The Next FireStorm Viewer : When ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

     It's coming soon, most of the changes will be in your preference's setting menu's being reorganized, and this is a good thing.

JayR Cela :_)

Virtual Worlds : SecondLife : A Really Cool Viewer Listing

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Here is a very kool web page with just about every SL : OS Viewer available.

     I keep a fairly up-to-date Link List here, sometimes I get lax in keeping things up to the minute, I hope this new web page will help you out in the search for your perfect viewer.

JayR Cela :_)

http://excelsior-station.wikidot.com/misfit-s-index-of-viewers-miv

SecondLife : Linux Users : Artvi SL Client : By Migueal Liamano : Tarnix

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ya know I am so sick and tired with MS Windows crap, I have pretty much switched over to Linux full time. I f you are a fellow Linux person and are looking for a very cool SL client / then look no furthere than the Artvi SL browser, much if not all of it is based on the NiranV SL client. So this is one very advanced puppy.

     It might take you a day or two in order to figure out all of the advanced feature's but it's worth it !

    This is one Kick Ass SL Viewer ! and is now available for Windows as well !

    By :  (Miguael Liamano/Tarnix) and Niranv Dean


     Well the NiranV version has been available for quite some time now, it's very advanced, and push's the SL engine to the max. I cant keep up with it until I can afford to buy a new computer :(

    This is where the Tarnax Viewer comes into play, typically a Linux based box will run much more efficiently than a Windows machine. I have about 95% of the Windows based NiranV client and twice the FPS speed that Linux provides. If your running Linux, you owe it to yourself to DL this !

    It's a total win-win situation
http://tarnix.info/2012/06/artvi/#

JayR Cela

My Favorite SecondLife Viewer

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Let's face it they are all good, for simplicity I prefer the Zen Viewer, by Zenna Juran, and Hitomi Tiponie's Starlight Skin, and the Dolphin Viewer by Lance Corrimal. These are the top 3 for ease of use. Then we cannot forget Henri Beauchamps, Cool Viewer, the last holdout of V1.x based SL client's, oh yeah Singularity by Siana Gearz, a very advanced V1.x client as well. Then we have the Catznip Viewer, Astra and Exodus, and last but not least NiranV's and the offshoot Linux version the Tarmix Viewer.

    They are all good, just a little bit different from one in other. I think if it came right down to it, from a new user standpoint, and I was in the position of recommending to a new SL user it would be hands down the Zen Viewer, Zenna Juran has put a lot of time into making an extremely user friendly environment.


    Personally I prefer a complicated usage experience so I choose FireStorm, I do like NiranV's but he changes so many things from week to week, is hard to keep up, and just end's up pissing me off with all the unnecessary changes, so it is completely worthless for any serious work.

    So my Vote goes to Zenna Juran and the Zen Viewer for ease of use, and FireStorm for best overall.

JayR Cela :_)
 

Will SecondLife Go Browser Based ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

    This question seem's to pop up from time to time, will the SL experience eventually move from a stand-alone user interface to a browser based one ? Personally I don't think so.

     SL is way to complicated to stuff into a Browser plug in, and all of the TPV's that just so happen to be keeping SL alive with new and innovative design idea's, would simply vanish.

     So it's not going to happen

JayR

Windows 8 : Just Say NO !!!

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Recently MS has released preview versions of the up-coming Windows 8 OS. It is tempting to install this puppy and take it for a test spin.

    DON'T !!! This is a wolf in sheep's clothing just waiting to completely screw you. I have posted on this before, it will implant something called Boot Manager on the first sector of your Hard Drive, and you can not get rid of it, without a complete low level format, and re-installation of your previous OS !

    Someone need's to file a Class Action Law Suit against MS !

    Look Win 8 Blows Big Time, this will be the next Vista fiasco, or worse yet Win ME.

    But once they got ya your locked in, unless you have the skill's necessary to remove it.

    Even if you do that, more than likely you will experience all sort's of odd errors with your HD

    Over-lapping Hard Drive Sectors, corrupted files, this thing is the biggest piece of crap I have ever seen.

    If I had the extra spare change right now I would run out and purchase Windows 7.

    I am currently running Win XP and Mint Linux Maya, everything run's just fine, and I'm happy

JayR

FireStorm : Dancing Madly Backwards

By Avatar JayR Cela

    This fix is so simple I feel silly.

    Recently I found myself walking backwards, in other words my Arrow Key's were working in reverse.

