SecondLife : NiranV's Viewer : v2.0 Reboot 3.4.4 ( 2136 ) Beta 3

By Avatar JayR Cela

    It has been quite some time since I last took a look at the Niran Viewer for SL. There are several reasons as to why. #1 My ageing hardware #2 I really do not have much interest in SL photography #3 I am not all to much into combat RP ( at least not in SL ) But #4 ( and here is the Big One ) The UI has been somewhat of a moving target, as far as consistency goes. And has been constantly changing, sometimes radically from one release to the next. This has been true throughout the entire 1.x series. ( Please note that NiranV does not follow the conventional  LL version numbering scheme, a Niran 1.x viewer has no relationship to LL's 1.x viewer series, this is strictly a V3 engine based viewer, with a ton of extra features built upon that base ) So V2 in this case is actually based upon the Lab's V3.4.4 series. This coupled along with the fact that, in it's current state at the Beta 3 stage seem's to indicate ( at least in my mind ) that the UI design merry go-round ride is finally over. And that is nothing but good news to the large, active, and devoted  user base this project has established within a relatively short period of time.

    Last night I decided to DL and try the Beta3, and came away seriously impressed. With the new User Interface improvements I am truly excited, and patiently waiting for the final product. Here are some screen shots, that will show off what you have in store for the very near future.

    When you first fire this baby up and are presented with a choice between Classic or Combat RP, simply make your choice based upon your intended usage. Either way be prepared for a pleasant surprise.

 
    I was not so happy with the stock UI button placement, but that is a trivial mater.

 
   As most experienced SL user's are well aware of by now, the FUI ( Flexible User Interface ) design paradigm, offers just what it was intended for. It allows you the user to have it your way.

     
    And hold onto your hats, pressing the F1 key brings up the very special and extremely well designed, Photography, Machinima menu.

 

 
    Hat's off to NiranV and contributor's to the project. This viewer, if it stay's on course, could easily become the De-Facto Standard by which all other's intended for Machinima and Photography will be judged by.

    It can be downloaded from Niran's Blog here.
 http://niranv-sl.blogspot.com/

    Once this comes out of Beta, I believe it will finally have a well deserved permanent place on a lot of  SeconLife user's computers.

JayR Cela :_)

Real Life : Why I Refuse To Use Apple Product's

By Avatar JayR Cela

    This is something that has really bugged me for a long time, Apple Computer makes one and only one good product, the Apple Pro, all the rest of their junk is built with basically what in all reality, any one with a brain in their head would, and will consider to be SLAVE LABOR !!!!!!!!!

JayR Cela

Second Life: New problems with the viewer

Mister Acacia is online

So after a while watching folks in the Phoenix/Firestorm Viewer Support group and in the Phoenix/Firestorm and Linden Lab JIRAs, one thing I've seen most common is that there is an assumption that this new problem is a bug in the viewer that until now was not present. I see lots of people saying that they've done this or that many times and just recently it started failing.

I'm sorry to say to the implication is that it's not a viewer issue. The viewers don't break down because there are no moving parts to break down or wear out. It's as if you blame a digital movie and not the medium on which it is stored for suddenly failing.

I know you would blame a scratched disc before blaming the data file, that would be rather silly, wouldn't it? Well, the same thing applies to Second Life viewers. They don't change, but everything else does.

So when you find that what you could do yesterday is failing today, try to remember everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, that may have possibly changed on your computer, in your network or at SL.

1. Did your computer perform any kind of update?
2. Did your computer perform any kind of performance improvement task, such as a disk defrag or file purge?
3. Did your antivirus update its files?
4. Did you install, update or change anything on your computer?
5. Did the viewer crash the last time it was shut down? You can't always tell, but if the failure occurred immediately after and there was no other change on your computer then consider wiping your settings and cache.
6. Did you wear any new objects or activate any new gestures?
7. Did you make any settings changes to your viewer?
8. Does the problem only happen with one of your avatars?
9. Did your network performance change? This doesn't mean checking the "last mile" but the entire route to the SL servers. There are some good tests and recommendations here (of course, that's for Firestorm, but the tests work for every viewer).
10. Did you change any hardware, like a router, modem or network cable?
11. If you use any kind of wireless connection (wifi, wimax, satellite or any other unwired connection), did anything in the environment change, particularly things that can emit electromagnetic signals? Your neighbors microwave, your new cordless phone, even the landscapers motorized tools can all affect a wireless network.
12. Did LL do any kind of server maintenance, like a restart or rollback or server upgrade?

