Monday, April 25, 2011

This Week "3rd Rock Grid" & "Imprudence 1.4.0 Experimental Final"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Please join me these next several day's as I take a look around the Open Sim based Virtual World, 3rd Rock.





















    I will be using the Imprudence Viewer Experimental 1.4.0.2001.04.19 Final. There are two reason's for my choice, the Imprudence viewer is not only 3rd Rock's default viewer download. But Imprudence's default Grid Login Selection is 3rd Rock's as well.




















  
    Makes perfect sense to me. #1 ~ 3rd Rock has no only unburdened them selves with the cost of viewer development, allowing them to hopefully concentrate on the server side of the equation. Resulting in very low tier and initial simulator setup fee's. #2 ~ Imprudence is rapidly becoming the Open Sim universe of multiple new grids viewer of choice.




















  
     So on with step one, goto the 3rd Rock web page. http://3rdrockgrid.com/  and create an account.















  
    A very straight forward process. I was able to keep the same name I have been using on InWorldz and SecondLife.

    Step two, log into your home location. ( the default for your first time will be the main welcome area )





















     Stop back throughout the week, as I create my avatar, grab some free-bee's, and start exploring this Virtual World.

JayR Cela :_)

Friday, April 22, 2011

Kirsten's new Viewer "Don't Waste Your Time"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok this is a total turkey, lousy FPS, tons of stuff ya don't need, still can't MUTE GROUP CHAT's.























     At least the color scheme is pleasant.

    If your a Viewer2 hugger,  knock your self out. In the mean time I'll stick with Phoenix.

JayR Cela

Phoenix Viewer "New Release" V 1.5.2.1050

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Well shut my mouth, just when I thought the Phoenix team was finished with their 1.x viewer series a new one manage's to pop up. Most every thing is under the hood maintainence. So you should not notice anything major. Just a few tweaks here and there.



















 

     Audio streams are still problematic on Linux, at least when using Ubuntu 10.10 but this is easily solved by copying and replacing the Bin > llplugin folder and the SLPlugin file from the 1.5.1.373 version.










  
     Streaming video still does not function, but then again I have never had any luck getting Ubuntu to work with video stream's in SL.


















  

     Regardless of these minor annoyance's, the Phoenix Viewer is still the best virtual world client software available for builders, content creator's.

     Now if we could just somehow get LL to dump QuickTime as the video stream format, and if the Phoenix team could also manage to implement Media on a Prim, there would be absolutely no need for Viewer2.

JayR Cela :_)

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Anonymous Posters to this Blog

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Your all welcome here, post away!

JayR Cela :_)

Ok Let's Get Serious "The LL Server Team Rock's"

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Andrew Linden is a genius, and so are his team of hard working folk's seriously dedicated to making the SL platform more scalable. Their continuous work and rolling restarts are a total, but much needed temporary pain in the virtual ass. In the long run it will all pay off.

JayR Cela

Opinionated Lunacy and Virtual Reality

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Lunacy can be viewed from many various angle's.

    Am I a loon ?

     Oh course I am.

     For crying out loud, does anyone out there really take me seriously ?

JayR Cela :_)

The Phoenix Viewer "Ya Cant Beat It"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I seldom make post's or comments about The Phoenix Viewer, and the reason is that it just totally rock's

JayR Cela :_)

Reality and Virtual Worlds "Gender"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Where does the line begin to blur ?

     You tell me.

     Recently I have been asked about my RL gender. Give me a break, what difference does this make ?


     If you are a narrow minded sexist, somehow wanting to get down my virtual panties. Then you definitely need some serious help.

    Go take your sick minded fantasy's and crawl back into your GOREAN Virtual World Hole's.

    This is me in RL

















  



Still wanna play ?

JayR Cela

Let's not make SL smarter, let's make V2 dumber

Oh
My
God!

Have you actually tried to use the basic mode of the Second Life Viewer 2.6.3? With whom is LL competing that they have to add a useless mode to their viewer? Have you even tried using it?

First of all, and most important, you have no access to your inventory. You can't buy lindens, you can't buy products, you can't even receive things from your friends. And you will look like one in 8 other basic mode users.

Granted the normal (now Advanced) mode does have a lot of settings and things that new users might feel intimidated to use, but that's why you build in pop-up-once tips when they do something for the very first time. It's why you make tooltips for every single preference that includes scenarios (if you enable then this will happen). It's why you make finding help so much easier, including experts (paid and volunteer) available in chat groups and clear and easy-to-read wikis.

Take a lesson from the folks at Phoenix. They have two VERY active chat groups filled with experts and peer support, a well-documented wiki and other support accessible outside SL.

MAKE V2 WHAT THE USERS WANT, NOW WHAT YOU WANT!

LSLEditor Community Edition New version


LSLEditor Community Edition New version
-
Selby Evans
-
SourceForge links

Latest Version: 2.42.4127.42022
Release Date:   21 April 2011
===============

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

My Relentless Pursuit to Destroy Viewer2

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Watch out !

JayR Cela

Blending Virtual Reality with Real Life

By Avatar JayR Cela

    This is a touchy subject, it's pretty much a well known fact in SL  I have a female avatar, and in real life I am actually a male, most of my virtual world persona's are female. I've never hidden that fact.

     Ok maybe a few times, I have not explained this to several idiot's.

    And I guess I am a dinosaur too.

    Ya gotta look at Virtual Reality Worlds for what they are. They are Virtual Reality !!

It's Not Real !! Get a Fricking Life !! We are supposed to be having fun here.

JayR Cela

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

I'm not Completely Banned

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Whew !!! I thought I was total toast, in jeopardy of my account being chucked into the LL trash can.
  

 Very happy to say I was wrong. I recently attended Andrew Lindens server meeting. These folk's are rocking.


