By Avatar JayR Cela
Good afternoon dear readers. Spring 2014 is just around the corner and things are looking rosy in the Open Sim Virtual World development and user experience environment. Hyper Grid is alive and vibrant with inter world Virtual Tourism. Several interchangeable V~ Currencies are soaring on the market, fashion designers have made a huge splash in the real world with absolutely stunning creations. Inter Grid vehicle creators have seen a tremendous upswing in their sales with cutting edge designs.
It's a little bit crazy out there, not everything works 100% - 100% of the time, but many users do not seem to mind. Everyone we have spoken to is having a wonderful and exciting time. As well known virtual resident and Fashion Diva, "Mary Anonymous" recently put it. " Oh I am having such a fantastic time here in the OS universe, I used to hang out in SecondLife, but it just got to be so LAME ( he-he ) and besides it's no longer relevant. A Has Been ~ Such Old News ( giggles ) And Inter~Grid entrepreneur, vehicle and weapons designer "Dave Somebody" had this to say, "I want excitement, not some creaky old fart stuff, and I'm making a ton of money here now"
So there you have it folk's Mary and Dave's sentiment's seem to be resounding throughout the OS MetaVerse by young and old alike. The once mighty SecondLife, originator, leader and previously dominant player in the Virtual Worlds environment, although still in existence no longer seems to be relevant.
So what went wrong with SL ? Rumor has it that there was a slow but steady brain drain of independent creative talent, unwittingly imposed by non-forward thinking top management at the Lab.
Once the user base realized that things were stagnating in SL, while at the same time Open Sim was bristling with new and fantastic ideas. OS by welcoming these same talented, creative independent developers ( that LL turned away ) with open arms, the flood gates of creativity opened, and by that time it was to late. I guess the Lab figured they were the only game in town ?
JayR Cela :_)
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
SecondLife : The New TPV Policy : I Can Finally Speak My Mind : How Will It Affect You : Kissing Innovation Goodbye ? ~or~ Follow The Yellow Brick Road Toadies
By Avatar JayR Cela
So what exactly does the new TPV vetting policy mean to the average user of SecondLife ? ( After yesterdays PH-FS meeting I can finally express my opinions. That meeting by the way, filled 4 Sims with 75 avatars in each one and crashed repeatedly until a Linden eventually stopped by to investigate, ultimately moving the event to a more robust server ) Not a whole heck of a lot for the immediate future. The loss of name tag viewer identification and custom coloring of those tags. So to the average or casual user that's about it. At least for now. In the foreseeable future, at least in my mind it indicates a lot less innovation outside ( or thinking outside of the box ) of what is officially sanctioned by the lab first.
What ever constitutes a shared user experience in SL must first be approved by LL to work with the standard ( stock ) version of V3 first, before it will be allowed to hit the SL grid. So let's clarify a shared user experience, and no it does not pertain to RLV enhancement's. So all the people living on the Zindra continent and Goreans can breathe a sigh of relief. Here are a few examples of a shared user experience. Multi layer clothing and attachment points, body physics, region and or individual parcel windlight settings are the easiest examples to explain.
When multi-attachment points and clothing layers were first introduced by the now defunct Emerald Viewer team a couple of years ago it created quite a stir. Unless you were using the Emerald Viewer, no one else in SL besides fellow Emerald users could see them. For instance, you were an Emerald user and had decided to wear 2 or 3 necklaces to compliment your perfect outfit. They looked just great on you and to all your friends that were using that viewer also, but walk into a night club filled with multiple SL Viewer user's and the additional 2 necklaces were off somewhere floating around your head instead of gracefully adorning your neckline. This problem was even worse when it came to multi-layered clothing. I had several experiences where I was eventually banned from a popular SL night club because I was not wearing a skirt or top. Oh I looked just fine on my screen and to others that were on the same viewer, but to the average user I was partially nude. So this was or is considered as a shared user experience, not everyone could see the same thing as I was seeing on my screen.
Eventually this lead to the Lab adapting, and improving upon both of these features, here in lies the problem. You see LL did not adapt until they were forced to. There were just too many Emerald users out there in SL Land to ignore. The new TPV agreement ( and I use the word agreement with tongue in cheek ) under the new TPV policy, developers must first make sure that #1 the new feature works with the Stock V3, that in itself is not a big deal, it's #2 that puts a kink into things. #2 any new shared user experience has got to be first approved by LL before it can be implemented. And I don't know about your experiences, but even getting LL's attention is not unlike hopping into a bucket, lowering yourself into the water well, and adding a hundred pound of bricks into the bucket with you along the way. Guess what ? Your going to sink right to the bottom.
I have witnessed this several times before in SL, the first was the Inter-Op project headed up by Zero Linden and the Advanced Working Architecture Group ( AWG ) this so called consortium of LL and some top notch coders who were SL resident's including help from IBM was supposed to usher in a new era of the Virtual World experience. Allowing people to travel freely between SL to alternate grids, Open Sim, OS Grid, Open Metaverse etc... this was and still is a kick ass idea. After 2 years that project went absolutely nowhere. At least not in SL, it is now alive and well in the Open Sim virtual universe, as the Hyper Grid protocol.
Another example is the absolutely horrid User Interface ( UI ) of the initial Viewer2. When Phillip Rosedale first introduced Project SnowStorm with the purpose of bringing online a Rapid Application Development ( RAD ) working environment into the SL viewer development process, it took nearly 2 years before someone finally admitted that the UI was a miserable excuse towards enhancing the user experience, and it still is sorely lacking. Two freaking years, what the hell kind of RAD environment is that supposed to be ? It's not ! It's a Big Black Hole ! Toss your money into the wishing well and hope for the best. What kind of incentive is this supposed to be to talented Third Party Developers ? It's not an incentive, if anything it's a great big Screw You TPV's ! You are better than we are at being creative, so you can not play here anymore ! Unless you want to Follow The Yellow Brick Road, and perhaps, just maybe the Wizzard will take pity upon you.
And then the ultimate slap in the face to the dedicated Third Party Developers, is the removal of Viewer Tags and colors, don't give me this happy horse shit that some users are being bullied into trying alternative SL Viewers. Give me a break, that has got to be the lamest excuse the LL PR department has come up with so far. I'll tell you exactly what this is. The Lab is ashamed, it is being slammed into the dust bin with the sorry excuse it calls a Virtual World Viewer. They cant for what ever reason or another make something better than the TVP's so what the hell, lets bring them all down to a level playing field, that way all the SL Viewers will be just as lame as ours, and maybe no one will notice.
Rather than embrace change, and take advantage of some truly creative thinking, the lab has chosen to play it safe. Hmmmm kinda makes me wonder where Apple Computer would be today if Steve Jobs had decided to tow the line, and drink the PC Kool-Aid ?
I think it is high time to add an extra layer of management between who is responsible for insuring the viewer code is stable, and who ultimately makes the creative decisions about what the eventual goals of enhancing, the user experience should be. If someone continues to say, well we cant do this because of that, and we cant do that because of this, do you really want to associate yourself with them ? NO ! Because they are hindering your creativity.
The people we refer to as Third Party Developers are very passionate, dedicated SecondLife users. Please notice the word "Users" there is a difference between a user and a coder ( with some grey areas ) the exception beings the TPV's, these people actually use the product. In the 1 year that I was attending SnowStorm meetings, ( before I got banned for being outspoken here on this blog ) not once in that entire period of time did I ever see a Linden even bother to change the outfit they were wearing. What does this tell you, personally it tells me they are not USERS ! They don't even have a freaking clue as to how people actually use the product. If someone is going to be in a position of making decisions ultimately determining what is and what is not enhancing the user experience, it should not be left up to only the people writing the code. It requires someone that actually goes out into SL, buys clothing, goes dancing, gets involved in sail boat or motor sport racing and so on and so on, not someone sitting in an office cubicle all day hammering away at code or going back and forth from one mindless unproductive internal office meeting to another all day.
