Month: February 2011

Home improvements

Posted on by Inara Pey

Yes, I’ve been banging the prims together again.

Since setting up my new sky house and platform, I’ve felt something has been missing. There is plenty of space, and the house I’m more than satisfied with; but something has been lacking.

Daisy first partially put a finger on it, suggesting the main patio needed a few koi in a pond. She was right, but even so, things were still lacking. The pond looks a little odd, if I’m honest, and while the front lawn provided a great vantage point to watch the sun set, it lacked … something as well.

It’s not often that I start tinkering without some idea of what I want; but that’s what I did yesterday; simply trying out ideas – round gazebos, additional planters, vines, simple rugs and so on. Nothing came together.

It wasn’t until today that I figured out what was needed: plants, water, fish and a gazebo with room to sit and room to snuggle. I had no clear idea of how to put it all together, but I did know the front lawn area was the place.

As first I thought maybe a Japanese-style area, little pools of water, plants, gravelled walkways and a small Japanese-styled gazebo.

The only problem was that it really wouldn’t fit with the rest of the build’s look; I really wanted something that would continue the lines of the rest of the build, but offer rooms to sit, watch the sunset and set itself apart from the rest of the platform.

So I started with the prims and the superglue, and I’m quite pleased with the results: a clean, open-sided gazebo, draped in vines on three sides, sitting over a large pond filled with koi, with planters all around to provide a little privacy, a wooden bridge linking patio to platform.

There is enough room on the platform for half-a-dozen to sit and chat, while the rug provides a nice little place for snuggles, intimate chats – and simply watching the sun set.

The gazebo is currently unlit, but I’m considering a couple of hanging baskets with candles, or perhaps flames, suspended from a couple of the beams.

The koi, from Jamay Greene, haven’t been used in about two years, so I guess they’re pleased to be back out of the box – although I have to admit the pond probably needs some suitable greenery to help them feel totally at home!

I’ll probably tweak bits and pieces over the next day or so, but overall, I think the gazebo and bits complement the rest of the house. Now I’ll just have make sure it gets used!

More from Rod Humble (2)

Posted on by Inara Pey

Tateru Nino has interviewed Rod Humble on behalf of the Metaverse Journal – and those of us engaged in Second Life after specifically asking us via her blog to submit questions to The Man.

The result is a mixed bag of nuts: on the one hand there appears to be a lot of ducking a weaving on the part of Mr Humble (but it’s not: the poor man has only been in office 3 weeks, so asking him to comment of events from three years ago is a bit hard); elsewhere he strongly repeats an encouraging message relating to the customer base as a whole and on the need to enable creativity; finally, without actually saying so, he demonstrates that in just three weeks, he’s identified a number of weaknesses within Linden Lab, and I’ll be very surprised if at least some branches of the tree aren’t shaken before too much longer.

At the end of the interview Rod asks for feedback. I hope people will take the time to give considered replies to his question “In 2 years time what would you most like to be doing in Second Life, and how would you like to be doing it?”

For my part, I’d like to bullet some (potentially broader thoughts) here, and I’ll be taking a leaf out of Cheatnut Rau’s book and asking if Mr. Humble would care to take a look and read.

To start with, I’d like to make an observation.

Thank you, Rod Humble, for coming into Linden Lab and refusing to use the (frankly) God-awful term “Residents” (or worse “Resis”) when referring to those of us who  use the Second Life platform, and for using the more respectful and accurate term of “customers”.

This is something I’ve personally jumped up and down over since I started blogging about Second Life three years ago, and while it may seem like sour grapes and nitpicking, stating that we, your users are not “Residents” but customers – it is actually important on three levels:

  • “Resident” is suggestive that we are part of a community in which we have a genuine voice that can influence policy; that we can have a dialogue in the decisions of leadership and representation that goes beyond lip-service. But the reality is that Second Life isn’t a community in that sense. It is a platform providing services (as the SL Terms of Service make clear) to its users and customers, managed and operated by an incorporated entity
  • While there was more of a “community” spirit between LL and the users back in the early days, this has now long gone. What is left, frankly, when the term is used by Linden Lab employees, is a sense that we, the customers, are being patronised. It’s akin to the pat on the head a child might be given before being told to “run along and play” by a well-meaning but disinterested guardian.
  • Worse than the above, given Linden Lab’s on-going track record in communicating with (at times aka “telling and not listening to”) customers over the last few years, one is left with a feeling that “Resident” has almost derogatory connotations: that by using it, people are able to overlook the fact that we are customers and that, like it or not, the company does have a degree of responsibility towards us – or simply risks losing our custom as alternatives continue to grow and mature.

