More people are becoming aware of what RedZone (RZ) is and what it means for their privacy. From June 2010 to February 2011 people have changed from ‘wus zat?’ to ‘WTF is being done about RedZone?’ Alphaville Herald has been reporting the state of RedZone and resident reaction along with the Labs actions. I am getting more curious about RedZone (L$3,999 in Market Place) and decided I needed to review the product and state of drama around it.
The Imprudence team has released an update of Imprudence 1.3.0 to 1.3.1. They say if you are a 1.3.0 user you should update. Those of us using the Experimental versions will have to wait. The team says a new version of the Experimental should be out end of next week.
This version does not have the features from the Experimental back ported. There is a list of the features added to 1.3.1 on the Imprudence site: Imprudence 1.3.1 Released
I use the Experimental, so once it’s new version is released I’ll check it out.
This version is released in Windows and Mac versions only. The release is labeled an early build… All the typical versioning designators used by most software developers do not apply to the Kirsten Viewers. It is somewhat like experimental aircraft. Even when an experimental plane reaches a stable model and is sold to others it remains an experimental model. So, it is not completely accurate to say this is an alpha or beta version.
One has to realize KirstenLee is developing for the high-end techie with a high-end machine. Consideration for legacy machines and novice users is NOT high on KirstenLee’s priority list. It isn’t an animosity; it’s just that KirstenLee is not letting requirements to be compatible with older technology disproportionately hold back development of the viewer.
In keeping with that line of thinking this viewer will NOT install on machines that do not meet advanced requirements. I suppose too many people with old hardware and software were complaining of problems. No matter what KirstenLee says about the viewer being an advanced model with advanced hardware requirements people tried to run it on equipment that was not adequate and then complained. Now it should be blatantly obvious when you don’t have the hardware to get it up.
Dolphin Viewers 1 & 2 have new versions out, actually they were out on the 12th and I’m lagging. The Dolphin Viewer 2 (DV2) is based on SLV2.5 code. No new features for it, yet. The Dolphin Viewer 1.5 (DV1) has four new features, which are described on the Dolphin blog. See: Dolphin Viewer
This week Lance announced that the Dolphin Viewers for Linux will be built on openSUSE 11.2… openSUSE announced they were releasing 11.3… so… I’m not sure what Lance is saying. I know some people prefer to be a version behind because the problems and work-arounds are known. So, I can suppose…
There are a number of tutorials and “How To’s” for doing a clean install of Second Life Viewers. Several viewers have their own instructions in their wiki or forum. I’ve read through a bunch of them. In general they seem to be written by a one-viewer user with some minor concessions to the possibility one may be using more than one viewer. I’ve had over 15 viewers simultaneously installed and working. I’ve also had things horribly balled up. So, I’ve experimented with several different clean install processes. This is what I’ve learned about Second Life Clean Installs.
Cleaning – By: Chicago Art Department
Warning: This is Windows oriented. I don’t do Mac, sorry. And I don’t have any running Linux boxes. The difference in how a clean stall is done is mostly in file locations.
Since long before I found Second Life residents, users, have complained about poor communications between Linden Lab and users. In 2010 Phillip Rosedale proclaimed that would change and the Lab would be more open. That has been happening and there have been problems. So, more changes are coming.
Contacting Linden Lab
Some time ago I wrote an article on how to effectively contact the Lab. Contacting & Influencing Second Life. Things are starting to change and eventually the information there will be way out of date.
This article is sort of the transition phase of how to connect with the Lab until we know more.