This has got to be the most narrow minded, bone heading thinking I have seen the Lab come up with yet. The TPV's are running absolute circles around the internal viewer development department ( And they are not even on the payroll ) My God ! can you imagine if these same people actually had access to the Server Code as well ? Ha I can imagine, Open Sim, that's whats going to happen ! What possible incentive does a Passionate, Dedicated, Creative and PRODUCTIVE TPV have here ? Absolutely Zero, Zip, Nada !
I am positive, and confident when I make this statement. These tallented, dedicated, passionate, creative developers and users have better things to do with their free time, besides sitting around watching paint dry on the wall, while their creative ideas get sucked down into the abyss of typical LL procedures and gridlock.
In closing : Respectfully Mr. Rodvik Humble I know that you follow this blog on it's Twitter link. I only speak out here because I care. Please reconsider this decision, at the very least. Put someone, a creative, passionate user in control of what takes priority. No more we can'ts, We the users want to hear, we can. It may be hard, but we can do this, and we will do this, not because it is easy, we will do this because it is hard. And we intend to stay #1
JayR Cela :_(
P.S. Supposedly the next Phoenix Hour scheduled to be broadcast on Treet TV will feature Oz Linden as it's guest.
So what exactly does the new TPV vetting policy mean to the average user of SecondLife ? ( After yesterdays PH-FS meeting I can finally express my opinions. That meeting by the way, filled 4 Sims with 75 avatars in each one and crashed repeatedly until a Linden eventually stopped by to investigate, ultimately moving the event to a more robust server ) Not a whole heck of a lot for the immediate future. The loss of name tag viewer identification and custom coloring of those tags. So to the average or casual user that's about it. At least for now. In the foreseeable future, at least in my mind it indicates a lot less innovation outside ( or thinking outside of the box ) of what is officially sanctioned by the lab first.
What ever constitutes a shared user experience in SL must first be approved by LL to work with the standard ( stock ) version of V3 first, before it will be allowed to hit the SL grid. So let's clarify a shared user experience, and no it does not pertain to RLV enhancement's. So all the people living on the Zindra continent and Goreans can breathe a sigh of relief. Here are a few examples of a shared user experience. Multi layer clothing and attachment points, body physics, region and or individual parcel windlight settings are the easiest examples to explain.
When multi-attachment points and clothing layers were first introduced by the now defunct Emerald Viewer team a couple of years ago it created quite a stir. Unless you were using the Emerald Viewer, no one else in SL besides fellow Emerald users could see them. For instance, you were an Emerald user and had decided to wear 2 or 3 necklaces to compliment your perfect outfit. They looked just great on you and to all your friends that were using that viewer also, but walk into a night club filled with multiple SL Viewer user's and the additional 2 necklaces were off somewhere floating around your head instead of gracefully adorning your neckline. This problem was even worse when it came to multi-layered clothing. I had several experiences where I was eventually banned from a popular SL night club because I was not wearing a skirt or top. Oh I looked just fine on my screen and to others that were on the same viewer, but to the average user I was partially nude. So this was or is considered as a shared user experience, not everyone could see the same thing as I was seeing on my screen.
Eventually this lead to the Lab adapting, and improving upon both of these features, here in lies the problem. You see LL did not adapt until they were forced to. There were just too many Emerald users out there in SL Land to ignore. The new TPV agreement ( and I use the word agreement with tongue in cheek ) under the new TPV policy, developers must first make sure that #1 the new feature works with the Stock V3, that in itself is not a big deal, it's #2 that puts a kink into things. #2 any new shared user experience has got to be first approved by LL before it can be implemented. And I don't know about your experiences, but even getting LL's attention is not unlike hopping into a bucket, lowering yourself into the water well, and adding a hundred pound of bricks into the bucket with you along the way. Guess what ? Your going to sink right to the bottom.
I have witnessed this several times before in SL, the first was the Inter-Op project headed up by Zero Linden and the Advanced Working Architecture Group ( AWG ) this so called consortium of LL and some top notch coders who were SL resident's including help from IBM was supposed to usher in a new era of the Virtual World experience. Allowing people to travel freely between SL to alternate grids, Open Sim, OS Grid, Open Metaverse etc... this was and still is a kick ass idea. After 2 years that project went absolutely nowhere. At least not in SL, it is now alive and well in the Open Sim virtual universe, as the Hyper Grid protocol.
Another example is the absolutely horrid User Interface ( UI ) of the initial Viewer2. When Phillip Rosedale first introduced Project SnowStorm with the purpose of bringing online a Rapid Application Development ( RAD ) working environment into the SL viewer development process, it took nearly 2 years before someone finally admitted that the UI was a miserable excuse towards enhancing the user experience, and it still is sorely lacking. Two freaking years, what the hell kind of RAD environment is that supposed to be ? It's not ! It's a Big Black Hole ! Toss your money into the wishing well and hope for the best. What kind of incentive is this supposed to be to talented Third Party Developers ? It's not an incentive, if anything it's a great big Screw You TPV's ! You are better than we are at being creative, so you can not play here anymore ! Unless you want to Follow The Yellow Brick Road, and perhaps, just maybe the Wizzard will take pity upon you.
And then the ultimate slap in the face to the dedicated Third Party Developers, is the removal of Viewer Tags and colors, don't give me this happy horse shit that some users are being bullied into trying alternative SL Viewers. Give me a break, that has got to be the lamest excuse the LL PR department has come up with so far. I'll tell you exactly what this is. The Lab is ashamed, it is being slammed into the dust bin with the sorry excuse it calls a Virtual World Viewer. They cant for what ever reason or another make something better than the TVP's so what the hell, lets bring them all down to a level playing field, that way all the SL Viewers will be just as lame as ours, and maybe no one will notice.
Rather than embrace change, and take advantage of some truly creative thinking, the lab has chosen to play it safe. Hmmmm kinda makes me wonder where Apple Computer would be today if Steve Jobs had decided to tow the line, and drink the PC Kool-Aid ?
I think it is high time to add an extra layer of management between who is responsible for insuring the viewer code is stable, and who ultimately makes the creative decisions about what the eventual goals of enhancing, the user experience should be. If someone continues to say, well we cant do this because of that, and we cant do that because of this, do you really want to associate yourself with them ? NO ! Because they are hindering your creativity.
The people we refer to as Third Party Developers are very passionate, dedicated SecondLife users. Please notice the word "Users" there is a difference between a user and a coder ( with some grey areas ) the exception beings the TPV's, these people actually use the product. In the 1 year that I was attending SnowStorm meetings, ( before I got banned for being outspoken here on this blog ) not once in that entire period of time did I ever see a Linden even bother to change the outfit they were wearing. What does this tell you, personally it tells me they are not USERS ! They don't even have a freaking clue as to how people actually use the product. If someone is going to be in a position of making decisions ultimately determining what is and what is not enhancing the user experience, it should not be left up to only the people writing the code. It requires someone that actually goes out into SL, buys clothing, goes dancing, gets involved in sail boat or motor sport racing and so on and so on, not someone sitting in an office cubicle all day hammering away at code or going back and forth from one mindless unproductive internal office meeting to another all day.
