SL9B: There’s still time to visit – and don’t forget your feedback!

The entertainment at SL9B may well be over, but the regions will remain open until 23:59 SLT on the 27th June 2012. If you haven’t visited already, now is the time – there are many great builds still to see and opportunities to learn even more about the rich diversity of SL’s community.

I had hoped to write a couple more pieces on the celebrations and the people over the weekend, but the practicalities of RL coupled with some pressing needs elsewhere in SL meant I had to shelve them. Instead, here’s a quick tour of some of the exhibits I really like – some of which may well form the basis of future articles in this blog.

MetaHarper’s exhibit offering an alternative look at new user orientation
Music Grove Academy’s information for musicians and live entertainers
Discover Bay City
Walk through the Time Tunnel and SL’s history
Visit Berlin in the 1920s
A window on SL Japan

The Importance of Feedback

SL9B marks a turning-point for celebrating SL’s anniversary. Linden Lab no longer involve themselves (although it was good to see members of staff visiting the regions), and festivities are in the hands of the residents of SL. This year’s core event was put together in just a few short weeks and demonstrates exactly what the community can achieve when it sets its collective mind to it. However, there is an understanding that not everything was perhaps done as well as it could be, or there may have been things missed out.

To help understand where the team got things right or wrong, or where things might be improved, everyone who participated in or visited this year’s SL9B regions is invited to provide feedback.  Please take a couple of minutes to complete the form and let the organisers know your thoughts. It won’t be possible to respond to every comment received, but do feel free to leave your email in case we do need to talk – but every comment received will be read.

Capture a taste of Africa

With Thanks

I’ve used “we” several times in my coverage of SL9B (notably in the more “official” announcements leading-up to the event), but the fact is I’ve played a very small role in things. There has been a huge team behind making this happen, all of whom have put in far more effort and work than I. So I’d like to extend my thanks for the event and for undertkaing such a huge task at such short notice to:

Doctor Gascoigne, KT Syakumi, Diana Renoir,  Budster Bashly, Saffia Widdershins, Honour McMillian, Crap Mariner, David Abbot, Bo Tiger, Will Webb and all the others in the various core and support teams – the EAs, the greeters, the helpers, the gofers and technical staff – with a special thank you to nEoStreams for the provision of all the required live streams.

Thank you as well to the builders and exhibitors and their sponsors and to all who took the time to visit SL9B and who contributed to the Flickr stream and who wrote about SL9B in blogs and reports.

And a very appreciative and special thank you to the sim sponsors: Dream Seeker Estates, Fruit Islands, Kitty CatS and the anonymous donor of six regions, without your generosity, none of this would have happened.

SL9B by night

And finally, some closing words from the SL9B spooksperson, the Prim Reaper himself…

With thanks to Crap Mariner for the video

Viewer release summary 2012: week 25

The following is summary of changes to SL viewers / clients (official and TPV) which have taken place in the past week. It is based on my Viewer Round-up Page, which provides a list of  all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware) and which are recognised as being in adherence with the TPV Policy.

This summary is published every Monday, and by its nature will always be in arrears. Therefore, for the most up-to-date information on viewers and clients, please see my Viewer Round-up Page, which is updated as soon as I’m aware of any changes, and which includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., for Viewers and clients as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.  

A relatively quiet week. I’ve attempted to add summaries of what might be regarded as “core” changes / fixes to Viewers (where possible); these aren’t in any way supposed to be exhaustive – that’s what release notes and change logs are for! Hopefully, they’ll give a flavour for what has changed within a release.

I’m curious to know how many find these summaries and the main Round-up Page useful, and whether the additional information on release changes as seen here would be more appreciated if seen in the main Round-up Page.

Updates for the week ending: 24 June, 2012

  • SL Viewer updates:
    • Beta version: 3.3.3.259953, June 18 (release notes)
    • Development: rolled to 3.3.4.259223, June 9th, which adds Kity Barnett’s contributed spell check to the Preferences -> Chat (button)
  • Dolphin rolled to 3.3.10.24429 on the 25th (just after this summary came out, so I’ve updated) – release notes here
  • Kokua experimental rolled to 3.3.1.22989 Beta-1c on June 22nd, with a mesh uploader fix
  • Restrained Love rolled to 3.8.3.3 on June 24th, which includes Kitty Barnett’s spell checker contribution to LL’s official code (available in the current LL Dev release) and numerous bug fixes (release notes)
  • Zen Viewer updated to 3.3.4.2 on June 21st, core updates: additions to the Grid Manager and updates to HACD and OpenAL (release notes)
  • Cool VL Viewer rolled to 1.26.4.19 on June 23rd – core changes: Implemented an import feature for Shape, Hair, Skin and Eyes in the appearance customize floater; Exposed the “Show media HUD” option in Preferences->Audio and Video; improved the texture exporting algorithm for the Object backup feature to prevent it hanging; increased the maximum size of scripts sources from 64Kb to 128Kb; numerous bix fixes  (change log)
  • Libretto rolled to 0.18 on the 20th, core updates: fix to a “clothing not rezzed issue” and fixed avatars not being removed from radar when moving out of range (release notes)

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