    Cross border sim crossing's are now transparent, even corner's.

    I don't know what they did, but it's incredible.

   Way ta go Andrew *Extra Bigg Huggs* U Guys Rock / Thanks

 JayR :_)

The insignificance of Viewer2

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok how many folk's besides total new bee's actually use this thing ?

    Facts : Create Out Fits / totally cool and greatly appreciated addition.
             : Media on a prim / personally I have no use for it.

So what in the world have they done so far ?
     Collect a paycheck I guess.

JayR Cela :(

The SecondLife Technologist "Name Change" "The Virtual World Technologist"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Just as I was, dusting off the soot from my recent ban and ability to attend LL meetings. "OUCH" A good friend of mine suggested, that I change the name of this blog. Giving it some serious thought, and a lot of cup's of tea. I said what the heck.

    So from here on. I am dropping the SecondLife moniker from the blog's name.

    Does that mean I am taking my ball and bat, leaving the game, this wonderful place SL ? NO !!!

    I will continue my unrelenting, and observant view's of a Virtual World that has about 2, possibly 3 year's left, before people just say the heck with it. Viewer2 is a disaster. At least in it's current form.

   Oh yeah, ya just gotta read this post from New World Notes by Avatar James Au Wagner


Why Second Life Can't Survive on Its Current Users Alone (And Why Only Mass Growth Will Save It)

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/04/second-life-revenue-estimate.html  

    It's a real eye opener !

JayR Cela

LL Ban's My Access to SnowStorm Meetings "So Much for Open Source"

Bt Avatar JayR Cela

     I was expecting this sort of behavior sooner or later.

     My continuous bashing of an ill conceived,  poorly implemented, sloppy example of programing and a catastrophic, complete bomb dropped upon on all of us. SL CUSTOMERS.

                                                        Viewer2. 

    Seems to have resulted in my being BANNED!!! from Hittropolis Island. The place these meetings are held.





Daily scrum is 10:30am-10:45am PDT at Scrum Platform
Note: the daily scrum is public, but only attendees who have committed to deliverables in the sprint are allowed to speak or add to chat during the meeting.




                             Because I expose the truth !!!






Oh My

JayR Cela :_)

Monday, April 18, 2011

The Imprudence Viewer "Poised for a Really Strong Comeback"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I have never really cared to much for the Imprudence viewer. So smack me upside the head. Because I will soon be proven wrong in my dislike for this true labor of love. The team has somehow managed to almost take the Open Sim grid hopping crowd by a resounding storm.

    It's often been said people vote with their feet. While we all wallow around in our Second Live's, the virtual world Linden Lab has allowed us to create for one in other. The folk's at Imprudence have seen the future, and are daring and willing enough to embrace it throughly.

       They understand the importance of Virtual Reality in a modern society. Pushing the Open Source SL V1.x client to the limit's. Many other very dedicated coder's are doing the same. Phoenix, Dolphin, Emergence, Ascent, Singularity, these people absolutely Rock "Big Time"

    But I'm here to tell you right now. Open Sim is not about to go away, neither is the Imprudence Virtual World Client Viewer. Keep you eye's on these folk's, they are about to Kick Some Serious Butt really soon.  If you have not visited the Imprudence web site lately, I highly encourage you to do so.

http://blog.kokuaviewer.org/


    They are rapidly working on making the final touch's on the SL 1.x viewer, that will rival Phoenix as the  VW Client Software of choice. And the future plans of the Imprudence Kokua project are about to dust some folk's job into the well deserved dust pan. MacCabe  and Armin the 2 lead developers are relentlessly continuing with many forward thinking plans for a truly Inter-Op  Virtual Universe.

      I guess LL in all their ineptness, will slowly cut off features,availability to any and all 1.x based viewers.  Reluctantly forcing you to use the Disastrous Viewer 2. But that does not mean you can not vote with your feet.

Does anyone out there remember the Mosaic Web Browser ? or Compuserve, how about AOL ?

    Oh my, tsk,tsk tsk.

JayR Cela :(

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Machinima and SecondLife "Still The Place of Artistic Open Avenue's" "UWA Open Art Challenge" "18 Excellent Example's"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Well this just goes to prove that that.

 SecondLife Is Still The Place of Artistic Open Avenue's.

    Watch for yourself.

     And no matter how many times the lab seem's to continuously, and literary be, Shooting Themselves in the Foot. With what seemingly are considered by some to be  ( Including myself Lame Brain Decisions, from time to time.

    These wonderful new VW created Machinima's. By a number of various artists, truly represent the magnificent potential aspect's of SecondLife and perhaps one day the Open Sim Virtual World archecture, as true Art Form Medium's.

UWA 3D Open Art Challenge - Winners March 2011
Enjoy these eighteen 3D artworks exhibited at the Galery of the University of Western Australia in Second Life.
Artworks in order of appearance:



    I figure is just best to post the link for you all to enjoy now, and I'll add them to the "SLTechnologist Machinima Channel"  this week.