This has got to be the most narrow minded, bone heading thinking I have seen the Lab come up with yet. The TPV's are running absolute circles around the internal viewer development department ( And they are not even on the payroll ) My God ! can you imagine if these same people actually had access to the Server Code as well ? Ha I can imagine, Open Sim, that's whats going to happen ! What possible incentive does a Passionate, Dedicated, Creative and PRODUCTIVE TPV have here ? Absolutely Zero, Zip, Nada !
I am positive, and confident when I make this statement. These tallented, dedicated, passionate, creative developers and users have better things to do with their free time, besides sitting around watching paint dry on the wall, while their creative ideas get sucked down into the abyss of typical LL procedures and gridlock.
In closing : Respectfully Mr. Rodvik Humble I know that you follow this blog on it's Twitter link. I only speak out here because I care. Please reconsider this decision, at the very least. Put someone, a creative, passionate user in control of what takes priority. No more we can'ts, We the users want to hear, we can. It may be hard, but we can do this, and we will do this, not because it is easy, we will do this because it is hard. And we intend to stay #1
JayR Cela :_(
P.S. Supposedly the next Phoenix Hour scheduled to be broadcast on Treet TV will feature Oz Linden as it's guest.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
SecondLife : The New TPV Policy : A Need To Know : Questions Answered Today
By Avatar JayR Cela
Well the new LL restrictions on TPV development are about to go into effect March 1, and what exactly does this mean for users of all the wonderful products so many of us have come to know and love.
Personally I have done my best to keep several opinion's to myself. There is no sense in fanning the flames, and running up a rumor mill of misinformation. So if you really want to know exactly what the lowdown is, today Feb 28 at 2:00pm SLT, Jessica Lyon, project manager of the Phoenix~FireStorm team will be live at the Rockcliffe University in SL hosting a meeting and hopefully clear up a number of unanswered questions. The event will also be carried live and available for viewing throughout SL courtesy of Treet TV.
For further information please take a look at the Feb 27 post on the Phoenix~FireStorm blog."Policy Changes Q & A Phoenix Office Hour"
http://www.phoenixviewer.com/
JayR Cela
Well the new LL restrictions on TPV development are about to go into effect March 1, and what exactly does this mean for users of all the wonderful products so many of us have come to know and love.
Personally I have done my best to keep several opinion's to myself. There is no sense in fanning the flames, and running up a rumor mill of misinformation. So if you really want to know exactly what the lowdown is, today Feb 28 at 2:00pm SLT, Jessica Lyon, project manager of the Phoenix~FireStorm team will be live at the Rockcliffe University in SL hosting a meeting and hopefully clear up a number of unanswered questions. The event will also be carried live and available for viewing throughout SL courtesy of Treet TV.
For further information please take a look at the Feb 27 post on the Phoenix~FireStorm blog."Policy Changes Q & A Phoenix Office Hour"
http://www.phoenixviewer.com/
JayR Cela
Saturday, February 25, 2012
TPV : The New Requirements : Mores Thoughts : Lots Of Alternate Grid's
By Avatar JayR Cela
I was doing a little of poking around on the Hyper grid Business blog just now. There are a Huge Amount of Open Sim Grids out there. I registered my name JayR Cela on about a half or dozen so a couple of years ago, establishing a cross platform, or grid persona, spent a few hours adjusting my appearance. And did a little bit of exploring, looking for freebee outfit's (And Be-leave Me There Plenty Of Them) basically testing various viewer's for blog article idea's.
The Feburary 15 post on Hypergrid Bussines is a fantastic read for any one interested in some recent SL vs. OS statistics.
http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2012/02/opensim-exceeds-second-life-private-regions/
JayR Cela
I was doing a little of poking around on the Hyper grid Business blog just now. There are a Huge Amount of Open Sim Grids out there. I registered my name JayR Cela on about a half or dozen so a couple of years ago, establishing a cross platform, or grid persona, spent a few hours adjusting my appearance. And did a little bit of exploring, looking for freebee outfit's (And Be-leave Me There Plenty Of Them) basically testing various viewer's for blog article idea's.
The Feburary 15 post on Hypergrid Bussines is a fantastic read for any one interested in some recent SL vs. OS statistics.
http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2012/02/opensim-exceeds-second-life-private-regions/
JayR Cela
Thoughts that sunk in about the new TPV policy changes
Mister Acacia is online
OK, I did post yesterday with the intent of just stating the facts and a bit of interpretation that I got from Oz Linden and others present at the meeting where the changes were announced. Here are my thoughts about each:
Viewer tags: They're going away. In fact, as it currently stands, your tag will not only lose it's viewer identifier, but also the color you choose, if your viewer uses color. Every tag will be the same color and will not show the viewer you're using.
Why did they do this? Well, they claim that V2 users have been bullied by TPV users to change viewers. Our Jess confirmed this does happen. So, why punish the entire grid because of some bullies? Why not AR and ban them? Or does the AR system suck as much as V2?
Personally, I think this is because they're tired of being the minority viewer. They want to level the playing field by bringing everyone else down to their standards. But that's just my opinion. If their viewer wasn't crap, maybe it wouldn't stink.
Still, removing viewer tags means first that it will be harder for folks to actually support viewers to quickly determine in a live venue which viewer you're using when you ask your question. LL, it seems, doesn't do any inworld support and so has no concept of efficiency in this situation.
Next it means that you can't be sure if someone is using a viewer that might be capable of copybot functions. And for those who ban text viewers, your ban won't work any more.
Finally, it means we lose the ability to wear the color of our choice and instead have to wear what LL says we should wear. Plus 1 for Firestorm's Contact Sets, which lets you color viewer tags for your own view at least. Make mine light blue please.
Then there's true online status. First, no viewer can contain a feature to show true online status. This doesn't exclude HUDs and the like, but the Phoenix feature has to go. And it will, Tonya pushed an update and 1602, at least, will not bypass a user's desire to hide their status.
I'm all for this, actually. If I don't want you to know when I'm online, that's my right, isn't it? But, on the flip side, vendor and other customer-facing scripts that wait until you're online to deliver things to you will stop functioning because you'll always be offline to them. Now, LL claims they thought this through. Really?
Next is kind of minor, viewers can't push viewer details unless the user opts in to such an action. If you're a Firestorm or Phoenix user, this means that when you post something into your Phoenix/Firestorm Viewer Support group, the next release of the viewers will have the Specify Viewer Type option turned off by default. No biggie, except we'll have to remind people who ask for help to turn it on so we can have the first question answered right away.
The most damaging is the one that might just spell the biggest decline in SL usership ever, and that's that no viewer can give users a "shared" experience that can't be shared by users of LL's viewer. In other words, if their viewer doesn't render it, then nobody's can.
They want all shared experience development and code to be done on their own viewer first, then released by their viewer first, before any other viewer can release it. Are they fucking kidding? They can't hire innovative developers so they have to essentially extort code from others? And not pay them, and hold that code hostage until such a time as they get around to putting it into their viewer? Which could take years?
OSGrid and InWorldz might see a development boom as a result of this as developers abandon SL, which LL seems to have foreseen since they thought this all through, and start developing and releasing viewers for other grids.
So all the shared experience features you see in TPVs now that aren't in LL's POS viewer are potentially on the chopping block for removal. I don't think LL is quite that stupid, but one never knows. Their policy has always been written with a very broad pen so they literally can dictate (oh there's that word) what viewers can and cannot do.
Well, except they cannot tell TPVs not to use other grids.