So, as a first, easy tick-in-the-box for what I’d like to see come from your tenure is the clear communication to all and sundry that those of us using Second Life are precisely that: customers. Doesn’t matter if we’re Premium Account holders or not; we all contribute to the SL economy – and the LL coffers. I’m not saying LL has to listen to every single word uttered from our collective mouths; what I am saying is, let’s see the company start acting with greater foresight and maturity in dealing with us.

As to what else I’d like to see:

  • I’d like to be able to reliably search in-world for whatever I am seeking, be it land, goods, people, events, destinations – whatever. I want to be able to do so consistently and reliably, and view my results in a manner that does not require me rapidly parse through them and get to what I’m seeking. I want to be able to rest assured that as a content creator, I’m not going to bed one night wondering what the heck it is I’ll have to jiggle about with the following morning in order to simply get my products to show up on search. In short:
    • I want to see Search “fixed”.
    • I’d like to see LL do more than blithely pay lip service to concerns each and every time they are raised in response to blog posts and the likes and actually take the time to appreciate the upsets people are experiencing. Let’s face it, it is over twelve months since Search was first broken, messed with, revised – and it is still causing major headaches across the platform.
  • I’d like to be able to use SL with confidence and the knowledge that my privacy is not being compromised – directly (e.g by LL) or indirectly (e.g. due to the actions / activities of those intent on exploiting the platform). I’d like to see Linden Lab react responsibly and promptly to user concerns, particularly where they are valid, and take clear, accountable action to resolve issues. I want to be in an SL where I’m not faced with a choice of compromising my ability to keep things within Second Life (and losing SL functionality) or having them pumped out to the web in order to keep that functionality – as is the case with web Profiles currently.
  • I’d like to see a Second Life wherein LL staff respond to their customers. This not only means massively improving customer service – but also ingraining staff with additional civility towards customers, rather than allowing them to treat customers (as times) like delinquent children. I want to be in a Second Life where I know that if I suffer a drastic loss of inventory or am the victim of a server-side glitch that leaves any of my inventory inaccessible, I’m going to get it back  – and that I’m not going to get told off by LL staff for filing the wrong ticket, raising a bug report and then being made to wait eight or nine months for an “inventory fix”.
  • I want to be in Second Life where the company engages in two-way dialogue – not just through the “integrated community platform” of the web et al, but right here inside Second Life. I want to see LL taking the time to actively promote upcoming releases, features and the like and take questions on them. It’s not hard. Others do it perfectly well, and I’m not asking for fortnightly reports from LL – once a quarter would be a massive improvement over now.
  • I want to be in a Second Life where every third word uttered by Linden Lab isn’t “Facebook”. By this, I mean I want to be able to do all the social networking I want from within Second Life. I want to be able to effectively network with friends here, with other users, even being able to reach out to those I know beyond SL (and who know me and of my involvement in SL) from SL. In short, I want to be able to throw my social net as far as I like from within SL. I don’t want to be constantly told to bugger off to Facebook or Twitter or anywhere else, and I don’t want to feel like there is a Linden behind me poking my rear end with a sharp stick and muttering, “You go Feacebook! You go Facebook now!” in my ear.
  • Similarly (and conversely!), I’d like to be in an SL where the hooks to the likes of FB and other sites are available for those that wish to use them and can be presented both as opt-in (emphasis deliberate) tools and without a lost of “anti” angst from users as a result of said tools being presented as a hard-to-opt-out fait accompli.
  • I want to be in a Second Life where in-world creativity is a driving force, where users have the tools to create, script, build, animate and develop amazing content that can be supported by the use of external tools like 3D applications for creating mesh, but which are not the new “focus” of “Second Life creativity”.
  • I want to be in an SL that is affordable. Frankly, tier in SL is ridiculous and needs to be properly adjusted if it is to remain the engine of growth for the platform (and lets face it – what else is there?). Tier needs to be structured and brought to a level that stimulates in-world growth once more. The figures don’t lie: having 47% of the Mainland lying fallow to all intents and purposes, is ridiculous.
  • And on the subject of growth: I want to be in a Second Life where in-world commerce is as vibrant as anything web-based, rather than seeing everything being driven towards the web tools at the expense of in-world commerce. I want to see an environment where LL actively seek to promote in-world commerce: hosting “trade fairs” (including provisioning sims!), working with merchants in all sectors  to hold conventions or suchlike that get other customers out and shopping and discovering the wealth of merchandise available in-world.
  • I want to be in a Second Life that is more responsive to the issues of IP infringement and content ripping, where Linden Lab are seen to be moving beyond simply doing the minimum required by law and proactive working with and alongside users to help protect IP and content as far as is possible. In doing so, I’d like to see SL become a place (relatively) free from the drama and issues surrounding tools such as RedZone and Gemini CDS (and refer back to privacy vis-a-vis this as well!).
  • I want to be in a Second Life where Linden Lab understands the most valuable resource it has is its existing customer base. There is no-one better placed to act as world-wide ambassadors for your product, or better able to encourage new blood into the platform. As users we know what SL can offer our families, friends, colleagues, and we can promote and sell it far better than 10,50,100, – even a million – “likes” on the SL Facebook page. I want to be in a Second Life where LL understand this and actively work with its existing users to generate a flow of new users who not only come in to SL – but become an active part of it.