    The fix was so simple and right under my nose, the FireStorm Camera Control has several button's for changing your viewing position. Selecting the correct one, makes a difference.

LOL

JayR Cela :_)

FireStorm : Problem Solved : Yayy !!! :_)

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Lol, after all of the clowning around I did trying to get FireStorm to run on my fresh Win XP machine. The fix was so simple, and  not under my nose.

   M y friend Mister Acacia ( fellow contributor on this Blog ) sent me this Link, that installs some C++ run-time  library's that FireStorm requires.

 http://phoenixviewer.googlecode.com/files/AppFix.exe

    Yayyyyy!!!! I'm back with my most favorite SL viewer / FireStorm !!!


    LOL


JayR :_)

More On My Disastrous Windows 8 & FireStorm Adventures

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Well this has been one Hell Of A Ride / The Joys of Windows 8 removal, and my subsequent woe's attempting to restore my beloved FireStorm viewer * sighs* :(

     Alas I have tried and tried so many times, but to no avail.

     I will now do as my heart tell's me so !

     Get in touch with Phoenix Support !

LOL

JayR Cela :_)
   

More Phoenix FireStorm Problems

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Even after all the crap I just went through with Windows 8 / the low level format the re-installation of Win XP, I still cannot get FireStorm to load, or Phoenix,  It may be a hardware problem on my end.

    I will switch over to Linux via a dual boot configuration tonight  and contact the FireStorm Support tomorrow.

    This has really got me stumped, I just can not figure it out, every other SL TPV Viewer loads and runs just fine. :(

    And up until I installed Windows 8, I had never experienced a problem.

    I'll keep ya posted.

JayR :(

Phoenix FireStorm & Hardware Auto-detect : Good or Bad Idea ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

    This may seem like an odd thing to hear coming from me, since I am such strong supporter of FireStorm.

    Recently a new feature has stealthily been added to the Phoenix FireStorm viewer. And that is the ability for the viewer to automatically detect when you have made a change to your computers Video Card Hardware, right down to the point of even naming the card you have upgraded or downgraded too.

    On the outside this is a very good idea, but there is an insidious dark side to it as well. You may end up becoming unable to even get FireStorm to load at all, after making such a change, and greeted with the message during log in that your viewer's settings are configured incorrectly, and to try re-installing the client. Well guess what ? In some unique circumstances, you may end up being screwed ! Let me explain further.

    I recently made the Huge Mistake of installing the Windows 8 Preview release in a dual boot mode along side of Windows XP, and once you have decided that Windows 8 is a piece of garbage, You Cannot Remove It !

    That's right, it cannot be removed ! PERIOD !!!! The old tried and true fdisk /mbr  command no longer works. You will need to reformat your hard drive, and re-install the previous version of Windows. But  ahh-haa another guess what ? There is still a piece of Win 8 lurking in the dark just waiting to bite you when you least expect it.

    You see, the merry old folks in Redmond have decided that the old tried and true MBR boot loader that has been around since the first IBM PC was introduced in 1984 is no longer good enough, and have replaced it with this horrible Boot Manager that silently reboot's your machine into Protected Mode mode rather than Real Mode before you are even greeted with an OS choice.

    This has left me totally screwed when it comes to getting FireStorm to load now that Windows 8 has been removed and Win XP restored as the sole OS on my computer. Since FireStorm now includes the auto detect feature, that appears to not only determine hardware changes, but OS changes as well. I continue to get the message that FS is configured incorrectly and a re-installation, may solve the problem.

    Well in my scenario it has not worked, even after a HD reformat. If you understand PC's then you are well aware of the fact that reformatting a Hard Disk does not remove any of the old data, it simply tells your OS it is no longer there.

    Now we bring FireStorm into the mix, FS still see's that there has been a change and will refuse to load until the problem has been corrected. This will require a Low Level Format of your Hard Disk. ( a Low Level Format usually takes between 6 to 24 hours depending upon the HD's capacity ) And then re-install your previous version of Windows.

    I believe FS really need's to consider including an ( Opt-In ) selection choice for  the Auto-detect feature during the installation process.


  

JayR Cela :(

Virtual Worlds : Phoenix FireStorm To Offer Two Different Versions

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Well this should come as no surprise to anyone following recent tensions between Linden Lab and Third Party Developers in general.

    The Lab licences a software product from an Irish based company called Havok, basically it allow's for more realistic collision detection between objects, players etc..