Enjoy / Byeeee 4 now


JayR Cela :_)

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Beating the GTF model


Beating the GTF model

By Selby Evans
-
Recent post:
Not a model in high regard and Harvard Business School.  But one that merits careful attention by buisiness management.
-
That post cited two management bugs that created a persistent problem for Linden Lab marketing.  I am happy to report that one of these bugs is now being targeted for extermination by Oz Linden.  
-
One of the bug swatters I called for was action to be sure that the installer for the viewer has up-to-date lists of graphics cards.
-
Oz Linden is working on that: 
-
Oz Linden:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-1100tracks making a bunch of updates to the GPU recognition in the viewer. Many thanks to the several people who have been checking and contributing updated entries.
-
A test viewer for this issue can be download from the wiki at
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Downloading_test_builds#Developer_Builds
Note: this is a developer test viewer; it may well not be as stable as released viewers. It will not automatically update the way released viewers do.
-
If you have been having trouble with your GPU being recognized or you believe it has been incorrectly classified, then please download that viewer and report by adding a comment STORM-1100.
==================================
Geek-to-English translation
GPU: Graphics Processor Unit
GPU_Table.txt: A text file listing all GPUs recognized by the installer program, along with the settings appropriate for each GPU.
jira:  interactive system recording system/software changes proposed or in work
The issue is recognized in the jira as belonging in open-source because it applies to all viewers. It is also recognized as persistent because new GPUs are released frequently.  For cases where GPU recognition fails, a test viewer is available.  There are apparently several people working on keeping the GPU_Table.tx file updated.  I thought the manufacturers would issue a timely update notice on any new GPU, but I don't see that mentioned.  
=====================
At any rate, LL recognizes the need to keep the GPU recognition updates and has assigned that task to a specific person, Oz Linden.  Check one item off the GTF list. 

Thursday, April 14, 2011

SecondLife "No More Viewer2 or SnowStorm Reviews" "At Least Not From Me For A While"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I find myself in a quandary right now. At one time I had very high hopes for V2 and SnowStorm. And have enjoyed following the progress until now. But I am just am fed up.

    Realistically there is no such thing as perfect software. I regularly deal with several hundred of thousands of dollar's worth of audio equipment, well over 500 to 1000 page's of very technical owners manual's documentation, and screwball software on a daily basis. But Viewer2 just pisses me off to no end. There is absolutely no excuse I can think of for this.

    And let me go further, Audio Engineer's, at least all I have be privileged to be acquainted with over almost 40 year's now are very patient, quiet, observant folk's. We can tend to be a bit sarcastic at time's, but that's just part of the job, and usually contained in private conversations amongst ourselves. God only know's how many musician's and vocalist I have just wanted to smack upside the head from time to time.

   I have somehow alway's managed to contain my temper, and choose my word's carefully. However I find an inability to do this considering the current state of V2 development. It is a distraction I just don't need. I have several large audio project's that require my RL attention. I need to stay and remain focused.

      And quite frankly covering Viewer2 is an unnecessary distraction. It is a pain in the ass to install, uninstall and reinstall something that never should have been released in the first place, and somehow unfortunately seems to screw up my Windows based box's every time I do so.

    I wont touch the official LL version's again until at least V2.8.x eventually come's around. I will continue my post's on Third Party Developer's work, but unfortunately not LL's. You can also expect a whole lot more Open Sim coverage here in the month's to come.

JayR Cela :(

P.S. Cummere's earlier post today hit a ton of bullet point's right square on the head. And was the tipping point for me. I make no apologizes, LL you are rapidly loosing my confidence.

How can LL atract new users?

by Cummere Mayo

Today Amanda Linden stated she would like resident help in coming up for ideas for how to bring in new users and help incorporate them into SL faster. Amanda is usually a pretty decent person, for another, she has shown she is willing to work with and negotiate with the community to a degree on some things. I even want her to succeed. I'd love to see more fresh blood in SL. God knows we need it. So, I hope she will listen when I tell her, whatever she does will simply be a waste of time.

Let me explain.

LL is willing to take some pretty drastic steps, nothing Amanda does will ultimately matter. Amanda's specialty is marketing, and overall she's done a decent job trying to get Second Life's name out there. Second Life is on Second Life, Twitter, various other things. So it isn't a matter of her failing at her job.

What it is a matter of is that no amount of marketing can overcome the fundamental issues that cause potential users as well as existing users to look at other worlds.

Lets look at a handful of these issues.

Lets begin with pricing.

First off is LL's premium member ship price. $120 a year if you go the monthly price. $72ish if you go the annual rate. Either way those aren't bad. But then Linden Lab charges a tier on top of that. Most people ultimately want to own their own sim. However, the price is absolutely out of the average user's price range. $1200 (or more) to set up a sim, and $300 a month to own a full sim and a full sim is required before you can purchase any of the cheaper sims. LL's most serious competitors charge between $35 and $100 a month for a sim and the setup is usually under $250. This puts the price into a much more affordable price for the average user.

Then there is support. Even with the backlog of tickets being almost eliminated, support is still a joke. Issues that could have been easily fixed when first filed are now no longer able to be fixed resulting in millions of dollars of lost content. Support still sometimes requires you to be on viewer 2 or to answer personal questions just to get a sim restart. Furthermore, increasingly often they ask for a phone number before they will proceed. This makes things very intrusive and frightens away many users.

Finally, support is just plain incompetent. Sorry, but there is no other way to put it when you have to teach support how to do basic things like work through how to reset an avatar, check for ghosted accounts, or reset the inventory. Support has given passwords of accounts to people that didn't own the account but could guess three friends EVEN WHEN THEY COULD NOT GET ANY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION RIGHT! Several of these accounts then got terminated and blacklisted beyond recovery. Others still lost huge portions of inventory and L$ when they were able to recover their accounts. These kinds of things are simply inexcusable.

Next up is Snowstorm. Due to my RL work schedule changing and to the fact that my JIRA access has been revoked I haven't been able to be as active in Snowstorm lately, but I am still able to be active enough to state that the fact Snowstorm is drastically undermanned is destroying LL's image.

Don't get me wrong, Oz is amazing trying to do all the stuff that was originally handled by Esbee, Q, Aimee, and Qarl in addition to his own original duties. and Merov the other Linden assigned fully to snowstorm is amazing too. But even with the help of Bao and Wolf, the two Lindens split between Snowstorm and other departments, and the Product Engine group, Oz and Merov simply cannot deliver a quality viewer. It is not their fault. Its simply there's not enough manpower to fix everything that needs fixed and implement everything that needs implemented. For example critical accessibility, translation and content design issues have been put off for months because there simply is no one that has the time or expertise to work on them and much of it cannot be done solely by an opensource developer.