Mister Acacia is offline
OK, I did post yesterday with the intent of just stating the facts and a bit of interpretation that I got from Oz Linden and others present at the meeting where the changes were announced. Here are my thoughts about each:
Viewer tags: They're going away. In fact, as it currently stands, your tag will not only lose it's viewer identifier, but also the color you choose, if your viewer uses color. Every tag will be the same color and will not show the viewer you're using.
Why did they do this? Well, they claim that V2 users have been bullied by TPV users to change viewers. Our Jess confirmed this does happen. So, why punish the entire grid because of some bullies? Why not AR and ban them? Or does the AR system suck as much as V2?
Personally, I think this is because they're tired of being the minority viewer. They want to level the playing field by bringing everyone else down to their standards. But that's just my opinion. If their viewer wasn't crap, maybe it wouldn't stink.
Still, removing viewer tags means first that it will be harder for folks to actually support viewers to quickly determine in a live venue which viewer you're using when you ask your question. LL, it seems, doesn't do any inworld support and so has no concept of efficiency in this situation.
Next it means that you can't be sure if someone is using a viewer that might be capable of copybot functions. And for those who ban text viewers, your ban won't work any more.
Finally, it means we lose the ability to wear the color of our choice and instead have to wear what LL says we should wear. Plus 1 for Firestorm's Contact Sets, which lets you color viewer tags for your own view at least. Make mine light blue please.
Then there's true online status. First, no viewer can contain a feature to show true online status. This doesn't exclude HUDs and the like, but the Phoenix feature has to go. And it will, Tonya pushed an update and 1602, at least, will not bypass a user's desire to hide their status.
I'm all for this, actually. If I don't want you to know when I'm online, that's my right, isn't it? But, on the flip side, vendor and other customer-facing scripts that wait until you're online to deliver things to you will stop functioning because you'll always be offline to them. Now, LL claims they thought this through. Really?
Next is kind of minor, viewers can't push viewer details unless the user opts in to such an action. If you're a Firestorm or Phoenix user, this means that when you post something into your Phoenix/Firestorm Viewer Support group, the next release of the viewers will have the Specify Viewer Type option turned off by default. No biggie, except we'll have to remind people who ask for help to turn it on so we can have the first question answered right away.
The most damaging is the one that might just spell the biggest decline in SL usership ever, and that's that no viewer can give users a "shared" experience that can't be shared by users of LL's viewer. In other words, if their viewer doesn't render it, then nobody's can.
They want all shared experience development and code to be done on their own viewer first, then released by their viewer first, before any other viewer can release it. Are they fucking kidding? They can't hire innovative developers so they have to essentially extort code from others? And not pay them, and hold that code hostage until such a time as they get around to putting it into their viewer? Which could take years?
OSGrid and InWorldz might see a development boom as a result of this as developers abandon SL, which LL seems to have foreseen since they thought this all through, and start developing and releasing viewers for other grids.
So all the shared experience features you see in TPVs now that aren't in LL's POS viewer are potentially on the chopping block for removal. I don't think LL is quite that stupid, but one never knows. Their policy has always been written with a very broad pen so they literally can dictate (oh there's that word) what viewers can and cannot do.
Well, except they cannot tell TPVs not to use other grids.
Mister Acacia is offline
New TPV Policy : More Thoughts About Linden Lab ~Vs.~ Perhaps Open Sim ?
By Avatar JayR Cela
Let me open this post with several statements.
#1 I am trying to put a positive spin on this situation.
#2 Oz Linden is in a management position at the lab. He may or may not be responsible for this.
#3 The dust has not settled yet.
OK, now that I got that out of the way, there are an abundance of alternative's for third party developer's to take into consideration. Now in my (never so humble) opinion, I think it is about time to take a closer look towards moving forward into Open Sim territories.
For this particular example I will be using OSGrid and FireStorm. I am not affiliated with either. It is just my opinion. OSGrid is a very stable, and extremely inexpensive platform for developers to migrate to. No one is going to stifle future development here, in fact it is encouraged to the 9th degree. And FireStorm is my favorite viewer.
Oh yeah, did I mention that OSGrid is HyperGrid enabled ? This opens a much broader range of potential avenues for any developer than the stagnating, and shrinking SL platform does.
Vivox voice, mesh and widlight work also. So if anyone out there is interested in looking deeper into the quickly growing Open Sim frontier, I can point you towards no better resource than Maria Korolov's blog Hypergrid Business http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/
And you may want to take a look at this recent post on the Glassdoor blog about what it is like to work at LL.
Linden Lab – “A once great place to work with an exciting product now on the decline”
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Linden-Lab-RVW1352577.htm
In closing I would like to leave you with this thought. Usually when a company open sources one of their projects it is because the internal development team is unable to bring the project to fruition in a timely manor. Sometimes people get discourgaded and the project will fork. I guess this just does not seem to be the case here. At least in the Lab's mind.
Any ways the dust still has not settled on this, but perhaps it may just be time to say. Catch ya later LL ~ or ~ Adios Amigos.
JayR Cela
Let me open this post with several statements.
#1 I am trying to put a positive spin on this situation.
#2 Oz Linden is in a management position at the lab. He may or may not be responsible for this.
#3 The dust has not settled yet.
OK, now that I got that out of the way, there are an abundance of alternative's for third party developer's to take into consideration. Now in my (never so humble) opinion, I think it is about time to take a closer look towards moving forward into Open Sim territories.
For this particular example I will be using OSGrid and FireStorm. I am not affiliated with either. It is just my opinion. OSGrid is a very stable, and extremely inexpensive platform for developers to migrate to. No one is going to stifle future development here, in fact it is encouraged to the 9th degree. And FireStorm is my favorite viewer.
Oh yeah, did I mention that OSGrid is HyperGrid enabled ? This opens a much broader range of potential avenues for any developer than the stagnating, and shrinking SL platform does.
Vivox voice, mesh and widlight work also. So if anyone out there is interested in looking deeper into the quickly growing Open Sim frontier, I can point you towards no better resource than Maria Korolov's blog Hypergrid Business http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/
And you may want to take a look at this recent post on the Glassdoor blog about what it is like to work at LL.
Linden Lab – “A once great place to work with an exciting product now on the decline”
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Linden-Lab-RVW1352577.htm
In closing I would like to leave you with this thought. Usually when a company open sources one of their projects it is because the internal development team is unable to bring the project to fruition in a timely manor. Sometimes people get discourgaded and the project will fork. I guess this just does not seem to be the case here. At least in the Lab's mind.
Any ways the dust still has not settled on this, but perhaps it may just be time to say. Catch ya later LL ~ or ~ Adios Amigos.
JayR Cela
Friday, February 24, 2012
SecondLife TPV Policy Changes : Op-Ed By JayR Cela
By Avatar JayR Cela
HI there everyone, I just finished reading my fellow columnist, and friend Mister Acacia'a TPV policy changes, post. And I just had to make a few observations here.
Let me start off by saying that "The Sky Is Not Falling !" ( at least not yet )
New TPV, and TOS changes have come and gone over the years. Many of us are still here, for myself it has been since September 2005. In that period of time a lot of people freaked out at first, but once the dust settled, everything just got back to normal again.
The only thing I can really think of at this point ( since I did not attend the meeting ) as far as the Viewer Name Tag issue goes. It must come as a HUGE Embarrassment for the Lab that such a small, teeny tiny, its'y bits'y, almost minuscule percentage of SL resident's chose to use the the official LL Viewer. LOL all ya have to do is go to any popular place in SL to witness that for yourself.
