CHUI Project Viewer Update

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Ciaran Laval has an article about the recent update to the Lab’s CHUI Project Viewer. (CHUI = Chat Hub User Interface) Checho out the article: CHUI Project Viewer Gets An Update.

There are some new features and a bit of a change in organization of the Hub. I think it is getting beyter.

One nice feature is the access to past conversations. I’ve been using Notepad++ and digging through the hard drive to pull up conversations and transcripts of user group meetings. While I find that easy and don’t really need the feature, this will make the chat histories available to new users and those not into hard disk geekdom.

Astra Viewer 1.6.4.1 Release Review

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I keep wondering why I get so many hits on the Astra Viewer. My last review was in November 2011. The web site for the viewer seems to have disappeared.  I had assumed that development on the viewer had stopped. But, it seems not.

Astra Viewer 1.6.4.1 Splash Page
Astra Viewer 1.6.4.1 Splash Page

One can Download Astra Viewer from Github: aurora-sim / Astra Viewer – Download. This version is 7 months old. I can’t really see where it is being actively maintained. But it seems to get updated every 3 to 6 months, which would suggest a new update may arrive at any time.

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#SL news #3 Week 51

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It is the Christmas Season and in the merriment some news is leaking out about things to come.

Avatar Baking

I think most of you have heard a public countdown clock is running on Third Party Viewers (TPV) being able to deliver this service. Those that don’t change over will render avatars as grey or clouds.

Yuzuru Driving to User Group Meeting
Yuzuru Driving to User Group Meeting

What is less known is the new service only uses the HTTP protocol to deliver baked textures. In most ways this is a good thing. However, a number of people in Japan are seeing problems with HTTP texture being slow. Most of the rest of the world outside of Asia is NOT seeing that problem. They see a speed up. So, if you are in Japan and you are seeing a slower HTTP delivery of textures, get in touch with Monty Linden. But, be sure you know it is not your computer and be sure you can add information to the discussion before contacting Monty. 

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Google Sign In & Security

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Working with some new client computers I ran into some VERY annoying problems with the Google Chrome Internet Browser. There is an initial Sign In which seems hard to turn off.

Browser Market Share
Browser Market Share

In my search to find out how to turn off the annoying Sign In I learned several things about Chrome and Chromium. If you don’t know, The Chromium Projects according to Chromium’s home page are:

The Chromium Projects include Chromium and Chromium OS, the open-source projects behind the Google Chrome browser and Google Chrome OS, respectively. This site houses the documentation and code related to the Chromium projects and is intended for developers interested in learning about and contributing to the open-source projects.

While I knew about Chromium being the open source side of Google’s Chrome browser, it had not dawned on me that this was the place to get information about Chrome. Duh! Well… we all have our stupid moments… and I didn’t even have to go blond. It is not the end-all-be-all source and Chrome often does not work as Chrome does, has files in different places, and different or missing registry entries at least they have some information that can help. It is very much like Linden Lab viewers and Third Party viewers… the same but different. 

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nVidia Releases 310.70 WHQL

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WARNING: Update – I can’t say for sure, but this version seems to be having problems with SL Shadows.

nVidia has a new driver out. (Downloads) They released it December 17. This is version 310.70 or 9.18.13.1070, depending on how you write version numbers.

nVidia 310.70 WHQL
nVidia 310.70 WHQL

This version promises speed ups in a number of games. Second Life™ is not one of them. Plus there are a number of bug fixes too. I don’t know that any of them affect SL.

I’ve tried it, barely. But, it seems to work OK. I’m using the nVidia settings to override a number of the viewer settings. Turning off the viewers Anti-Aliasing (AA) and using the video card’s CSAA gives me a good performance boost, which just means I turn on more stuff and slow it back down…

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