These things aren't Oz's fault and its stupid he is likely going to wind up being blamed for it. in my opinion, deliberately or not, Oz is set up for failure by Linden Lab because at this point Snowstorm can no longer provide the needed viewer fixes at the needed speed to keep viewer 2 viable which in turn only makes Linden Lab's image worse.

Then there are entire groups like the web profiles team, the marketplace team, and the search team. These teams have so rejected user's needs and at times literally insulted the users to the point where until these teams are reassigned and new lindens put in charge of these projects nothing will improve. The arrogance of these particular groups is such that for example, the profile user group wont even show up to their own user group hours and won't even give the courtesy of even a sign to say they were canceled, and marketplace will only invite and let in people to focus groups that will say yes to everything Brooke Linden says.

These kinds of things get out in the most effective ways possible. Word of mouth from friends, forums such as SLUniverse and Gamersworld, blogs such as this one, and even the very Facebook and Twitter Amanda tries to market SL through.

So back to the original question Amanda posed: how to attract new users and bring them into the community faster?

Well one of my friends, the owner of LindenWatch has offered to work for LL for 24k a year plus the ability to make whatever sweeping changes he sees fit. He's a pretty bright guy and I think they should consider that.

Failing that, here are ten of the many things I would do if I were a linden executive officer presented from the most critical to least critical.

1) Bring support back in house. Rehiring as many former support lindens as possible would be best. Failing that, hire new ones from the community.
2) Get Snowstorm properly staffed. At minimum eight full time Lindens assigned only to Snowstorm. As well as Bao, Wolf, and possibly two more assigned there half time.
3) Drastically cut the prices of sims to $100-150 a month for a full sim and setup $250, $50 for a homestead with a $125 setup fee, and $10 a month with a $25 set up fee for voids.
4) Make it possible to get homesteads without first owning a full sim, possibly at a slightly higher price then those that own a full sim.
5) Make a full public apology to SL users, past and present.
6) Make a new sim available that my friend Vasha suggested. This sim would cost between a homestead and a full and have half the prims as a full sim and have a 30 avatar limit.
7) Drastically cut and reassign the staffs from profiles, Marketplace and search, give the remaining staffs 60 days to either get their products working or replaced. If they can't do it in 60 days, fire or reassign them and start over with a fresh team.
8) Wipe the disciplinary records of all currant users.
9) Offer a limited amnesty to all but the most egregious of former users. Restore their avis. if thats not possible, restore the names and issue a $100,000L credit and attempt to restore what still exists in the database.
10) Stop trying to marginalize and hide adult content and start treating adults like adults.

I would think most of these are pretty self explanatory as to why I would do these things. The two that might not be are the purging of disciplinary records and the amnesty.

Allot of people have bad records simply because they faced off against the wrong lindens or because they are hot tempered. Allot more people were banned arbitrarily by linens before there was a governance team, or by people high enough at LL to order governance around. Many more had accounts that were hacked and could never get them back, and even more lost them because for a while LL's system banned people that had billing issues instead of making them free accounts again.
Proper use of old backups could restore allot of these users accounts. Doing so would bring back many users to SL and be visible to potential new users. Furthermore, it would restore faith in a company that has in the past allowed its employees to outrageously abuse their powers.

Doing these things, and the other ideas I have (which are only a fraction of the number of ideas that the owner of LindenWatch has), would then be talked about in forums, in blogs, in Twitter and FaceBook, and everywhere else. Which would then make Amanda's job easy because then she would simply have to worry about how to sell the extra products and features I would bring out as add-ons.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Singularity Viewer 1.5.6.1 for SecondLife

By Avatar JayR Cela

    About a month or so back I stumbled upon the Singularity Viewer, lovingly crafted together  by SL resident Saina Gearz. It is based on SnowGlobe code.

    It's a bit difficult to actually pin down the over all purpose Saina is trying to accomplish here. But I gotta hand it to this individual, whom ever that person may be, definitely dedication is a hallmark standard they are striving to uphold.

    There are a lot of very cool features. Quite a few handy one's indeed. I'm not into shoot em up RP, but my best guess is that this person is. The area search option's are extensive. Be prepared however to really wallow around through a ton of menu choice's setting this baby up.






 















  
  
     I also noticed a stern warning during this process explaining God Like Power's Now Endowed, Use With Extreme Caution !! being briefly flashed across the screen. I Was unable to catch a screan shot of that in time.

    Hey I'm an audio engineer in real life, my brain was clearly rattled years ago by being subjected to extremely high Sound Pressure Level's.

     The last thing I need is God Like Abilities. Hello ? EHHH ? Oh I just want to order a cheeseburger please, Huuuhhh ?, Oh ? mustard is extra ? How much does ketchup cost ?

    Is it worth the download ? Most definitely !

JayR Cela :_)

Politic's and Virtual Reality ? "Do They Really Have A Place Here ?"

By Avatar JayR Cela

     I guess so, depend's on how you view thing's. I have recently been asked to discuss political issue's here on this blog.

    Do you really feel a virtual world is a proper place to discuss these sort of things ?

    I don't know about you, but I come here to escape the utter madness of reality. Just relax, hang out, be kool, look fantastic, buy some great looking shoe's, and for a fleeting moment in time completely forget about some of life's most pressing problem's.

    Certain people will most certainly disagree with me. And that's fine, guess you may be watching the Fox New's ( OPINION ) Channel to.

    Disinformation is really only political propaganda.

    SecondLife is a wonderful place, why muck it up with reality ?