I could probably go on…but that’s enough for now. I’ve deliberately avoided focusing of technical issues like “lag” or “sim crossings” or “viewer features” or “stability”, not because they don’t affect me, but because getting them sorted out should be a given (and in fairness, LL are working on them). I only mention Search because – quite honestly – it is an unmitigated disaster that takes a step back for every step forward; and that’s after it took around two dozen steps backwards to start with…

I’m posting a link to this from Tateru’s interview. I really hope Rod Humble takes a peek here. Again, not for ego’s sake (I’d be asking him to leave a comment if it were *grins*), but because, as jaded as I get in-world at times, I still believe in Second Life, and I want to go on believing in it.

Communicating with your users

Posted on by Inara Pey

In the last week we’ve had the announcement of new channels of communication Linden Lab are establishing. The aim of this, according to Amanda Linden is to help Linden Lab “do a better job of listening”.

Some of this announcement was good (User Groups); some of it wasn’t so good, some of it was downright shameful – no encouragement to actually log in to Second Life, no indication that LL would be using tools within and around the platform to communicate, and that rather, we should all toddle off to Facebook to get the latest scoop on what is going on.

The blog was followed by a lengthy comments list, much of which focused on changes to the JIRA which have upset a lot of people. What was surprising here wa that, despite Amanda’s attempts to stress the changes to communications were to (to repeat the quote) help Linden Lab “do a better job of listening”, user comments relating to the JIRA issue were rebuffed by Oz and Yoz Linden in the most peremptory, almost arrogant, manner – which Oz again unfortunately further demonstrated in comments posted in JIRA VWR 24746 – that did much to undermine the launch of this new attitude towards corporate / user communications within the lab.

In responding to the announcement I again questioned why the Lab could not enter into more in-world based meetings – say on a quarterly basis. However, there is an easier solution than that when it comes to fostering communications betwixt Lab and users – as ably demonstrated by the Phoenix team and their fortnightly Office Hours over on Rezzed TV.

During these one-hour slots, Jessica Lyons and members of the Phoenix team provide information on what is going on with their projects, what users can expect – and even field questions sent in ahead of the show, or even during the broadcast.

Now granted, I don’t expect everyone at Linden Lab to suddenly start producing fortnightly machinema updates for us to digest.

But are quarterly updates really that hard? Let’s face it, the technology is there for this to be done – Torley uses it all the time. What’s more, while it may be taking people “out” of Second Life to view such recordings a) They can be broadcast via the SL website; b) they still showcase the capabilities of the platform (Voice! Machinema!); c) where appropriate, they can promote locations within Second Life to the user base. Good grief, they could even be made available for in-world streaming using the much-vaunted (but seldom used?) media-on-a-prim!

