Firefox 5 Released

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I just saw a new Firefox browser is out, version 5. I started looking to see what is new in Firefox 5. The hype is 1,000’s if new things. The reality is; not much… from the users perspective. There are the ubiquitous bug fixes, plus new security measures and a few new features.

Firefox Twitter

Popularity

Internet Explorer has the largest number of users. However, that does not make it the most popular browser. As it is built into Windows, new and novice computer users have no clue that better browsers are available. Among intermediate and advanced computer users alternate viewers are popular. They actually make a choice as to which browser to use. So, while debatable it is Firefox that is the more popular browser. Behind it is Google Chrome, my favorite.

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Work Around for Rigged Mesh

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For those of us using Blender 2.5x the problem with rigged mesh not exporting correctly is a known issue. A couple of days ago Tapple Gao posted a fix for that problem in the SL Forum. See: Rigging working in Blender 2.5

This is a geeks only fix. The fix submitted to Blender.org is code that must be used when COMPILING a version of Blender. The fix is simple enough, simple as in short, and I suspect will be in the next release of Blender.

Someone may put up a build of Blender with the patch implemented. Until then the fix doesn’t do most of us any good.

#SecondLife Server Updates Week 24.5

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The week of 6/12-18 there was not a main server roll out. The week of 6/19-25 we did get a roll out on the main grid. The roll out had the group chat fixes.

Group Chat

Group chat has been receiving attention. The Utility Servers were updated over a week ago. Now the region simulators are updated, a minor fix.

One of the Group Chat Problems found was the Utility Server for chat had to send chat messages to multiple people in a region. If ten people were in a region the server had to send ten copies of chat updates to the region. This change allows the utility server to send the sim one message and the simulator distributes the chat updates. This sim change is not something that makes a lot of difference to most users. But, any load taken off the utility servers running group chat helps.

The previous update to the utility servers has made a significant difference to group chat for everyone. Enough so that this alarming JIRA was filed: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-7031

Group Chat Performance

The above image is a plot of chat messages (messages + group status updates) per minute sampled over one day. Each dot is one of the 16 utility nodes.

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KirstenLee S21(8) RC3 Released

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RC2 was out 6/9. RC3 fixes some of the problems with RC2. One change is this version of S21 is very stable. No crashes after hours of use. There is no typical announcement on KirstenLee’s blog. But, the new download link for the RC is on the home page.

Camera

There are some ‘camera’ issues that show up when one is trying to select objects for editing or for camera zooms. I’ve seen problems for some time in most series 2 viewers. But, this is far worse. A click to select something often selects the object behind it. Other times selecting an object launches the camera to some odd new position. Research is on going to see whasup with that.

Speed

I’m seeing some odd results on FPS (Frames per Second) rates. In my cottage or places with few avatars I get good FPS. In places with lots of avatars I drag down to 9 to 12 FPS. Even in a shopping mall with lots of textures but few avatars, I see good FPS, typically 15 to 25 FPS.

Some are seeing good FPS even when there are large numbers of avatars around. I may need to mess with my settings.

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Imprudence 1.4.0 Beta 1 Release

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Imprudence has released the first beta of Imprudence 1.4.0. This has been the Experimental version most of us have been using for some time. So, it doesn’t look any different than previous versions. However, this release represents a massive amount of effort.

If you are still using Imprudence 1.3, it is time to upgrade. If you are on Apple/Mac, there is still an image upload issue. Otherwise, there  are about a gazillion bug fixes and new features.

Mesh

This viewer has no mesh support nor does it render mesh objects.

Outfits

The series 2 viewer outfits are not supported. I simply never change clothes while using Imprudence. Changing clothes while in Imprudence seems to create problems for me. That may be an Imprudence/OpenSim thing.

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