Firestorm has released (12/10) a new version of their viewer. This is about seven months after their last release and about 4 months after the release of their beta version for EEP, Enhanced Environment Project.
I am not going to review the viewer as Inara has a good review up here. You can get the update from the splash page of the Firestorm Viewer or download it at the Firestorm website.
If you chose to install the beta version then there is a gotcha in this version’s install. The 6.4.12 install program overwrites the version prior to the beta version or the previous ‘main version’ install. You’ll have to manually remove the beta.
I am not keeping up with SL tech like I used to. I play more these days. But, today I made it to a Server-Scripting meeting. BIG changes.
UPLIFT
The Lindens tell us the UPLIFT is the biggest change to the service ever made in the history of Second Life™. Expect problems and odd glitches. They even posted a request in the SL Tools & Tech section of the SL Forum, A Light in the Cloud. Patience. As they move to eliminate the one foot in data center and one in the cloud, things are likely to get bumpy. Expect odd problems. Lots of people are working hard to make this change as smooth as possible. The optimistic completion is before the holidays.
The UPLIFT of region simulators to the cloud is in high gear. You can tell if the region you are in is running in the cloud in Help->About… Look for the “You are at…” part. You have to know how to read server names and URI values to tell. But, simply said cloud addresses are amazon.com and Linden Data Center servers have the address linden.com. This simple distinction will go away as more regions move to the cloud. The Lindens will use what they call a synthetic name, which gives the Lindens more useful information about the server and its regions.
Knowing which region is located where is not going to matter for long. Soon it will all be cloud based. Then only the Lindens will need to know which server is carrying which region.
We are told that last Tuesday night at minimum use time about 1,000 regions were Uplifted to the cloud. Mazidox Linden tells us those regions have been running with only minor problems.
They anticipate moving may be 2,500 regions Wednesday (10/28) to the cloud. Which means problems are very minor. This will also mean more than half of all regions will be in the cloud.
Today we got our first set of server Release Notes for the cloud versions. See an example: Release Notes.
I have survived CoVid-19. It took me down for about 15 days. Still recovering, I easily tire. My four-mile hiking is down to a half-mile.
What I learned about CoVid-19 is there is more confusion, contradictory information, and horrible reporting. The worst information and often deliberately injurious information is coming from California and New York. Even my doctors had little information and kept saying they would have to talk to experts and get back to me when I asked questions.
Being in California I was dealing with the state’s and country’s requirements and quarantine instructions. Most annoying was the followup contact tracing. It was obvious there is a political bias in the contact tracking. They only collect information related to those facilities the state wants to close down. Information for those facilities the state wants open is not collected.
Anna Ivanova, owner of the Genus Project, has provided an update on the legal drama washing over Genus products. You’ll find the update on Facebook. Since I hadn’t figured out how to link to a FB Post, I had to look it up. The time stamp at the top of a post contains a link to the post. Anyone can right-click copy that link and use it.
For those that do not know Genus Project makes products for Second Life™. The Genus mesh heads are somewhat popular. You can see people writing about them in the SL Forum.
Marketplace Store – As of today 9/3/2020, the mp store is still empty. Expect that to change as soon as the court verdict propagates through the system.
The original post is here. I’ve quoted the post below…
This is an informal test and I use the word ‘test’ very loosely. I just wanted to see what the commotion about crossing in the new AWS servers was about. There is no hard data in this experiment. My computer and connection are irrelevant IMO. The Viewer is Firestorm 6.4.5 Beta, which I used because I have it setup to work with OBS.
I started my trials in Blake Sea – Half Hitch, Aditi (SLURL). If you search for the region in Aditi, include the Blake Sea part.
There is a long 1 sim wide run from Blake Sea – Azimuth to Blake Sea – Bering of 17 regions. That is a 4.352 kilometer run or about 2.7 miles for the metric challenged. Plenty of room to max out my Bandit 380R (The Mesh Shop – Map URL).
I want to mention The Rubber Bunny. That HUD on the left is made by Kaliska Dismantled of Rubber Bunny. Kaliska makes easy to modify HUDs for various boats and vehicles. I’ve bought a couple (L$49). Plus making some fun vehicles. Among them hovercraft which are a novel SL driving experience.
