

Things about SL

#SL Direct Delivery

by

We have an approximate roll out date. This feature is expected to hit the grid this summer, first in Beta and within a couple of months the final version. It is down to weeks. So, what is Direct Delivery?

Direct Delivery is a new way to deliver products to residents in SL. We will have 2 folders in inventory. One folder for receiving items we buy and one for items we want to sell in the SL Market Place.

Arriving new purchases will arrive in the receiving folder. That will be nice. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to hunt for new delivery.

The Magic Box, now used to put products into the SL Market Place, will eventually be replaced and vanish. For a time both can be used.

Brooke Linden promises more information two weeks before Direct Delivery Beta goes live. Watch the Commerce Forum for more information. There is currently a live thread there now with several questions asking for clarification on various things. No answers yet.

Several people have asked forward thinking questions that didn’t occur to me.  Check them out and add any you may have.

I’m curious how this will affect real estate in SL. Merchants will no longer need a place in SL to park their Magic Boxes. That would seem to reduce the need for land in SL. I guess we’ll see.

Dolphin Viewer Congratulations

by
Dolphin Viewer
Dolphin Viewer

Today the Dolphin 1 viewer made it to the top of the Linden Third Party Viewer list.

Third Party Viewer Directory

This list is ordered by crash rate. The viewer at the top of the list has the best (least) crash rate. Dolphin has not been in this list because crash reporting is optional and the Lindens lacked the data to rank it. Some minimum number of reports and logins have to be received to be ranked.

The ranking is:
Dolphin 1
SLV 1.23
Phoenix (probably 1050 – 1102 is too new)
Imprudence
SLV 2.6.3
Singularity
SLV Beta 2.6.8
Firestorm (pre-alpha)
Emergence
Ascent
Kirstens

Read more

#SL Server Updates Week 20

by

The last two weeks have been hectic for the Lindens. Several updates to the server software did not work as expected and the crash rates went up. It seems those have been corrected and things are returning to the normal cycle of upgrades.

This week’s (today’s) roll out was stopped and rolled back part way through the process. Something went wrong.

Server Room
CERN Server Room - By: torkildr @ Flickr

Snack Release Channel

One of the code updates that is proving difficult to get working is the Mono2 upgrade. You probably remember it is the Mono scripts rezzing in a region that caused regions to stall for 5 to 30 seconds. That fix has been in progress since Mono was released. A couple of times now Mono2 updates and improvements have been rolled out and back. The Snack Release Channel is a special channel made up of just a few simulators on the main grid where the Mono2 changes can be tested.

Read more

SL Viewer Progress Week 20

by

Lots of confusion and server problems this last week. New code being merged into the servers caused problems. For viewers the result has been problems and things not working. If you aren’t checking the SL Grid Status, you can’t tell if it is the viewer or the grid. Things are calming down and work is resuming on the viewer.

Region WindLight

More work has been done on getting controls built for setting a region’s Windlight values. The control dialogs are being arranged this week. Once that is done we’ll get a project viewer for testing. Of course, you can only test it if you have a region you manage (estate manager). If you are a region manager and willing to test the feature, get in touch with Oz Linden.

Oz expects the server side code to be on the grid by the time the Project Viewer Rolls out. So, I think we are talking a week or two…

Read more

Phoenix Viewer 1.5.2.1102 Released Review

by

The new Phoenix version has Enhanced Avatar Physics. This wasn’t planned. It is a bug fix, as odd as that sounds. The problem is that series 1 viewers started having problems rendering avatars wearing the new SL Viewer’s Physics Layers. So, Phoenix  Viewer users would see avatars wearing the new layer as a Ruth. Oddly the SLV2 people would see Phoenix users Ruthed too.

The details of the problem are in a JIRA report: VWR-25479

While one does need to upgrade their copy of Phoenix to the latest version, one is not required to use Avatar Physics.

I gather that the Phoenix Team had pretty much moved on to Firestorm. But, suddenly the realization the Phoenix viewer was not going to correctly render the avatars of those using the future Firestorm, Kirsten, Singularity, Dolphin, or any other viewer that used Physics Layers. This was worth a fix.

Read more

Finding Interesting Places and Things

by

I think many Second Life residents have a bit of the explorer in them. Curiosity is an attribute of many residents. So, news of interesting places is usually welcome. And then there are clothes and shoes, which are really important. Finding good sources of information on places, clothes, and shoes can be a problem. I’ve found a couple of blogs that seem to have never-ending-streams of interesting stuff.

Places

Second Life Places
Second Life Places

Search remains broken. But the in-world Destinations Guide in Search gives us an ever changing list of places to visit. However, Honour’s Post Menopausal View is a blog providing a genuinely interesting flow of places to visit. Each article in the blog introduces a place with photos and a brief write up by Honour McMillan. On average she posts one new article per day.

Clothes & Shoes

Second Life Fashion
Second Life Fashion

We have such a varied interest in fashion it is hard to recommend a fashion blog that is interesting to everyone. The Daily Look is a good recommendation for all. That includes the fashion conscious men too. Articles appearing in The Daily Look cover a wide range of tastes and styles.

The Daily Look blog is an aggregation of fashion blogs. You’ll likely find some of your favorite designers linking their blogs into The Daily Look. The number of new articles on a slow day is 50 or more. On most days there are over 100 new articles. Fortunately the articles are picture rich and text poor.

Warning… reading The Daily Look can be expensive. The blog of course is free. However, the clothes you find and want are not… well some are free. Reading the blog… well… looking at the pictures, has lead to by buying new outfits. Plus there is skin, makeup, hair, nails, stockings… ethnic styles… everything related to your look is there… and tempting. Now and then you’ll see articles on new furnishings for your home too.

If you are breaking into the fashion world, this is a good place to see the competition. Plus it is a good exhibition of fashion photography. One can easily see the strong and weak promotions.

All the items in the images are from recent posts in the two blogs.