JayR Cela :_)

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

SecondLife "Point & Click Movement"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Wow, this is very cool to see the new feature, Point and Click movement. Oh and yes it has been around in video game's since my first Atari 2600. My only question is why now ? And Why only include it in the new so called Basic Mode of V2.6.x. I hope the lab will make it standard soon.

    Boy I'm scared to death to even touch that thing. Who knows what could possibly happen to my SL Inventory. Some days it manages to load completely, other days it's a total crap shoot.

    Perhaps it might be that the new CEO of LL, took a look around and said HEY !! Wake Up ! Everyone. Open Sim is breathing down our back's, and I miss my Diablo.

    I actually from time to time still don my armor, grab my sword and delve into the depth's of computer generated, and still stunningly well done graphics, of Blizzard Entertainment's Classic.

    Explore cave's and Kill Zombie's.

     And as my friend Cummere Mayo so well pointed out, The SecondLife Destination Guide is such a wonderful place to start exploring.

    My SL partner and I often find ourselves using it to find neat place's to go and visit. Wither it be shopping, a romantic walk through a garden, or hunt down some treasure's and discover wondrous delight's, and really cool new shoe's. Ha-Ha I just had to toss that one in there :_)

    And hey ! Ya never know we might just encounter a few nasty Zombie's along the way. LOL :_)

                                                           EEEEKKK !!!!!

    Please visit the Destination Guide, we do have a link for it here on our blog.

    In all seriousness folk's, point and click movement is a very nice feature. I know I'm making very few friend's with my constant bashing of V2.

      Eventually it will..........................---- xxx *** Static !!! Test Tone. BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ / BEEP, Squeal, More random tones.

    Do not be Alarmed ! This transmission is only A Test  
                          If this were A True Emergency, 


           You Would Directed to The Nearest Safety Shelter

    Again this is only a Test  :_)


            LOL :_) I keep telling ya my sanity is questionable, and that's on a good day.

    Point and Click Movement Is The Most Positive Aspect of the Viewer 2 Project to Date. It's nice to see it as an added feature.

  
    THANK'S
     LL

JayR Cela :_)

2.6 the good and the bad

by Cummere mayo
Over the past few months the 6 viewer has been quietly slipping on towards becoming the main viewer. This viewer is radically differant then past viewers and incorperates the very reason for all the new web based profiles and stuff. That reason is the new "basic" and "advanced" mode option. The "basic mode" is a glrofied web browser that makes sl play similar to most mmorpgs. Very simple commands, point and click to go anywhere, chat and im capabilities. This mode also has hands down the best desination guide I've ever seen in SL. "Advanced mode" is the same as viewer 2 has been though with a few more fixes and minor features. Since its pretty familiar to those used to v2, I'm going to stay away from going into those features for the moment. Instead I am going to list the pros and cons as I see them of the new optional mode.
Pros:

  • 1) Very simple and semi intuitive movement and im controls make it very easy for the mmorpg user to experience Second Life.

  • 2) The new Destination Guide makes finding things to do for the new user much easier to a point. It still can be hard to find specific places or activities, but its a major step in the right direction.

  • 3) Point and click movement! A nice alternative way to navigate SL

  • 4) Cleaner UI. Not quite as clean as it could be but again a step in the right direction

Cons:



  • 1) The "basic" mode can only access inventory via extreme workarounds. This is actually very frustrating for new users.

  • 2) Switching modes takes two relogs. One to get to the inventory screen and switch the mode. Another relog to make it active.

  • 3) "Basic" mode fails badly if web profiles are not working because many of the controls are harder or impossible to find redunancy for.

  • 4) Switching from "basic" to "advanced" mode can and has been very tramatic for new users because of the mandatory switch from point and click to wasd movement and various ui differences.

  • 5) There really needs to be a name swtich from "advanced" to something else, especially because of the "advanced" menu.

  • 6) Allot of people have argued for an "expert" mode with lots more options.

Monday, April 11, 2011

SecondLife "Real Life Disabilities and the Importance of VW Therapy"

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Ok ya all know I'm a raving loon. But now I want to discuss the potential of SL, or virtual worlds in general. Very few of them have reached the amount of user's SL has SO FAR !

    Ya know, when you some how become disabled in real life, or happen to be born with a disability. It can be difficult to actually go out there and socialize with folk's. You may not be able to drive a car, or walk, or wear your favorite dress without assistance.

    So where does SecondLife come in ?

It is a place that you can meet people form a friendship, and fall in love.

JayR Cela :_)

SecondLife "Why Do We Come Here ?" "It's a Kool Place"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I know why I continue to be a SL resident. It's called friendship, and someone i met years ago that is in my disabled RL, the person I have come to cherish and love.

    If I did not care about My Virtual World, I Would Say Nothing.

I sometimes go off the wall, and I do get some flack from time to time.

    However SL is a passion for me. Virtual Worlds are a passion, to this date I have been unable to find one besides InWorldz that warrants reporting on.

    So as you and I continue through our virtual journey, let's be thankful to all the people at LL that have made it possible.

JayR Cela :_)

SecondLife "To Know You Is To Love You"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    As I seemingly continue to create more lost friend's here with my incessant bashing of a Virtual World Client that should never have been born, Viewer 2.

    And my supposed sense of humor, has actually been taken seriously, by a few as offensive. All I can say is. Your all open target's. Bill Mar did not get where he is today by just taking pot shot's at the folk's in charge of thing's.

   There has to be some sort of sense of humor.

    Lets look at it. Ya dumped this piece of crap called Viewer2 on us. Your Open Source objective seems to be stalled. Open Sim is closing in fast. The only folk's that seem to be working on fixing thing's are the server team.

    If anyone out there actually takes me seriously,
                                 WOW!!!
                           The Jokes On You.