There are a few other issue's I can think of that might be affected as well, but there is no sense in speculating at this point.
Oh by the way, I have not been in SL very much the past couple of weeks after my recent heart surgery. I've just been recovering, ( more mentally than physically ) and involved with an audio editing project in RL. Doing a lot of reading the new software instruction manuals too.
Believe me I will know more soon.
Thanks for reading the Blog, bye for now
JayR Cela :_)
HI there everyone, I just finished reading my fellow columnist, and friend Mister Acacia'a TPV policy changes, post. And I just had to make a few observations here.
Let me start off by saying that "The Sky Is Not Falling !" ( at least not yet )
New TPV, and TOS changes have come and gone over the years. Many of us are still here, for myself it has been since September 2005. In that period of time a lot of people freaked out at first, but once the dust settled, everything just got back to normal again.
The only thing I can really think of at this point ( since I did not attend the meeting ) as far as the Viewer Name Tag issue goes. It must come as a HUGE Embarrassment for the Lab that such a small, teeny tiny, its'y bits'y, almost minuscule percentage of SL resident's chose to use the the official LL Viewer. LOL all ya have to do is go to any popular place in SL to witness that for yourself.
There are a few other issue's I can think of that might be affected as well, but there is no sense in speculating at this point.
Oh by the way, I have not been in SL very much the past couple of weeks after my recent heart surgery. I've just been recovering, ( more mentally than physically ) and involved with an audio editing project in RL. Doing a lot of reading the new software instruction manuals too.
Believe me I will know more soon.
Thanks for reading the Blog, bye for now
JayR Cela :_)
TPV policy changes
Mister Acacia is online
I'm writing this as the Third Party Viewer Developer meeting is taking place. They're adding some changes to the TPV policy, all of which are prohibitions. Here they are:
Of course these changes are not being well received. Basically it means that if you can't do it in the latest LL viewer, you can't do it in any viewer. Why is something only LL can say, and they're not saying anything but a politically-spun answer. The real answer seems pretty obvious.
I invite you to discuss this with LL.
Mister Acacia is offline
I'm writing this as the Third Party Viewer Developer meeting is taking place. They're adding some changes to the TPV policy, all of which are prohibitions. Here they are:
- 2.a.iii : You must not provide any feature that circumvents any privacy protection option made available through a Linden Lab viewer or any Second Life service.
- 2.i : You must not display any information regarding the computer system, software, or network connection of any other Second Life user.
- 2.j : You must not include any information regarding the computer system, software, or network connection of the user in any messages sent to other viewers, except when explicitly elected by the user of your viewer.
- 2.k : You must not provide any feature that alters the shared experience of the virtual world in any way not provided by or accessible to users of the latest released Linden Lab viewer.
Of course these changes are not being well received. Basically it means that if you can't do it in the latest LL viewer, you can't do it in any viewer. Why is something only LL can say, and they're not saying anything but a politically-spun answer. The real answer seems pretty obvious.
I invite you to discuss this with LL.
Mister Acacia is offline
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
My Life : Everything is Cool
By Avatar JayR Cela
Well I went into the hospital this morning and was put under, they inserted a laser device in order to repair my heart. I'm glad to say everything went as it was supposed to.
So I guess I will be around, and keep continuing to piss off just about everyone / LOL
JayR Cela :_)
Well I went into the hospital this morning and was put under, they inserted a laser device in order to repair my heart. I'm glad to say everything went as it was supposed to.
So I guess I will be around, and keep continuing to piss off just about everyone / LOL
JayR Cela :_)
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Virtual Worlds : I'm hooked On GIMP
By Avatar JayR Cela
Hey if ya have not played around with The Graphic Image Manipulator ( GIMP ) you are really missing out on a free gift. Once ya get used to it, ya can pretty much do anything. It's way Kool !
http://www.gimp.org/
JayR :_)
Hey if ya have not played around with The Graphic Image Manipulator ( GIMP ) you are really missing out on a free gift. Once ya get used to it, ya can pretty much do anything. It's way Kool !
JayR :_)
OK I'm Not Gonna Die
By Avatar JayR Cela
I'll make this short, I fired my Doctor, and found someone to help me with my heart condition. I will be undergoing a procedure tomorrow, it is called ABLITION.
Basically it will repair my heart.
So it looks like I will be around a little bit longer than I thought.
Weeee !
JayR Cela :_)
I'll make this short, I fired my Doctor, and found someone to help me with my heart condition. I will be undergoing a procedure tomorrow, it is called ABLITION.
Basically it will repair my heart.
So it looks like I will be around a little bit longer than I thought.
Weeee !
JayR Cela :_)
Virtual Worlds : Are Your Linden $ Safe ?
By Avatar JayR Cela
OK this is not panic time, but it seems as if virtual world currencies have come under attack. I could go into this story more in depth, but I think is best that I just point you to this blog post.
http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2012/02/credit-card-thieves-attack-opensim-grids/
JayR Cela
OK this is not panic time, but it seems as if virtual world currencies have come under attack. I could go into this story more in depth, but I think is best that I just point you to this blog post.
http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2012/02/credit-card-thieves-attack-opensim-grids/
JayR Cela
Virtual Worlds : The Nova Grid Goes Belly UP
By Avatar JayR Cela
Well this was kinda expected, the past month or so I have been dropping in on the Aurora powered Open Sim, Nova Grid. I might be wrong but it looks as if they officially bit the dust this weekend.
No great loss there. It seems that anything the Imprudence team touch's ultimately turns to dust.
JayR Cela :(
Well this was kinda expected, the past month or so I have been dropping in on the Aurora powered Open Sim, Nova Grid. I might be wrong but it looks as if they officially bit the dust this weekend.
No great loss there. It seems that anything the Imprudence team touch's ultimately turns to dust.
JayR Cela :(
Monday, February 13, 2012
death Becomes Us
By Avatar JayR Cela
Ok is time to croak
It has been a lot of fun
I'm doing the best I can to hang on.
But this is pretty much it.
Every one that has been a regular reader, I love you all very much.
Don't count me out yet !
JayR :_)
Ok is time to croak
It has been a lot of fun
I'm doing the best I can to hang on.
But this is pretty much it.
Every one that has been a regular reader, I love you all very much.
Don't count me out yet !
JayR :_)
Why do People Hate Me ?
By Avatar JayR Cela
OMG Let me Count the Way's
I will continue to piss everyone off, until ?
JayR :_)
OMG Let me Count the Way's
I will continue to piss everyone off, until ?
JayR :_)
Virtual Worlds : Where Is Your Mind ?
Ok so another person bit the dust, Whitney Huston croaked, Oh My, does the world end because she decided to croak. Who gives a fuck !
JayR Cela
JayR Cela
SecondLife ~ Open Sim : Last Week's Wrap UP of Viewers
Ok I'm at it again,
Probably just gonna piss off a few people. But Oh Well.
Let me just start off with this, until I am able to mute individual group chats, and read old V1.x log files, and have a smaller re-sizable camera control. I'm just going to continue to bitch until the lame ass TPD's get off their butt's and fix these problems.
Catznip : OK we got a new release here, I have not tried it yet.
http://catznip.com/
Cool Viewer : Henry is at it again, most of the changes this week deal with clothing layer's. This is probably the best viewer available. Defiantly worth the download.
http://sldev.free.fr/
Dolphin : Oh well, same as last week.
http://dolphinviewer.eregion.de/
Exodus : Nothing happening here.
http://exodusviewer.com/
FireStorm : Way to much stuff to cover here : it is the best available : bar none !
http://www.phoenixviewer.com/
Ok here we go / I'm the big FireStorm user, no one is ever going to going change that.
