Day: January 22, 2019

2019 SL User Groups 4/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bay of Dreams; Inara Pey, December 2018, on Flickr
Bay of Dreams – blog post

Update: Magnum and LeTigre did not see a deploy on Wednesday, January 23rd, leaving them on server maintenance package 18#18.12.05.522294.

Server Deployments

As always, please refer to the server release thread for the latest news and updates.

  • On Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019 the SLS (Main) channel was updated with server maintenance package 19#19.01.09.523003, comprising logging to gather baseline information on simulator performance in various areas of interest together with additional logging.
  • On Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019 the RCs will be updated as follows:
    • BlueSteel will receive server maintenance package 19#19.01.18.523336, comprising the simulator support for the Environment Enhancement Project (EEP), and which will see the Snack channel currently used for EEP rolled into the BlueSteel RC.
    • Magnum and LeTigre were still TBD at the time of writing. I’ll update this article when more is known.

Region holders who wish to test EEP can contact support and ask for their region to be moved to an RC channel once the deployment has been made. Rider Linden currently has a request to have the SL wiki updated with the LSL functions for EEP, and has offered to provide a forum post on them, if required.

Remember, to work with EEP, you need the EEP project viewer, available from the Alternate Viewers wiki page.

SL Viewer

There have been no SL viewer updates to start the week, leaving the pipelines, at the time of writing, as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.0.1.522263, dated December 5th, promoted December 13th. Formerly the Spotykach Maintenance RC viewer – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.0.2.523177, January 16th.
    • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 6.1.0.522564, December 19th.
    • BugSplat RC viewer, version 6.1.0.522614, December 18th. This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer, but uses BugSplat for crash reporting, rather than the Lab’s own Breakpad based crash reporting tools.
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17th, 2017 and promoted to release status 29th November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

General

The SUG meeting was dominated with questions when upcoming features – grid-wide experiences,  new premium benefits, etc – may appear, and when the Lab anticipates completing the migration to the cloud. As always, and given the fact that SL is a dynamic environment with a lot going on, the replies were more-or-less “when they are ready”.

Bank of America user? Second Life might get you a cash back reward

Posted on by Inara Pey

R. Crap Mariner tapped me concerning a piece of information that might be of interest to those who use Bank of America credit Cards. I’ll let Crap explain:

Bank of America changed their rewards card 3% cashback category from gas to a user choice from a list. since I recently bought a plug in hybrid car and barely use any gas, I changed it from gas to on-line shopping. thought it would just hit Amazon purchases, but turns out that LL/SL counts too? hope it’s real and not just a glitch.

To demonstrate, Crap sent me a copy of part of his most recent credit card build, showing the 3% cash back against a Second Life payment to Linden Lab.

A Bank of America credit card payment and the 3% cashback earned on it. Courtesy of R. Crap Mariner

Crap continues:

It’s the first month of them doing the flexible categories at 3%. Most credit card bonus offers don’t treat it as on-line shopping, but BOA appears to, but they might close this loophole. We’ll see.

So, if you do have a Bank of America credit card you use for Second Life purchases such as payment of tier, you might want to check your statements or arrange to have any cash back option to on-line shopping / purchases.