At least for now.

 I'm just getting started


    No offense intended, I'm just being me. You can't possibly think I'm sane ?


JayR Cela

Where fore art thou XMPP

It's been more than two years since LL first heard about XMPP, that chat protocol that big sites like Facebook and Google use for their chat systems. Back then LL said it wasn't scalable.

Right. As if their lame chat system is. It's a game any more to talk on group chat, some posts taking five or more minutes to post or even dropping altogether. And LL have been so helpful making an error message telling us that their system is crap and can't be relied upon to deliver a message.

Lindens, if you never listen to another user, and I'm not sure you ever did, listen to the crowd who are clamoring for a decent chat system. XMPP IS that chat system. It is scalable, distributable and can take a huge load off your region servers, which will help with other lag issues.

Get your act together LL, give us XMPP

Sunday, April 10, 2011

SecondLife and Viewer2 ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

   Ok lets reasonably discuss this. Does anyone out there actually like Viewer2 ?

JayR Cela :_(

It's grey and green, #1 big turn off. Who and the heck came up with that color scheme ?
#2 Cant seem to mute group chats, #3. My former friend said goodbye, wont be speaking about him much more lately. Guess he just don't like critisisem.

So am I a total Bitch from Hell?
 You go figure it out.
See ya when ya get there

JayR

Do I Love SecondLife ? "Yes" Every now and Then I manage to say a few good things"

By Avatar JayR Cela


    So what are ya gonna do, when ya meet someone that for some reason or another you do not agree with ? Well for the most part a reasonable person would just chalk this off to an object in that life that can easily be dealt with.

    However my continuous and relentless basing of Viewer 2, I have recently been released. Seems to have gained an unsuspecting release. No I take that back, the entire team needs to be fired. Besides how can you even have a job, putting this crap up.

   I ask you this? / how much RL $ has it taken to continue this madness ?

     I

SecondLife "Ok Now for Something Really Differnt "JIRA is Worthless And Viewer2 is Dead"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Alright let's get the ball rolling today. I'm gonna toss the dice here, anyone out there actually using Viewer2 for something more than an occasional spin around the block ?

    The recent decision to dumb down V2 is a complete joke, and a poor one at that. Nothing better than standing on a bus or a subway, starring down on a 4 inch screen. Does the Lab in their Wildest Dream's think that the V2 dummy mode will actually attract new paying customers ?

    How about the new physic's option's, Wow Bouncy Boob's and Jiggly Hip's. Ok if your a Guy a Big Ugly Beer Belly. This stuff is so old and was introduced way back in 2009 by Emerald. And SnowStorm is just getting around to it ?

    On Friday during a meeting if was asked to post a Jira about MUTING GROUP CHATS !!!!!. Am I considered to be a complete Idiot ? Someone may need to stop and rethink. Could that be me ? Hmmm ? well I'm definitely a nut case. That's fairly obvious. My insanity is more than apparent. I am deffinetly the screwball loon in the house.

      I think perhaps I will be 1 gazillion link's to an issue that is all to relevant to most SL people think Viewer2 is a broken piece of trash. And for that matter / Grumpity please do not lecture me on a Jira Issue you and your team have crearly ignored.

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-2820
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBL8cNylnD8
http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/browse/PHOE-277
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/06/jira-fail.html
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_Evolution_User_Group/Archive/2011-03-09
https://jira.skype.com/browse/SCW-1298

Auto Build on MS2010 ? Hey !! Oz ya really got me wondering on this one. Has any one in the real world ever heard about Linux or Mac's. You continue to keep putting out a complete piece of worthless garbage, and make excuse's for utter ineptness

    So how many more time's am I going to continue my incessant babbling before someone listen'swith ?
This Issue has been consistently been Ignored by LL, Time and Time again. The only folk's that have addressed it is the Phoenix Team. Guess those folk's are at least awake.

    I mean come on folk's, get a fricking life. A simple query on most search engines finds link's dating as far back as 2007. So what year is this ? OMG ! it's 2011 ? Hmmm, if my math correct, that's 4 year's, and 2+2=3.999999999

    As we look at SL V2,and as the fiasco seemingly plummets into oblivion, this abomination of a viewer that continues to devolve into Elvira's Midnight Crappy Movie Macabre Show.

      So many discarded feature's from V1 are every so slowly being reintegrated into this mess. I sometimes wonder who is in charge of the hen house. The Fox or the Weasel ?

    Well it's definitely not the Fox, he's way to smart for that. Could it possibly be Wil'e Coyote ? Oh yeah Bug's Bunny. Figured out him years ago. Elmer Fudd, I guess he is in charge now.

     So as I was so humbly asked to post a Jira on that unsearchable mess of useless crud, let me ask you this ? Have you ever tried to use that thing ? This somehow is supposed to be SL's saving grace ? A complete and incomplete excuse to just write off all of our complaints into a totally endless morass of oblivion.

    Viewer 2 has got to be the biggest piece of crap to ever come out of a programmers worst nightmare. Just ask the guy behind the keyboard, they can not even support it any longer, unless they are a MS Woss. So We somehow manage to call this progress ?

    Don't ya just Love Grey on Dark green.It is a complete nightmare. Auto build Haaaa ! Who's big joke was that ? o.O I know who's one that was. Oh My.
    OK it was my friend, but I have no intention of apologizing.

Kirsten and Hitomi have lovely and pleasant color schemes. The Viewer Team just does not seem to get it.

    Personaly I find it insulting even bothering to post thing's that  LL keeps telling me I constantly express my un-used opinion on. JIRA /Ooop's I don't ever waste my time with Jira. May it Rest In Peace.

     VIEWER 2 NEEDS TO BE PUT TO REST.