Imprudence : Will someone just kick this garbage into the trash ?
Kirsten's : I think everyone already knows the story on this one : RIP !
Niran's Oh My, about all I can say is check it out, you are gonna need a super computer in order to run it.
Phoenix : no changes
StarLight : Pretty much the same as last week.
Zen : Now this one ya gotta keep an eye on : I'm going out on a limb here, But I think this will be the one to watch.
So what the heck else is going on ?
Well the Nova Grid bit the dust, them and Imprudence, good riddance.
Probably just gonna piss off a few people. But Oh Well.
Let me just start off with this, until I am able to mute individual group chats, and read old V1.x log files, and have a smaller re-sizable camera control. I'm just going to continue to bitch until the lame ass TPD's get off their butt's and fix these problems.
Catznip : OK we got a new release here, I have not tried it yet.
http://catznip.com/
Cool Viewer : Henry is at it again, most of the changes this week deal with clothing layer's. This is probably the best viewer available. Defiantly worth the download.
http://sldev.free.fr/
Dolphin : Oh well, same as last week.
http://dolphinviewer.eregion.de/
Exodus : Nothing happening here.
http://exodusviewer.com/
FireStorm : Way to much stuff to cover here : it is the best available : bar none !
http://www.phoenixviewer.com/
Ok here we go / I'm the big FireStorm user, no one is ever going to going change that.
Imprudence : Will someone just kick this garbage into the trash ?
Kirsten's : I think everyone already knows the story on this one : RIP !
Niran's Oh My, about all I can say is check it out, you are gonna need a super computer in order to run it.
Phoenix : no changes
StarLight : Pretty much the same as last week.
Zen : Now this one ya gotta keep an eye on : I'm going out on a limb here, But I think this will be the one to watch.
So what the heck else is going on ?
Well the Nova Grid bit the dust, them and Imprudence, good riddance.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Virtual Worlds : Lets Not Forget The Past : Can SecondLife Save Virtual World Gaming ?
By Avatar JayR Cela
Hi there again, I'm about to do some reminiscing. my first encounter with video games was Space Invader, then Donkey Kong, and Defender, I completely by-passed the Pac-Man Ms. Pac Man thing.
Ya know I am really excited about the Linden Realms initiative, and the potential that it holds for all people that just so happen to hang out here.
Ok so let me take a trip back in my time frame as a video game junkey.
I had just come down off of the Pin Ball craze that afflicted most of the people of my age in the 1970's, and the next thing ya knew it there was PONG ! Wow !!
Then Pac Man hit the scene, then Asteroids, Gallaga, Defender, Donkey Kong, holy shit the list goes on and on.
Right now, I'm rather busy working with various projects in RL, but I do see an emerging trend within the upper echelon's of the LL~SL brain trust.
I've been bopping around numerous new game venues the past month or so. sad to say some of them are a bit on the lame side. As is LL Realms, man talk about getting tired of something fast, if ya spend 4 or 5 hours there, then that's it !
Unless the powers that be completely commit to the In-World paradigm way of thinking about a SDK for SecondLife that will allow the truly creative independent Game Dev's to spread tier wing's. Then SL will be a dead issue by 2014.
JayR Cela :(
Hi there again, I'm about to do some reminiscing. my first encounter with video games was Space Invader, then Donkey Kong, and Defender, I completely by-passed the Pac-Man Ms. Pac Man thing.
Ya know I am really excited about the Linden Realms initiative, and the potential that it holds for all people that just so happen to hang out here.
Ok so let me take a trip back in my time frame as a video game junkey.
I had just come down off of the Pin Ball craze that afflicted most of the people of my age in the 1970's, and the next thing ya knew it there was PONG ! Wow !!
Then Pac Man hit the scene, then Asteroids, Gallaga, Defender, Donkey Kong, holy shit the list goes on and on.
Right now, I'm rather busy working with various projects in RL, but I do see an emerging trend within the upper echelon's of the LL~SL brain trust.
I've been bopping around numerous new game venues the past month or so. sad to say some of them are a bit on the lame side. As is LL Realms, man talk about getting tired of something fast, if ya spend 4 or 5 hours there, then that's it !
Unless the powers that be completely commit to the In-World paradigm way of thinking about a SDK for SecondLife that will allow the truly creative independent Game Dev's to spread tier wing's. Then SL will be a dead issue by 2014.
JayR Cela :(
Thursday, February 9, 2012
MINT Linux12 Lisa Desktop with FireStorm : Gimp : Blender : InkScape : OpenShot ~ Setup
By Avatar JayR Cela
MintLinux 12 ~and~ The SecondLife ~ OpenSim ~ DeskTop Experience
Day 1 the Initial Setup :
The past week or so I have been deeply involved with setting up my moldy oldie Second Life ~ OpenSim work area. Consisting of 2 computers, a home brew AMD64 1gig, Nvidia 7300GT 512k & Dell P4 3gig, PAE capable, Nvidia GForce 210 1gig. LOL :_) Hardly any thing to get excited about, but it is good enough for me to enjoy my favorite hobby.
Exploring Virtual Worlds is a total trip, and in my opinion all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. Anyways, the past 4 years or so I've been getting more and more into Linux. What the hell it's free, and has really come along way over the years. Let's face it though, as a viable Desktop environment, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.
Basically you have a choice of half a dozen User Interface designs, four different versions of the Gnome desktop : Gnome 2, the radically different Gnome 3 and it's Ubuntu based spin-off Unity. Number 4 is rather unique, and that is Mint Linux 12 the Lisa distribution, with Gnome 3 and the Mate plus Cinnamon extensions.
Next up to the bat is the KDE desktop for the latest Linux kernal, it is rather bizarre to to say the least, kinda like saying to yourself, OMG - WTF is This !! I'd show ya around, but it is just way to weird for me.
Then their is XFCE, using a rather bare bones approach to what a users Desktop environment should be like. I have tried previous iterations in the past, and the newest version is just not my cup of tea either. But for much different reasons than my dislike of KDE.
Lets not forget the traditional Gnome 2 Desktop setup with MintLixux 12 the Debian release. Yes it is still available. No sense in covering that, it's a rock solid work horse and efficient too.
I'm going to stick with the Lisa release of Mint Linux 12, and see something new. First of all, let me start of by explaining that the Gnome 3, Mate, Cinnamon project is still a work in progress. That being said, I feel it shows a tremendous amount of ingenuity and promise, still some rough edges though.
So lets take a look around. I'm going to design my own custom dual Work Station area using, FireStorm, The Gimp image editing program, Blender, InkScape and OpenShot the video editor. I'm trying to accomplish several things here, I have been wanting to do more coverage of OpenSim, also having an intense attraction to Linux in general. And I absolutely love using the Phoenix viewer along with the new version of FireStorm. ( After 2 months of playing around with the nightly builds of FS, I've just been itching to do a thorough review ) Now when ya think about it, lets toss in Gimp, Blender, Inkscape along with OpenShot, and,you pretty much got the entire Video portion of a complete A/V mini production environment right at your fingertips, you would need a DAW program to round things out. The entire cost for software is $0.00, everything is Open Source.
I don't really know where this series of upcoming post's will take me. It's just where my head is right now, after 6 and a half years of SL, I'm starting to loose interest :(
So let's get the party started !
It's a bit of a paradigm shift, and requires some practice, once used to it though I can't help but thinking that the team at Mint is really onto something good here.
