Day: January 20, 2011

Viewer 2.5 web profiles and angst

Posted on by Inara Pey

With the news of Esbee’s forthcoming departure since spreading, Viewer 2.5, recently promised by Frank (FJ Linden) Ambrose is rolled out a “Beta” to trumpeting by Q Linden.

Chief among the list of features in this iteration is the new web-based profile feature. I’ve already reported on this, and I like the fact that, in 1.23.x viewers at least, we get the best of both worlds – a web page Profile and the familiar in-world Profile window. Changes to one are automatically reflected in the other – neat.

However, in Viewer 2.5, it seems things are to be somewhat different: the web page Profile actually replaces the in-world Profile in the sidebar (clicking on Profile now apparently pops-up the built-in browser to display the web Profile). While this overcomes the somewhat ugly and limited Profile display found in the Viewer 2 sidebar, it’s not entirely ideal.

However, this isn’t the biggest issue with the new Profile option. People have already commented on the fact that it includes options to link to Facebook and Twitter – and people commenting on the release are also raising objections about the fact that others can click on the included buttons and add Profiles for SL avatars to their Facebook pages.

Me? I’m failing to see the problem. I’m sure there are those in SL who use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn who will find such options a delight and welcome addition. For those who don’t, I tend to say, “so what?” Why get all het up about it? I personally don’t use Facebook, so I won’t be linking anything from anyone to anywhere. I don’t even care if Joe Schmoe or Patty Pattacake out in Facebook land link my SL Profile to their Facebook pages because it doesn’t affect me in the slightest. There is nothing within my SL Profile that allows anyone to beat a path to my RL front door; so if Joe or Patty want to claim Inara as their friend – good for them. I’ve never been someone’s imaginary friend before – the experience might be fun.

And that’s assuming there are people out in Facebook land who are going to go clicky-happy when they happen to stumble upon SL avatar profiles – or worse, say nasty things about us! In sort, where this particular problem is concerned, people really should get over themselves. Now, had the new feature forced us all into Facebook land, then I’d understand (and be a part of) the outcry; as it stands, “mountain” and “molehill” are words that spring to mind.

What I do find telling about this release is that it has been pushed out the door by LL despite the fact this much-heralded feature has an irritating bug sitting in it – which is this: it doesn’t exactly work.

Those using Internet Explorer stand to be OK. But people using Chrome or Firefox or Safari, etc., are all reporting issues – specifically “SSL Handshake Failure”. This is due to the fact that the software requires a security certificate in order to function, and the only way to get that certificate until the Viewer is patched (2.5 Beta 2) is to run Internet Explorer and access a profile…

It’s not a major bug – but many people don’t use Internet Explorer. It’s not liked. Period. Linden Lab know this – just look at the kurfuffles surrounding the release of the “new” forum software, which originally only ran “properly” on Internet Explorer (and which today still doesn’t display all posts in a thread in browsers like Chrome…) users of other browsers weren’t exactly shy in giving vent to their frustrations – and rightly so. Given this problem was discovered before 2.5 Beta 1 was released, one has to ask why was the software still pushed out the door? Why the all-fired rush?

Would waiting just a day or two (or even a week) to get the patch sorted really have hurt that much?

I don’t use Viewer 2 – I’m a Phoenix / KLee Viewer user – so something like this doesn’t really affect me per se – and yet it does; simply because it is indicative that  LL, rather than being focused on stability, usability and the like are still focused primarily on dates on the calendar and ticking boxes – something Philip R himself said back at SLCC they’d “gotten wrong” and would be “fixed”.

Well, the fix appears to be lacking.

Esbee set to depart

Posted on by Inara Pey

Daniel Voyager breaks the news that Esbee Linden, Project Manager for Viewer 2 and more latterly, Snowstorm, is to depart Linden Lab on Friday the 21st January.

Esbee came in for a lot of criticism over the amount of spin she placed around the premature release of Viewer 2, and for various posts relating to the tweaking / damaging / breaking of Search under Viewer 2, although it should be said she, Q Linden and Oz Linden have pretty much kept to their SLCC 10 promises around Project Snowstorm, which has been well worth the effort.

Doubtless, when the news breaks, some will be cracking open bottles of bubbly stuff and toasting the “demise” of Viewer 2 – and will be waking up to hangovers and disappointment when their celebrations prove far too premature. While it is possible that this may wrong-foot Viewer 2 development in the short-term – as it appears that Esbee is leaving because she’s received an “offer she couldn’t refuse” from elsewhere rather than being given the royal order of the boot – I doubt it will result in a significant change in tack where Viewer 2 is concerned; and frankly, it shouldn’t. Viewer 2 is far from perfect – but then, so is Viewer 1.x; and while there are still rough edges that need to be smoothed and refined, 2.4 is a far superior product to 2.0 – just as 1.23.5 is far superior to 1.15 (or even 1.18)…

I had no direct dealings with Esbee myself; I did point the finger at her a couple of times for the aforementioned corporate spin in some of her posts, but I did listen to her and Oz and Q at SLCC 10 and found all of them to be a lot more aware than perhaps they’d been given credit. So like Daniel, I wish her well in her future endeavours.