Snowglobe 1.1.0 Update Review

SnowglobeIcon
Snowglobe Viewer

It is always nice to know how many residents are using new beta software. It gives one a sense of how well people like something, assuming they continue using it is a sign of preference and satisfaction. For Snowglobe they have published some of that information. Snowglobe Meterics show about 3,500 Second Life residents using the viewer as of 6m/29d/09.

Torley has a video showing the new map zoom features. In the same blog post as the video they talk about under the hood changes. Snowglobe Features There are new texture download methods in this viewer. They say one won’t likely see much performance improvement for those changes just yet as they are only used in the maps. However, the maps do update much faster so there is promise.

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Bloggers Beware – FTC Control is Coming to a Blog Near You

Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission

The FTC is planning to start regulating blogs. If you make money from your blog or Twitter micro-blog then you will be affected. Since the administration (America) loves to pass huge bills containing over a thousand pages written in legalese and submitted at 3AM and requiring a vote within 5 hours (I swear Obama said we would have at least 5 days…), we have no idea what we are getting. There will be possibly hundreds of pages tacked on just before the vote is called that no one has read, which is common practice now.

If these laws get passed, likely, they could go into effect by the end of summer 2009. So, is it little me they are after? No… as best I can tell. Big businesses have seen the benefit of using blogs. They are the target. But as incompetent as government is there is no telling what we will get. So, paying attention to what they are doing is important.

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Update Gemini Viewer Review for RPG’s

UPDATE! 7/13/09

Skills Hak has announced that development of the Gemini is stopped. Version 7 will not be released. Instead  that work is being added to the Greenlife Emerald viewer. Reference The new Emerald 1.23.4 viewer is out today.

Original Review

Earlier I posted Gemini Viewer Review – Second Life. Before that I posted GreenLife Emerald Viewer Review, which has pictures if you want to see some of the menus, which are 99% identical. I’ve added a couple of minor updates to the original posts. I’ve now used the viewer for a bit over a week in RP. There are some new considerations to look at and some solutions for role players. I’ve been using v5. Now V6 rc02 is available for download as of 6/26.

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Snowglobe Second Life Viewer Review

I just tried out that Second Life Snowglobe Viewer. I’ve reviewed a few other viewers, Gemini, Emerald, MeerKat, RealXtrend… see the blog for those reviews. Snowglobe is a Linden promoted open source branch of the standard SL viewer. It may be known by other names like: SLDev Viewer. The real point of this project is to get 3rd party changes and improvements into the main viewer faster. I’m not seeing it… but I didn’t dive into the details either.

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Gemini Viewer Review – Second Life

There are lots of viewers and more seem to be coming out. The Second Life Viewer named Gemini by Skills Hak is designed more for Role Players. Earlier I reviewed the Greenlife Emerald Viewer. The Gemini Viewer is very similar but with some differences.

One difference is the viewer skin. It is designed to work better with physically dark regions. After all it is made by one of the INSILICO people. If you have not visited the Insilico region, it is worth a trip. (Insilico Web Site) I am totally fascinated by the robotic spider they have at the primary LM landing point.

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