Basically you have kind of an almost slideshow type work space. Clicking on or waving your mouse into the upper left hand corner of the screen or selecting work space buttons in the lower right corner allows switching back and forth between numerous viewing options.
I'm just going to select what I want now, then later customize the main working menu and set up the Samba based network connection between the two workstations in an upcoming post.
Now this is a cluttered mess, but that's no problem at all. I'll start off by clearing my most used application selection area.
And putting into place only what I will be needing for now. Chrome for browsing and Gimp, Blender, InkScape, OpenShot and a file manager. Now just start up the FireStorm session.
OK, now logged in I will make some adjustments to the graphics settings.
And take a picture.
Next let's import this into Gimp, and fool around with some lighting effects.
OK, now to do a little bit of cropping.
And have a look at the not so finished product.
LOL :_) I'm pretty new at this sort of thing, and I screwed up with the red ring in the added light source. But this is intended as an example only. Again no problem, I'll just add some more lighting and a few other things, then re-crop.
All in all, my impression of Mint12 Lisa is that I really like it as a Desktop for the Linux platform. I ran into some oddball bugs while using the UI, it defiantly needs some TLC to get up to speed, but I'm looking forward to this Aprils next release.
In all honesty I have no idea where this series is going to take me, but I intend to spend most of whats left of this month experimenting with Mint and FireStorm.
JayR Cela :_)
MintLinux 12 ~and~ The SecondLife ~ OpenSim ~ DeskTop Experience
Day 1 the Initial Setup :
The past week or so I have been deeply involved with setting up my moldy oldie Second Life ~ OpenSim work area. Consisting of 2 computers, a home brew AMD64 1gig, Nvidia 7300GT 512k & Dell P4 3gig, PAE capable, Nvidia GForce 210 1gig. LOL :_) Hardly any thing to get excited about, but it is good enough for me to enjoy my favorite hobby.
Exploring Virtual Worlds is a total trip, and in my opinion all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. Anyways, the past 4 years or so I've been getting more and more into Linux. What the hell it's free, and has really come along way over the years. Let's face it though, as a viable Desktop environment, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.
Basically you have a choice of half a dozen User Interface designs, four different versions of the Gnome desktop : Gnome 2, the radically different Gnome 3 and it's Ubuntu based spin-off Unity. Number 4 is rather unique, and that is Mint Linux 12 the Lisa distribution, with Gnome 3 and the Mate plus Cinnamon extensions.
Next up to the bat is the KDE desktop for the latest Linux kernal, it is rather bizarre to to say the least, kinda like saying to yourself, OMG - WTF is This !! I'd show ya around, but it is just way to weird for me.
Then their is XFCE, using a rather bare bones approach to what a users Desktop environment should be like. I have tried previous iterations in the past, and the newest version is just not my cup of tea either. But for much different reasons than my dislike of KDE.
Lets not forget the traditional Gnome 2 Desktop setup with MintLixux 12 the Debian release. Yes it is still available. No sense in covering that, it's a rock solid work horse and efficient too.
I'm going to stick with the Lisa release of Mint Linux 12, and see something new. First of all, let me start of by explaining that the Gnome 3, Mate, Cinnamon project is still a work in progress. That being said, I feel it shows a tremendous amount of ingenuity and promise, still some rough edges though.
So lets take a look around. I'm going to design my own custom dual Work Station area using, FireStorm, The Gimp image editing program, Blender, InkScape and OpenShot the video editor. I'm trying to accomplish several things here, I have been wanting to do more coverage of OpenSim, also having an intense attraction to Linux in general. And I absolutely love using the Phoenix viewer along with the new version of FireStorm. ( After 2 months of playing around with the nightly builds of FS, I've just been itching to do a thorough review ) Now when ya think about it, lets toss in Gimp, Blender, Inkscape along with OpenShot, and,you pretty much got the entire Video portion of a complete A/V mini production environment right at your fingertips, you would need a DAW program to round things out. The entire cost for software is $0.00, everything is Open Source.
I don't really know where this series of upcoming post's will take me. It's just where my head is right now, after 6 and a half years of SL, I'm starting to loose interest :(
So let's get the party started !
It's a bit of a paradigm shift, and requires some practice, once used to it though I can't help but thinking that the team at Mint is really onto something good here.
Basically you have kind of an almost slideshow type work space. Clicking on or waving your mouse into the upper left hand corner of the screen or selecting work space buttons in the lower right corner allows switching back and forth between numerous viewing options.
I'm just going to select what I want now, then later customize the main working menu and set up the Samba based network connection between the two workstations in an upcoming post.
Now this is a cluttered mess, but that's no problem at all. I'll start off by clearing my most used application selection area.
And putting into place only what I will be needing for now. Chrome for browsing and Gimp, Blender, InkScape, OpenShot and a file manager. Now just start up the FireStorm session.
OK, now logged in I will make some adjustments to the graphics settings.
And take a picture.
Next let's import this into Gimp, and fool around with some lighting effects.
OK, now to do a little bit of cropping.
And have a look at the not so finished product.
LOL :_) I'm pretty new at this sort of thing, and I screwed up with the red ring in the added light source. But this is intended as an example only. Again no problem, I'll just add some more lighting and a few other things, then re-crop.
All in all, my impression of Mint12 Lisa is that I really like it as a Desktop for the Linux platform. I ran into some oddball bugs while using the UI, it defiantly needs some TLC to get up to speed, but I'm looking forward to this Aprils next release.
In all honesty I have no idea where this series is going to take me, but I intend to spend most of whats left of this month experimenting with Mint and FireStorm.
JayR Cela :_)
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Virtual Worlds : Last Weeks SecondLife~OpenSim : TPV Wrap Up
By Avatar JayR Cela
I'm a little bit behind schedule lately, but here is last weeks round up of TPV news for OpenSim and SecondLife clients.
Catznip : No changes
CoolVL : No Changes
Dolphin : New Release V3.2.6.24131 / Feb 5
A few common sense enhancements include, Dissable Camera Constraints is now set to ON by default, Limit Select and Limit Move Distance settings default to OFF. The viewer has been recompiled to be LLA compatable on Windows 64bit, SSE-2 was also icorporated on both 32 and 64bit builds. The allignment tool has been updated, and a problem with inventory jumping has been resolved as well.
http://dolphinviewer.eregion.de/
Exodus : No Changes
FireStorm : No changes
Niran's : Version 1.22 was released / Feb 2
Negitive values for animation speed spinners, some menu changes, and LLA recompile for both 32 and 64bit versions.
http://niranv-sl.blogspot.com/.
Phoenix : No changes
Singularity : No changes
StarLight skin : New Release V3.2.0769 / Feb 6
Various small changes, bug fix's. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_Skins/Starlight#Downloads
Zen : Numerous releases throughout the week, currently at V3.3.0
I plan on giving this one a try sometime today, so you can check back here later on this evening.
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory/Zen
Well that about does it, thanks so much for reading this blog. Please feel free to comment.
JayR Cela :_)
I'm a little bit behind schedule lately, but here is last weeks round up of TPV news for OpenSim and SecondLife clients.
Catznip : No changes
CoolVL : No Changes
Dolphin : New Release V3.2.6.24131 / Feb 5
A few common sense enhancements include, Dissable Camera Constraints is now set to ON by default, Limit Select and Limit Move Distance settings default to OFF. The viewer has been recompiled to be LLA compatable on Windows 64bit, SSE-2 was also icorporated on both 32 and 64bit builds. The allignment tool has been updated, and a problem with inventory jumping has been resolved as well.
http://dolphinviewer.eregion.de/
Exodus : No Changes
FireStorm : No changes
Niran's : Version 1.22 was released / Feb 2
Negitive values for animation speed spinners, some menu changes, and LLA recompile for both 32 and 64bit versions.
http://niranv-sl.blogspot.com/.