Phoenix,Kirsten's and Dolphin Rule, "Viewer 2 Need's A Lot Of Work"

JayR Cela :(

Thursday, April 7, 2011

If Ya Can't Make Fun Of YourSelf "Don't Complain" SecondLife and the Real World

By Avatar JayR Cela


    Wow/ hard to believe your back here for more of my rambling's. Anyways glad to see ya. More  sarcasm rules, so here we go. Supposedly SnowStorm has a new major release this weekend. We see what happens then.

   Boy I just love bashing these folks. One of these days they gonna toss me out of the meeting's. Until then I will continue to keep ya all laffing with my rambling, and incessant goof ball humor.

    Don't ya just love it ?

    A complete Whacko Chick, on the loose.

    OMG ! where did that come from ?

    So whats the real world all about ? You tell me! Is it about reality, or insanity ? How about War's ?

JayR Cela :_(

Mute Group Chats "I want 1 Single Simple Big Button"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok, yes I am a testy person. Will someone besides Phoenix please give me a simple way to Mute Group Chat's.

     As Viewer2 evolves and V1.x devolves into a hopeless morass of endless menu's and sub menu's. I've just about had it up to my ears with testing these thing's.

























  

      OMG ! Does that mean I will turn into a V2 Hugger ?  Hardly !

     I reloaded the Singularity viewer today, seems as if the easy grid hopping option has been removed. At least on the Linux client.

      I'm a bit antsy to even try loading the Window's version. To many problem's un-installing it. Thats to bad. I really wanted to take this baby for a spin around the block on some Open Sim Grid's. Guess I will just have to use Imprudence, UHG !! If there is any viewer i hate more than V2, Imprudence has got to be the hand's down winner. And yes I have said before I like Imprudence for grid hopping, but that seems to be it's only saving grace. As far as Singularity goes....
    Don't waste your time yet !






















      So what am I babbling about today ?

    Same thing I usually babble about. MUTE GROUP CHAT'S.
Phoenix pulled it off, why can't these other folk's seem to figure it out ?

    There is nothing more annoying than an overly chatty group. Not to mention the unnecessary bandwidth wasted, while people incessantly gab away.

   Will someone with a reasonable amount of sanity, please give me one big check off option, allowing me to belong to a group in SL, and not have to constantly be bombarded with the incessant chatter.

 Sheesh, is not like I am asking for the impossible.

JayR Cela :_(

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

"Oz Linden" "The Coolest Person I Ever Met"

By Avatar JayR Cela


    Ok,Ok,Ok as Oz reminded me today. I'm going to ruin my reputation as a V2 hater, But I do have to have to say he is the coolest person in all of virtual reality.

   Thank You Oz for being you.

JayR Cela :_)

Taking a Vote "What's Your Favorite Virtual World ?"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok I've never tried this before, and now is as good a time as any I suppose.

     If you have a favorite Virtual World and would like to contribute your opinion's here. We could always use the help. We are 300 to 400 + readers a day.

     A minuscule amount compared, to some other VW Blog's. But that's a big jump from 50 people a day in August of last year.

    Unlike The Fox New's Channel in RL. We do not claim to be anything other than opinion's. Most everything posted here is an opinion. So go figure that one out. Am I a bitch ? YES ! LOL :_)

     Every now and then we somehow manage to throw in a few fact's though.

Thank You for Reading Our Blog.

JayR Cela :_)

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

3rdRock Grid "Open Sim Virtual World" & "Imprudence Experimental" Wow LL Don't have nothing to Worry About Yet"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Wow after yesterday's  rotten experience with the SpotOn grid, and todays lackluster trip to 3rdRock, I don't really think the Lab has any worries for the immediate future.

    I know I bash the heck out of SL on a daily basis. But I have said this before, and I am going to say it again. Viewer2 is a piece of trash. SecondLife however is a very cool place.

    The Imprudence Viewer ? Put that kitten to rest. It's worthless in my opinion. I cant find anything positive to say about this new  Experimental release. The menu's are goofy and unorganized. There is nothing good to say about it.

    As much as I detest Viewer2, I'd rather use it !

    And 3rdRock / GOOD LUCK ( your gonna need it )

JayR Cela

  

  

Monday, April 4, 2011

Ok So Where do We Go From Here ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Hello again. I am in a position of border insanity, I  hate Viewer 2, Then again I have a great deal of respect for the SnowStorm Team. So what am I going to do ?

   I will continue to BASH Viewer2 Until LL fixes the damn thing !!!!!

JayR Cela :_(

SpotOn 3D "Don't Waste your Time"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Boy talk about an unfriendly place. No way in the heck I would ever consider evan buying virtual land in this Open Sim World. I met the owner, very arrogant, and abrasive. I really wanted to explore this VW, but screw it. Not worth my time.





















   I have never been treated this rudely in all my Virtual World hopping.

JayR Cela :_(

Open Sim Month "The SpotOn 3D Grid"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok I have officially declared April 2011 Open Sim Month, I've just about had it with SL and LL. The only thing keeping me there is Everything. LOL :_)
  
     No I'm not leaving SL, I'm just going to start exploring other Virtual Worlds.

    The InWorldz series was a resounding success, and I was surprised at how many people tuned in to read my ramblings about that lovely Virtual World.

    So this week I will be spending time on the SpotOn3d grid.





















     This is another Open Sim based virtual world, recently brought to my attention by Jessica Lyon of the Phoenix team. I will be using the Phoenix viewer and the Stock version client from SpotOn to take a look around. Take some pictures and report my finding's here

JayR Cela :_)

P.S. I am looking for Open Sim residents that would like to contribute their opinions here on this blog. If you are interested in doing so, please feel free to contact me @
JayR.Cela@gmail.com

SecondLife "Going off the Rail's on the Crazy Train ?"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok I'm back for more Viewer 2 bashing, lets take a look at V2.6 I'm not even about to bother with the insipid Basic Mode. I'm sure there is a reason for it, but that form of logic seems to completely elude me.