The format would take a little time to work out, but it should be too hard, and once set in motion, it would be relatively easy to keep going and would promote the sense of company / user interaction LL appear to be trying to achieve: just make sure dates are published in advance and people have the opportunity to drop-in questions either in advance, or when “on air”.

 

Phoenix update released

Posted on by Inara Pey

Phoenix have issued a new Viewer release – .908 – potentially one of the last maintenance releases as work gathers pace on Firestorm and we approach the end-of-the-line for Viewer1.2x-based clients.

The release is timely, given the rising issues users have been experiencing, particularly those that use the Restrained Love Viewer/a extensions.

Here’s a bullet-list of key fixes:

  • Improved overall performance and stability
  • RLVa Assertion Failure fix
  • 42 group auto detection, no need to enable via debug
  • Showcase TP links have been fixed to work properly for Windows & Mac, Linux to follow in the next release
  • Updated Webkit helping webpages load faster in the web browser, improved memory handling etc.
  • The momentary viewer lock-ups experienced on 373, 725 and 818 should be a thing of the past
  • Texture jumping issues (where textures load, then unload, load, then unload) resolved
  • Updated Viewer tags
  • Built in IRC client has been fixed! No more ??? ???  names in IRC rooms
  • Huge improvement to ‘De-render’, which now permanently de-renders items until they are removed from the Asset Blacklist
  • Skin downloader fixes
  • Improved installer, no more downloading additional files during the install process.

Of these, I have a bias towards the De-render option fix, and I hope this finds its way into Firestorm. Having recently suffered the blight of a view-blocking eyesore popping up (or perhaps pooping up) my home sim, having to constantly de-render it from my view each time I logged in / returned home was a complete and perishing nuisance.

The updated Viewer is now available on the Phoenix wiki.

Improvements to Web Profiles

Posted on by Inara Pey

Q Linden has posted about Viewer 2.5 going live, and in particular brings up the subject of web-based Profiles.

The introduction of web profiles has caused a lot of consternation, not least because of the inclusion of Facebook and Twitter buttons. For myself, I actually rather like the approach in general: being able to edit my Profile from the web, rather than having to log-into SL is a useful feature. The moving Profiles to this format reduces asset server loads is also no bad thing (assuming it does).

However, privacy has been a thorny issue for some – and not just because of the aforementioned buttons. Many kicked back against the idea that their Profile, far from being nice and secluded inside Second Life, would now be viewable by anyone on the Web. Protests were written  – Linden Lab read them and listened.

Firstly, they made the Facebook and Twitter buttons optional – but only if you opt not to have your Profile searchable in-world. Not an ideal start, it seemed at the time, but a start.

Now, with Viewer 2.5, Linden Lab have extended the degree of privacy you have with regards to your Web Profile. You can now:

  • Opt not to have your Profile displayed on the web at all
  • Select whether your Groups and Picks are viewable by “everyone” – the entire Internet and by search engines, or visible only to Second Life Users logged into SL / using the SL website, or only visible to your friends
  • Select whether any Classifieds yo may have are searchable / viewable on the web as a whole, or only by Second Life residents.

These are welcome changes, and even the defaults for Groups, Picks and Classifieds are sensible (they are set to Second Life). I’d personally prefer to see the option to have your Profile displayed on the web given precisely the same level of granularity as Groups and Picks, rather than it simply being an “on” or “off” affair – but perhaps that will come in time.

To see your profile and set your defaults, type:

https://my.secondlife.com/First.Last

into the address bar of your browser (where First.Last are your SL first name and last name). Press RETURN and your Profile page will be displayed.

You may have to log-in to the page using the link at the top right, which will take you to the log-in screen. Once you’ve logged in (SL username and password), you’ll be returned to your Profile page, which will now be editable and have a Privacy Settings link in the top right corner (see below).

Click on this link to open the Privacy option page, which is quite straightforward in its use.

Also, if you leave your Profile as viewable on the web, and are concerned about personal information, you can use the EDIT button from your profile page to re-word  / remove references to your real life – all such edits will be reflected back in your in-world Profile as well.