If you can factually answer no to all these questions then the cause may have been temporary, but its effects may be lasting. Here's what I normally do:

1. Log in to a different region. Moses, Cyclops, Hippo Hollow, or another of your choice. Put the region name into the location field on the login screen.
2. Relog - this can clear most temporary glitches
3. Reboot the computer - this will clear temporary glitches in the OS
4. Cold boot the router and modem. Unplug power for 2-5 minutes (at least 2).

In rare cases, the viewer code could have been changed by malicious software. If you think that may have happened, you should first confirm that there is no malicious software on your computer, then you can reinstall the viewer.

Now if you still have the issue, then it would be time to contact the support team for your viewer. Tell them that you can factually answer no to all the questions in this blog and work with the support person. Remember always that they want to help you resolve the issue.

And best of luck.

Mister Acacia is offline

SecondLife : OMG : How Much Land Is For Sale ?: Are Tier Prices To High ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Are ya ready for a mind blowing blast into reality ? Is SL truly dying on the vine ? Are we doomed to loose everything ? Our inventories, our friends, our SL homes ? And the big question is, are tier prices to high ?

    Well the price point is only relevant, depending on how you look at it, and how much extra money you have to toss around, hell a carton on cigarettes, or a case of beer is about the same price as a modest parcel of land in SL. And quite frankly I have been hopping around to various Open Sim based grid's for the past 2 year's, and there ain't to much happening there yet, quite a few of them go in and out of business, within several month's or so, the only exception's I see so far are OSGrid and InWorldz. I don't do many post's on OS grid's because at this point in time they happen to be a bit on the boring side. The main thing that SL has going for it right now is the Destination Guide, and Dammit LL does not ( and for the life of me I can not figure out why ) Promote It Enough !!!!!!  There are some cool things happening here. But for the most part you would never know it. The Destination Guide Should Be Right Up Front And Center on the main LL, SL Log In Page !!! Unfortunately it is not.

    I'm still waiting for the Valve, Steam collaboration thing to Blow Up in LL's Face, holy crap, once people log in to the product and are presented with this piece of garbage official viewer ( No Offense OZ, I understand and know that you have nothing to do with the User Interface design ) But this thing is a total piece of Shit ! All of the TPV's , no matter which one you choose, Blow it away !!

    Here's the point, people are leaving SL in drove's, Entire group's are up and leaving in a mass Exodus, and it not just large groups that are leaving. Have you actually taken a look at the in-world map lately and seen the vast amount of land up for sale ? Well I have, and it is a real eye opener.

    According to my friend Inara Pey, this is nothing new, and she has been here in SL since December 2006. I respect her opinion's.. There is a link to her blog on this page to the left. It is a great resource to SL information, or just click on this link  http://modemworld.wordpress.com/

    But let's just face it / Tier Prices Need to be reduced / Plain and simple !

JayR Cela

   

SecondLife : OMG !! : Sim Region Crossing Is Improving !!

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok maybe I am just hallucinating, But I'll be dammed is crossing a sim region seems to be improving. I am not exactly sure what Andrew Linden, and his team have been up to lately, but it seems to be working fairly well so far.

    If you have not been to one of these meetings yet. A lot of very long time SL resident's show up, every one is friendly.

    You can find the various SL meeting schedule here.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:User_Groups 

JayR

Second Life: Sky Drive

Mister Acacia is online

If you're a Windows user, and most of you are, and you've tried to load or save something through your viewer and the viewer crashes, there is a pretty good chance that Microsoft's SkyDrive is to blame. Sky Drive comes with Microsoft Windows Essentials, and with their Hotmail download. And it doesn't play nice with Second Life.

But fear not, the team at Phoenix Viewer Project have a solution. Two, actually. You can uninstall Sky Drive, or you can make some registry changes. Have a look at http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/skydrive for more details.

And tell your friends. Spread the word.

Mister Acacia is offline