Second Life Server Updates Week 23

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Today we are getting new roll outs to the main grid and tomorrow release channels. There have been problems with recent releases for 3 or 4 weeks. Projects were rolled back, revised and retested on the release channels. Code for the introduction of mesh has and is being merged into the main code base during this time. It seems this has revealed a rash of problems that are being fixed. The result is the news about server upgrades is rather boring and vague.

Main Grid – AGNI

The changes rolling to the main grid are mostly what I’ll call backend changes, those we don’t really see. They affect our experience in terms of performance. But, there is nothing new like shadows or Display Names to see.

This release has the ever ubiquitous bug fixes.

The API (Application Programming Interface) for working with friends changes.  This is something those building applications for Second Life and viewers can make use of. For the rest of us, it has little relevance until others implement the use of it.

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Second Life Viewer 2.7.2 (232036)

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The Development Viewer is an Alpha level version that users can test. A recent release of it has a couple of changes to the cache. Cache size has been increased to 10gb. There is now a real Cache Clear button that actually clears the cache.

The operation of the previous Cache Reset button was confusing. It has been renamed to better represent its action, Default Location, which resets the cache’s location to the default location.

The changes and new buttons have been moved from the Setup tab to the Advanced tab. Me→ Preferences → Advanced.

Chat Logs are saved by some residents. To facilitate saving logs there is a control to allow you to have the viewer use a location other than the default location. While it seems odd to me, the setting is on the Privacy tab. Me → Preferences → Privacy.

Search – The new search is in this version of the viewer. It still has some oddities. When searching for people use the People filter. Otherwise names and display names can make it hard to find a person.

The frame rates (FPS) are low on this version.

 

 

SL Search Update

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You may know that Linden Lab is testing a new search. They have a project viewer and everything now. I’ve tried the new search and I think it is better than what we currently have in SLV2. But, not as good as what there is in SLV1.

I’ve been waiting for Darrius Gothly to post something about this new search on DGP4SL. He is my favorite source for information about search in SL. I’m unsure how objective he may or may not be on the subject. I am guessing he is as feed up and annoyed with SL Search as I am. But, he seems to do lots of testing and experimenting and know what is happening. So, check out:

Yet Another Stab At Second Life In-World Search

 

 

Second Life Translators Dying

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Many if not most Second Live Viewers have automatic language translation features. Those translators depend on Google’s translation services. The viewers use a Google API (Application Programming Interface – basically a protocol for asking a question and getting an answer). Google has announced that as of December 2011 the service will be turned off. (Reference) Google’s translation page will remain. But, the door to the service which SL viewers use will close.

Effective immediately, the service is being ‘throttled’. A limit is set on the number of requests an application can make per day.

Why?

Google sited their reason for closing the API part of their translation service as abuse. It seems it was too popular. As it was a free service the ‘abusive’ load on Google servers was a financial drain.

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New Sculpty Tutorials

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Gaia Clary is updating the sculpty tutorials on Machinimatrix.org. The original tutorials were made using mostly Blender 2.49b. Now that Blender 2.57b is out and in popular use the need for new tutorials is growing. The way things are done in 2.49 and 2.57 are different. So, one can’t transfer a process from one to the other.

The first video tutorial in a series came out June 1. You can see it here: Basics about Sculpted Prims

Blender 2.57 Sculpty Tutorial
New Sculpty Tutorial for Second Life

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Second Life Chat Load Test

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In the forum an irritated resident was asking for an update on chat. I too am frustrated with chat. So many of my group-chats never post. I get an error message. But, looking for an update I see there is a glimmer of hope. There is a chat load test scheduled for June 2 on the ADITI grid for the… new system (?)… or may be just the changed existing text system.

Thursday, the 2nd of June, 2011 @ 4PM PT see: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/GroupChatTest

The Lab was working on a change over to XMPP Chat. Unfortunately testing revealed that XMPP Chat did not solve the chat problems. The pre-roll out code for XMPP was actually rolled to the main grid some weeks ago. The XMPP Chat code was even added to the KirstenLee Viewer. It was in use on the ADITI grid and looking like it would roll to the main grid. Then went down a black hole with only a slight mention in an office hours meeting that it had not met SL’s needs and chat was being rethought.

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