These moves are not perfect, but they are stepping in the right direction, and Linden Lab deserve the credit for adding this functionality to Viewer 2.5.

ADDENDUM – Feb 14th

There are times when one should look before one leaps. I’ve just had time to fiddle with Viewer 2.5, and I have to say two things:

  • Profile loading is abhorrent. I’m running a quad-core system with a newly-upgraded graphics card exceeding the recommended specification for SL, with bandwidth wide  open for SL – and the average time for a Profile to be grabbed and loaded is around 5 seconds. Hideous.
  • It appears the option to “Hide your profile” from the web means that no-one in-world can view your Profile either. This makes the ability to “hide” your profile about as useful as a chocolate shovel is for moving hot coals.

Far from deserving credit, as I originally stated, someone at LL needs a swift kick up the arse. Not everyone wants their profiles blasted across the interwebs; yet to maintain visibility in-world, that’s precisely what people have to do with Viewer 2.5, and frankly, that’s pathetic.

I sincerely hope there will be a way to correct this idiocy and give people a genuine choice.

And, having updated this post, I’m off to nibble on crow pie…

More from Rod Humble: Privacy

Posted on by Inara Pey

“Privacy is extremely important for anyone putting themselves out there, expressing themselves, or expressing a side of themselves through an avatar. People don’t want other people to connect the dots from their avatar to their real life person – or even, for that matter, to an alt. One of the ethical obligations we have is to protect people’s privacy

“People come to Second Life because they want a story, they want to be in a story….and we have an ethical obligation to protect that.

“I’m not so sure that the conventional wisdom makes any sense. Yes, it might be technically easy to track people and all that. But in the long-term I’m optimistic that we’ll see the pendulum swing back in the other direction towards more privacy.”

Thus speaks Rod Humble in what is quite possibly the best interview held with him since he took office at Linden Lab, and Kudos to Dusan Writer for bringing it to us.

It’s an uplifting piece on many levels. The comments about privacy, for example, are particularly relevant given both the degree to which Linden Lab seems determined to shovel users of Second Life towards Facebook and the manner in which data is being scraped and potentially used by the likes of RedZone.

For me, the interview is encouraging, as I’ve been advocating the need for Linden Lab to take what I term a more holistic view of Second Life, and to stop looking at it in terms of how it can be “compartmentalised”: focusing on individual technical issues, trying to tap into audiences, etc., and start looking at it as a complete, unified entity. In fact, I’ve already had concerns that Rod Humble is sliding into this very trap.

But no, he does seem to get it: he recognises the fact that the magic of Second Life is about the ability to create – physically and metaphorically (he talks about us being able to create “personas” in SL and imbue them with specific identities) – and he really does demonstrate he’s thought about these ideas, and is not simply peddling words.

Similarly, he recognises that Second Life can increase its relevancy in terms of real world interactions by providing n-world and supportive tools that work with the platform to empower people to interact with one another through Second Life (rather than telling them to bugger off elsewhere).

This is marvellously encouraging. Of course, there is a degree of hyperbole that strays dangerously close to Rosedale Country; after making very valid points about the relevancy in having multiple personas in life (which we all do), and these personas / identities being an integral part of our being (a marked difference from Zuckerberg over at FB, who views  multiple identities as demonstrating a “lack of integrity”), Rod does unfortunately slip into Pipspeak:

“I don’t want to get all geeky about it, but I sort of see this day coming when there’s a formalization of identity that happens. We haven’t had the tools before to formalize our broken up bits of identity…We can increasingly go deep on each element of identity and they become more valuable and I can’t help thinking that if we formalize the structures around those identities and have the tools to do that it might actually change us – it might change the person.”

Shades of Transhumanism lurking there – but not enough to shake one’s feeling that here, finally, Linden lab have struck gold. Rod Humble not only gets Second Life technically, he gets it visually, socially, personally, and metaphorically. In short, he appears to understand it holistically.

Lets hope that understanding translates itself into policies and action that allow us all to look back in 12 months or so, and we”ll all be “talking about all the new kinds of content and creations and categories of creation…and say ‘Wow, it’s amazing, look how far we’ve come in having ways to make stuff‘.” And that we’re all secure and confident in the levels of privacy and security Second Life affords us.