Phoenix : No changes
Singularity : No changes
StarLight skin : New Release V3.2.0769 / Feb 6
Various small changes, bug fix's. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_Skins/Starlight#Downloads
Zen : Numerous releases throughout the week, currently at V3.3.0
I plan on giving this one a try sometime today, so you can check back here later on this evening.
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory/Zen
Well that about does it, thanks so much for reading this blog. Please feel free to comment.
JayR Cela :_)
Friday, February 3, 2012
Operating Systems : I Switched To Mint Linux
By Avatar JayR Cela
I was bored the other day and decided to do something radically different. I switched from my standard safe and secure Ubuntu 10.04 to Mint Linux 12. It is based on Ubuntu 11.1 so it is not a LTR but has some unique features I really wanted to try out, mainly the UI.
So far so good, as a matter of fact there are 3 versions available, one of them being a pure Debian release.
Will I use it for SL, who knows. But I will defiantly be giving it a try with Open Sim.
More on that real soon, I need to upgrade 2 more computers to the new OS this weekend. See ya then.
http://linuxmint.com/
JayR Cela :_)
I was bored the other day and decided to do something radically different. I switched from my standard safe and secure Ubuntu 10.04 to Mint Linux 12. It is based on Ubuntu 11.1 so it is not a LTR but has some unique features I really wanted to try out, mainly the UI.
So far so good, as a matter of fact there are 3 versions available, one of them being a pure Debian release.
Will I use it for SL, who knows. But I will defiantly be giving it a try with Open Sim.
More on that real soon, I need to upgrade 2 more computers to the new OS this weekend. See ya then.
http://linuxmint.com/
JayR Cela :_)
SecondLife : Niran's V1.22 : WOW !!
By Avatar JayR Cela
I really don't know what to say except OMG ! You want to check out the most advanced SL viewer to date, then just download and give it a try for yourself. If you haven't tried previous versions, be prepared for a system shock in dealing with the various menu's and preference setting's. But it's defiantly worth the effort.
http://niranv-sl.blogspot.com/
JayR Cela :_)
I really don't know what to say except OMG ! You want to check out the most advanced SL viewer to date, then just download and give it a try for yourself. If you haven't tried previous versions, be prepared for a system shock in dealing with the various menu's and preference setting's. But it's defiantly worth the effort.
http://niranv-sl.blogspot.com/
JayR Cela :_)
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Third Party Developers: Gentlemen's Agreement? Can you abide?
Mister Acacia is online
Yeah, been absent a bit. It happens.
Anyway, I just read Tonya's blog about developers sharing code. More appropriately, when they should put someone else's work into their own viewer.
It's well worth the read. I'll be at that TPVD meeding, if I can I'll report the results of the discussion about this.
Mister Acacia is offline
Yeah, been absent a bit. It happens.
Anyway, I just read Tonya's blog about developers sharing code. More appropriately, when they should put someone else's work into their own viewer.
It's well worth the read. I'll be at that TPVD meeding, if I can I'll report the results of the discussion about this.
Mister Acacia is offline
SecondLife : Abandoned Land : Why Linden Lab Will Never Lower Prices : Until Open Sim Matures
By Avatar JayR Cela
Have you looked at the SL in-world map lately ? Depending upon the settings you have chosen wihtin map view.
Take a look here, this is the normal view, however once you place a check-mark next to the Land Sale option. Whoooooo !!!!!!
OMG !! WTF happened ? I'll tell ya what happened, most of my long time friends, and previous SL land owners finally woke up and took a long hard look at their Credit Card bill.
If you are looking at loan shark 18 to 23% interest rates on you, that are legal by law, and you only manage to make the minimum payment, this shit add's up fast.
So whats the first thing's to go ?
All the unnecessary stuff on you credit card, and that just so happens to be SecondLife, right up there at the top of the list.
I have been a LL customer for a lil over 6 years, bought and sold various properties in that time frame. Finally I just said the hell with it and consolidated on 3 pieces of land. I own one, it comes free with my premium membership and is 512m, it is a rental home and I have had numerous tenants over the years, a riverfront location and quite desirable in SL. Then next door I rent a 1024m parcel from a long time friend, and I share the cost with another friend of mine. Next door to that I rent a 2048m parcel from another long time friend here in SL.
So in total that gives me 3584m of highly desirable riverfront property.
I'll tell ya right now LL will continue to charge outrageous prices until ?
JayR Cela
Have you looked at the SL in-world map lately ? Depending upon the settings you have chosen wihtin map view.
Take a look here, this is the normal view, however once you place a check-mark next to the Land Sale option. Whoooooo !!!!!!
OMG !! WTF happened ? I'll tell ya what happened, most of my long time friends, and previous SL land owners finally woke up and took a long hard look at their Credit Card bill.
If you are looking at loan shark 18 to 23% interest rates on you, that are legal by law, and you only manage to make the minimum payment, this shit add's up fast.
So whats the first thing's to go ?
All the unnecessary stuff on you credit card, and that just so happens to be SecondLife, right up there at the top of the list.
I have been a LL customer for a lil over 6 years, bought and sold various properties in that time frame. Finally I just said the hell with it and consolidated on 3 pieces of land. I own one, it comes free with my premium membership and is 512m, it is a rental home and I have had numerous tenants over the years, a riverfront location and quite desirable in SL. Then next door I rent a 1024m parcel from a long time friend, and I share the cost with another friend of mine. Next door to that I rent a 2048m parcel from another long time friend here in SL.
So in total that gives me 3584m of highly desirable riverfront property.
I'll tell ya right now LL will continue to charge outrageous prices until ?
JayR Cela
Virtual Worlds : SecondLife~OpenSim : What Viewer ?
By Avatar JayR Cela
Look here, if you are still using a V1 based viewer, I can honestly say that I don't blame ya. Linden Lab really screwed up with a number of issues. The biggest one was the new UI of V2, then Display Names, then...... / Shit the list goes on and on.
As a platform geared towards creativity, SL has no peers, Open Sim is cool but still lacks a viable physic's engine, and most OS explorer's are still using a V1 client. My self included.
So what is it gonna take in order for people to finally wake up ?
I have no Idea :(
JayR Cela
Look here, if you are still using a V1 based viewer, I can honestly say that I don't blame ya. Linden Lab really screwed up with a number of issues. The biggest one was the new UI of V2, then Display Names, then...... / Shit the list goes on and on.
As a platform geared towards creativity, SL has no peers, Open Sim is cool but still lacks a viable physic's engine, and most OS explorer's are still using a V1 client. My self included.
So what is it gonna take in order for people to finally wake up ?
I have no Idea :(
JayR Cela
Virtual Worlds : Imprudence Viewer Bites The Dust
By Avatar JayR Cela
Well this was bound to happen sooner or later, it seems that the Imprudence viewer project will be shelved, in favor of further development geared towards Aurora Open Sim Server, and the V3 based Kokua viewer. You can read more about this turn of events here.
http://blog.kokuaviewer.org/
JayR Cela
Well this was bound to happen sooner or later, it seems that the Imprudence viewer project will be shelved, in favor of further development geared towards Aurora Open Sim Server, and the V3 based Kokua viewer. You can read more about this turn of events here.
http://blog.kokuaviewer.org/
JayR Cela
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