    It is considered by some to be the defacto standard in the computer gaming industry, even Nintendo use's it. So does SecondLife, and it's not cheap !

    Until recently the lab has graciously offered TPV's the ability to include HAVOK code into their viewers at no charge, considering the expense that the licence cost's this is very cool.

    Sadly however this mutual agreement seems to be ending.

    So The Phoenix FireStorm viewer will now have a forked development project geared towards Open Sim based virtual worlds, and one specifically developed for SecondLife.

    How this will play out is anyone's guess.

    The Lab has a track record of shooting themselves in the foot from time to time.

    I guess we will just see what happens.

    http://www.havok.com/

    http://www.phoenixviewer.com/

    http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2012/06/firestorm-viewer-to-support-opensim/

JayR Cela

SecondLife : RealLife : ThisLife : Reality

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Man I am going off the whack job train lately.

    I will figure out something good to post about soon.

JayR Cela

SecondLife : Your Gender : Just Be Honest

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Oh my, this has been something I have spent many years examining.

   Your gender that you choose.

    Just be honest from the start !

    JayR Cela

RealLife : SecondLife : The Difference

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ya know there is a really strong possibility that I am'm considered a complete Nut Case in the SL community.

    That's fine with me.

    I am still alive.

    All of my limbs, and brain are still working.

    And there are a bunch of people that have been reading this blog.

    I don't know what to say, except...

    Thank You

    There is a difference between Real Life

    And Virtual Reality Live's

    Some times the line's can blur a bit

   One thing that impress's me the most about SecondLife is friendship.

   JayR Cela :_)

SecondLife : Wow ! : Alaska :This May Be The Most Fantastic Thing To Ever Happen To SL :

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Hi / I just ran across this a few minutes ago / figured I would pass along the link

http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/facultytechnologycenter/Resources/secondlife.cfm

JayR :_)

SecondLife : RealLife : And Reality

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok what's the difference between real life and a virtual life ?

    That all depend's on a number of variables.

     Are you physically disabled in your real life ?

     Are you mentally challenged ?

     The thing to remember is.....

     There are a lot of very nice people here in SecondLife

    And yeah I know it's not physically real.

    What is real, is when you form a lasting friendship, and respect and love for another person.

     So....

     Think about it

JayR Cela  

SecondLife : Combat Viewers

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I just had a fellow Sl resident contact me in-world about a very old post here on this blog.

    It was about the Combat Cubed viewer for SL.

    As far as I can tell, it is no longer available.

    However there are two really great alternatives, if you enjoy combat simulations I will highly recommend the Exodus and the Niran viewers.

http://exodusviewer.com/ 

http://niranv-sl.blogspot.com/

JayR Cela :_)

Virtual Worlds : The Imprudence Viewer

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Look's as if the Imprudence team has called it quit's

This is a sad day, because they really developed a number of very advanced feature's into the SL viewer.

JayR Cela

Virtual World's : Voyages Of Past Traveler's

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ya know I was just sitting here thinking of all the wonderful people I have met over the years in SecondLife.

    The different places that they have created, in this Virtual World.

    How nice they have been to me.

    I wonder what ever happened to..... ?

JayR    

Bad information can lead to no good.

There is a user in Second Life who is passing out notecards that he claims to have solutions to bake failures. Unfortunately, this user is woefully misinformed. And he choose to be, because he has been advised that his information is invalid and he has ignored that.

So this is my response to that notecard. I'm going to address it line by line. I won't say who has passed this information out because this is not about the person. It's only about the information.

********************************************************************************
BEFORE YOU BEGIN: keep in mind that you may mess your viewer settings seriously if you decide to "play" in the advanced menu.

This is true. User beware. It is even more true about the Develop menu and about Debug Settings. If you make a change, and don't remember what you changed, the usual remedy is to clear your settings. Write down what you change so that if something does go cross-eyed, you can reverse your changes.

You are the only one responsible for any actions taken relating to the advanced menu.
CTRL+ALT+D will open the Advanced Menu
CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+S will open debug settings
********************************************************************************

In all honesty, you don't need the Advanced menu or Debug settings at this point.

I am not sure of the actual cause, but there are a number of ways to resolve the issue (irrespective of the given article):

Bake failure takes on many forms. None are quite the same, though they might appear as such. The solutions also are varied. Unfortunately, we don't have any sure-fire way of telling what kind of bake fail you might have, and so we don't have a solid solution. But we have time-tested suggestions.