    There is nothing I enjoy better than Un-Docking a window ( That should be a tear off ) and Re-Docking it. Oh yeah my absolute favorite is playing around with user profiles, click, click, click. How many clicks does it take to get to the center of ( a tootsie roll pop ) a SL Profile ?














    Don't ya just love how it manages to hijack a very large portion of your screen ?

    If Viewer 2 is not total Insanity, then I guess I must be Going off the Rails.

    Time to bury this piece of crap, once and for all !

JayR Cela



Sunday, April 3, 2011

Linden Lab "Hear no Evil~See no Evil~ Speak no Evil"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Kinda like the 3 monkeys is old lore, or "What Me Worry"

    Well I gonna tell ya what the potential worry is.

     Linden Lab seems to be living in a grandiose sense of fantasy. The Walled garden approach is doomed to complete and utter failure.

    Let's take a step back in time. Do you remember the early days of Bulletin Board Systems, and SySops ?

    How about Compuserve and AOL. All Closed Gardens. Where are they now ?
                                            HISTORY !!

    What happened to them ? They eventually gave way to brighter and more throughly thought through ideas. And YES ! Al Gore did invent the InterNet. :_)

     Currently LL and SL exist's in a vacuum, a bubble. And I hope some folk's up there in LaLa land  ( LL ) may actually be starting to see the overall greater picture. However, lets take a look at reality.

    #1 Viewer 2 is a total disaster. Basic mode and Advanced mode Viewer 2 is a complete last clutch grasp at grass straws and an act of desperation. The utter incompetence involved with this project. need's to be chalked up as a Tax Write Off. Time to trash this monstrousness disaster, and put it to a well deserved funeral.

    #2 The LL Server team is on a relentless scramble to make the grid more scalable. Now these folks are very talented, it is mind boggling the amount of energy the server team has put forth recently. And they could quite possibly be what will rescue LL and SL. If anyone is going to save this current mess it will be them.

    #3 XMPP group chat is muddled in a hopeless morass. This team is a bunch of idiot's , XMPP should have been implemented 3 years ago, as i suggested, and was laughed out of the meeting when I suggested it. "It's not Scalable enough" Thats what I was told.

   #4 Mesh / oh well / lets see if they can pull it off. Personally I don't think they can.

    #5 Open Sim is closing in fast. Boy that's right, and it is what has got LL so antsy lately.

    #6 People are loosing interest. o.O

    LL claims over 1 million users, HAH !!!!
A false figure, when was the last time in well over a year you have seen more than 70,000 resident's logged in at one time ?

JayR Cela :_(

InWorldz Viewer ~or~ Imprudence "Witch is Best ?"

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Today wraps up my series on the InWorldz Grid.

    For this final segment I will be using the official IW client V1.2.5.2 There are 2 versions for Windows, standard and SSE2. If you are running an older computer P3 or Athalon etc. use the standard version, most of the later P4's and Athalon's support multi threading, or anything with multiple CPU cores will work best with the SSE version. The IW Linux version is still at V1.0.x, and I don't know about the Mac distribution.

    Anyways my initial impression was, and still is very positive, The IW Client is a very nicely done  V1.x series viewer that is highly refined and very easy to use. I also noticed that it t did seem to rezz textures quite a bit faster than Imprudence, but lacked a few features from the later.

     The IW viewer  come's with the old standby SL V1.x Blue and Silver skins, normally I prefer silver, but in this case, a redundant and unnecessary seacrh bar in the upper right hand corner of the screen obscured my view of my I'z $ amount. I scoured the debug settings to no avail, trying to turn the darn thing off, but no luck. I did however stumble upon a number of useful settings for other features not available in the main menu while searching. I'm not an expert at manipulating Debug Setting's, so I guess I will just leave that up to the expert's out there. In the mean time let's take a look, at a very well designed Client for the InWorldz Grid.












     Log in screen is pretty much the same











         Lot's of nice features built in. Including Animation Overrider, Area Object Search, Radar, Fast Alpha, HTTP Texture Get, Use Multiple Threads. Everything you need is there for easy access. You may have to hunt around a bit to find everything, but overall it seems to be much more logically laid out than the Imprudence client.














      I have to say, quite a bit of thought was put into the design of this viewer. There are few things I would like to see added, and I am sure they will come along as this OS platform continue's to evolve.

     So let me just talk about InWorldz in general. This is a very cool place, quite a few bug's, but that is to be expected. ( They are only 2 years old ) My overall feeling's are very positive however. The amount of time and effort put into making new residents feel comfortable is astounding. All the people on staff are friendly and enthusiastic about this new place in Virtual Reality.

     I showed you the Womens Free-Bee shop, there is a Mens place too. A Gadget store, a Garden shop, a Texture Area. All the basic's you could ever wish for in order to start a new place of your own in a new Virtual World are right there, neatly organized, and right under your fingertips.























 

    So what's the right Viewer for you while using InWorldz ? You be the judge. Any Grid Hopping Client will do. Phoenix, Dolphin, Singularity etc....

    All in all I had a wonderful time exploring this Virtual World. I have placed a link to their Home Page off to the right hand side of this blog. Will I be back ?  Most definitely!

    In closing, I would like to thank Scotsgreymouser Janus, for allowing me to use a small parcel of land  as a home base during this series, and Astra Thorne for just being a very cool friend.

    Lots of things are about to happen in the Open Sim Virtual World Universe. InterOp and HyperGrid total integration are not very far off. If you would like to start exploring other Virtual World's I highly encourage you to do so. InWorldz is a great place to start.

JayR Cela :_)