01/. The debug setting 'renderunloadedavatar' set to true (Ctrl-Alt D for Advanced menu, if the advanced menu is not available);

OK, this is about the most useless function. It doesn't do anything to resolve bake failure. What it does is force your non-baked objects to render, so you'll see hair and shoes and so forth. But you won't see your skin and clothing layers. This isn't a solution, please don't think of it as anything more than a placeholder.

02/. Power your pc down, if it is a laptop, remove the battery for a minute, press the power button without power or battery in.... Power down the router, leave it off for a minute. Replace power/battery to laptop, power up pc, power up the router. NOTE: Do not run battery and power together on a laptop....it damages the battery;

This is a mix of good and bad information, and none of it is very relevant to most bake failures. Most modern PCs do not have to be left powered down for any length of time in order to "reset" it, but it doesn't hurt. On a laptop, pressing the power button with the battery removed does nothing unless the manufacturer has specifically indicated this in their operating manual. To achieve the same effect of powering down a PC, you can simply power down the laptop and leave the battery in. Removing the battery doesn't make the laptop turn off any more than just powering the laptop down.

On a positive note, it is a good idea to cycle your battery from full charge to flat to avoid what's called charge memory. Mainstream lithium ion (L-ION) batteries aren't nearly as susceptible to this charge memory, so if you do happen to run the laptop on AC power with the battery installed, it's not a big deal. Again, refer to your manufacturer for guidance on this.

03/. Change your bald base;

This is a great idea. But, if your type of bake failure doesn't allow you to change your outfit, this won't help. It's not a great first measure.

04/. Go to a low lag sim such as Moses, Hatton ...
    04.1/. Disable your bridge from Preferences > Firestorm > General

This does nothing for bake failures. All users on all viewers experience bake failure, and only Phoenix and Firestorm have a bridge.

    04.2/. If you have RLV, disable RLV and relog at your last location

This isn't a bad idea, if you use RLV. This will allow you to make other changes that can help resolve bake failure. But it's not a fix in and of itself.

    04.3/. Make a new folder in your inventory.
    04.4/. Drag into it your skin, shape, eyes, bald base (those 4 are the most important), also drag in shoes, an outfit including as many different clothing layers as possible (pants & underpants, shirt & undershirt, jacket, socks, gloves ...) copy of your AO, everything you would wear. NOTE: Avoid heavily scripted attachments
    04.5/. Once that is done, right click the folder and choose REPLACE CURRENT OUTFIT. Do NOT add or wear. Then, wait for your textures to load. If nothing happens after a few minutes, rebake. Then you can add scripted attachments.

This is a good idea in concept, but off center in execution. What you really need in the folder is your skin, shape, eyes, a shirt and pants (you need no other clothing bits) and the bald base (get it from the library), and they should be things you don't normally wear. Think of it as an emergency repair kit. But leave out the prim objects. Don't put in hair or shoes, and definitely no HUDs.

05/. Clear the cache has been cleared (NOTE: This is not always advisable, so do not do it often);

Rule one: clearing cache does nothing for a vast majority of bake failures except add to the problem. So don't clear your cache unless you actually have a problem with the cache.

06/. Re-set the graphics settings (do not do this unless you are knowledgeable about what you are doing);

I find it interesting that this is put into a notecard without any kind of guidance, but with the admonition that you shouldn't do this if you don't know what you're doing. And, it still won't do anything for most bake failures.

07/. Try to wear a new baldy, and even new shape (make sure you save your shape first);

This was kind of mentioned in steps 3 and 4

08/. Change your bald base 

Mentioned in step 3

09/. Change your group tag 

This should be the first think you try. It's kind of like a do-it-all fix because it forces a refresh of many things, including baked textures, and unrendered objects.

10/. Lower your bandwidth 

This isn't a bad idea. The Phoenix Viewer Project has spent many years testing this, and they have found the maximum useful bandwidths are 500 for wireless (wire up if you can), 1000 for DSL and 1500 for cable and faster networks. These are recommended maximums; you don't need more than 100 after all the textures around you have been downloaded.

11/. Create a folder - in it, place a skin, different bald base, eyes, clothing NO prim attachments. Select **REPLACE** not “wear” or “add” as these will not work 

Same as step 4, only closer to correct.

12/. view http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=fs_bake_fail for more help 

All of the tested and proven solutions are in this wiki. If you take nothing else from this notecard, take this

13/. read & click 'watch' on this jira - https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SH-744

This is only one kind of bake failure. The root cause seems to be in LL's code, and LL is aware of it.

14/. Reset the router (power it off for 30 seconds);

This was done already. But actually you want to leave it off for several minutes, between 2 and 5 in most cases. This is so that your ISP will see that you are no longer connected and close their side of the link. Then when you power back up your ISP will open a new link.

15/. Try flying up;

This may or may not work. It can put you outside the influence of scripts and lag, but then so would teleporting to a low-lag region.

16/. Uninstall/re-install the viewer ~ (this is not really necessary);

This is not necessary at all. Bake failures aren't affected by the viewer itself.

Then, if that does not work, then try this doing a Character Test.
17/. Advanced; Character; Character Tests; Test Female (or Male).
18/. This is most successful when done after clearing cache and logging into a non-busy sim (Pooley is often recommended).
19/. Wait 5 minutes to give your avatar a chance to load and if it still doesn't then do the Character Test.
Quick note: Character test replaces all of your avatar parts so if you have a shape that you customized, make sure you save it first.

Again, clearing cache is pretty much a useless step and will only cause you to wait while all of your textures and all of your inventory are reloaded. And you can't clear a bake failure until that happens. So leave cache clearing to those problems that are related to the cache.


If you are using Phoenix or Firestorm and your avatar is a cloud or an egg, then look at the useful solutions in http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=fs_bake_fail (Firestorm) and http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=bake_fail (Phoenix).

Meeting A True Friend In SecondLife

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok let's face it, everyone has RL difficulties, usually you are able to overcome them with diligent progress and just keeping all of your thought's forward. For the most part that usually works out.

    Every now and then I meet a complete numskull that just want's to have virtual sex with me.

    I don't know what boat these jerk's are getting off of, and unfortunately they are not going away.

    Look, if you have young ones in your home and they log into SL, ya really need to monitor what they are doing.

    SecondLife is a very unique and cool place, meeting a true friend is a very real possibility here, unfortunately meeting a sexual predatory person is as well.

JayR Cela

Meet The New Windows ME

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Windows 8

JayR Cela

Where Will Web Browser Games Take Us ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

    For right now, they are merely an amusement, some of them are very cool, the fact that you do not have to download anything and the depth of game play are quite impressive.

    However, a large number of them are extremely flawed, so a dedicated client is not going to go away anytime soon.

    I have been testing numerous browser based games recently, most of them have half ass graphic's and the inability to re-log back to where you last left off.

    And this category of gaming is not going away, as a matter of fact it will see exponential growth during the year 2013. They all seem to have the same business model, free to play at first, and then sell you stuff.

    Watch Out !

    Don't give your credit card # to anyone !!!!!!!

    And run a virus scan after you try any of these supposedly free games.

JayR Cela     

SecondLife : Drifting In Open Space

By Avatar JayR Cela

 I'll meet ya there

JayR

SecondLife : 360 Degree Spin : Hanging In There

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Well after a stroke and heart attack, ya kinda get to realize that you are not immortal. Seems as if I got a few more years left.

    I have done my best to make a difference here in SL by giving you something to read and occasionally laugh at, there are link's to all of the SL viewer's I have been able to find so far.

    All of these people devote a lot of their time in order to make your Virtual World experience the best that it can be.

    You have Hitomi Tiponi, who really got the whole Viewer 2-3 mod thing started, MaCabe Maxsted with the Imprudence team, Zenna Juran, ( she is really going towards the Open Sim Worlds ) Henri Beauchamp who continues to push the Viewer 1 envelope to unbelievable extremes, NiranV who just trip's everyone out, Siana of the Singularity Viewer ( and that has just been updated to version 1.6.4 )  And ya can't forget the Dolphin Viewer, or Exodus or the lady's from the Catznip team, Rainbow Viewer, and one of my favorite person's, Jessica Lyon from the Phoenix FireStorm Team.

     There are a number of other people who have contributed to this Wacky Virtual World we call Second Life. I may have forgot to mention a few of them. But I got to say this much.

    Oz Linden for one has somehow managed to keep everything together.

    Man I would not want his job, but he somehow manages to pull it off.

    Smart person.

    Thank's Oz !

    And Thank You For Reading My Blog.

JayR Cela :_)

Falling In A Spiral

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Life is a circle, all things come and go, I will try to make it back.....
Until then, kiss's

Bye

JayR Cela