The Lab have been re-working their own new user experience with new Social Islands – but there is also the new Community Gateway programme – and I’d like to offer more reports on what groups and communities involved in it are doing
As some residents are aware, Linden Lab has been working on a new pilot programme for Community Gateways – see my original article from September 2015 for background on this, and I’ve reported on some of the issues which have delayed a formal announcement of the programme.
In doing so, I have reported on the work of the Firestorm team with their Gateway, and in October 2015, I offered to report on the efforts of other groups and communities involved in the programme. However, as that call was buried at the foot of an article, it may not have been seen, so I’d like to repeat it here, and ask that people spread the word.
I’ve been covering the Firestorm Gateway since my original article on the new Gateway Programme previously covered the Firestorm Community Gateway, and continue to do so – why not yours as well?
If you are a part of a group, or know of a group actively engaged in running a community gateway which would like to gain further promotion to Second Life residents about what you’re doing, your thoughts on the programme, how you’ve approached things, and so on, please get in contact with me, I’d be happy to cover your work.
You can do so via IM or (preferably) note card in-world, or via the Contact Form on this blog. Just include a brief outline of the gateway, its name and location and details of some of the coordinators behind it (if you’re not one yourself), together with preferred contact details, and I will get back to you.
On Wednesday, June 15th, 2016, the Lab updated their Web Cashier services to TLS 1.2.
The change, which has been highlighted through official blog posts (and reported through pages such as this blog) has been implemented as a part of both LL’s on-going compliance work and in response to an ongoing set of regulatory / compliance requirements which are global in scope (as explained by the PCI Security Standards Council).
However, there has been a certain amount of confusion over precisely how widespread the impact of the change will be, and what will or will not be affected.
To this end, and with the switched flipped, Whirly Fizzle and I have been trying older viewer (e.g. pre 4.7.7 Firestorm releases, the official obsolete platform viewer, Singularity) to find out what is and isn’t affected, and seeking feedback from the Lab.
This is what we’ve been able to determine:
If you have a web browser or viewer which supports TLS 1.2 (all recent official viewer releases and TPV updates should support TLS 1.2):
You will be able to continue to make in-world L$ transactions as normal
You will be able to carry out LindeX transactions and / or use the SL Marketplace through either your web browser OR the viewer’s built-in browser as usual
You will be able to add/edit payment info to your account.
If you are using a web browser which does not support TLS 1.2:
You will not be able to make L$ transactions on the LindeX via your browser
You will not be able to add/edit payment info to your account.
If you are using a viewer which does not support TLS 1.2:
You will still be able to buy L$ through the Buy L$ button / option in the top right corner of the viewer
You will still be able to PAY / BUY via right-clicking on other avatars or on in-world vendor systems
You will not be able to use your viewer’s built-in browser to perform LindeX transactions and / or make Marketplace transactions. Attempting to do so will result in a Connection Closed message:
With thanks to Whirly Fizzle for the screen capture
You will not be able to add/edit payment info to your account.
This should – at this point in time – be the extent of the impact (there might be further changes at some point in the future). If you do note any more, please feel free to provide specifics in the comments below.
My thanks to Whirly Fizzle for her assistance and support in putting this article together.
Update: Shortly after I published this article, Casper dropped me a line to say the distributable version of the Support the Victims kiosk is now available on the SL Marketplace, price: L$0.
Strawberry Singh has a powerful post on the Orlando shootings, including how those in Orlando, in Florida and around the world can offer physical and practical support for the victims and their families.
For those of us in Second Life in particular, Strawberry (and Linden Lab, via Xiola Linden) point to a donation kiosk Casper Warden has established at his in-world store specifically to raise money for the official Pulse Victims Fund page for Equality Florida, the state’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organisation, which is collecting contributions via GoFundMe to support the victims of this horrific shooting at Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub.
Strawberry, a resident of Orlando, notes:
Hate and extremism can be dangerous and dividing, I wish people would see that. I wish one day I would open my eyes and the world would be completely tolerant and non-judgmental. I wish we all could just live and let live.
I can only join Strawberry in that wish; it is sad that human nature is what it is, and that ideas such as tolerance, understanding, and plain common sense and compassion appear to be utterly alien concepts in what seems to be an increasingly divided world.
In the meantime, please show your support, be it through Casper’s kiosks (he informs me he hopes to have a distributable version which people can rez in their own stores and locations in due course) or directly on the Equality Florida GoFundMe page.
It’s time to kick-off a week of story-telling in voice, brought to our virtual lives by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s Second Life home at Bradley University, unless otherwise indicated.
Sunday, June 12th
13:30: Tea Time with The Jungle Book
Bryn Taleweaver presents selections from Rudyard Kipling’s great adventure.
Monday June 13th, 19:00: The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #1)
Faerie Maven-Pralou reads Michael Scott’s mystical novel.
According to the records, Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on 28 September 1330 and died in 1418. Only his tomb has forever lain empty, because Nicholas Flamel is the greatest Alchemyst of all time. Entrusted with the care of the Codex – also known as the Book of Abraham the Mage – Flamel found within it the secret of eternal life.
But there is much else in the Codex which, if used by the wrong minds, could very well bring about the end of the world. So, for 700 years, Nicholas Flamel has guarded the Book, keeping it from all those who might otherwise seek to abuse its secrets.
Until John Dee steals it. And John Dee has the desire to unlock the Codex and bring about the very cataclysm Flamel has always feared. Without the book, he and his wife, Perenelle, will age and die, whilst with the book, Dee can thwart all attempts to recover it.
Enter 15-year-old twins, Josh and Sophie Newman. Prophecy has foretold of a time when the world would be threatened – and of the two youngsters gifted with extraordinary powers who will save it. Flamel recognises the Newman twins as those youngsters, and sets out to awaken their magical talents. So it is that Josh and Sophie find themselves cast into the middle of the greatest tale – the greatest confrontation – of all time.
Tuesday June 14th, 19:00: Southern Ladies and Gentlemen
The writings of Florence King continue at Seanchai Library as Trolley Trollop presents Southern Ladies and Gentlemen (1993),
Looking for guidance in understanding the ways and means of Southern culture? Look no further. Florence King’s celebrated field guide to the land below the Mason-Dixon Line is now blissfully back in print, just in time for the Clinton era.
The Failed Souther Lady’s classic primer on Dixie manners captures such storied types as the Southern Woman (frigid, passionate, sweet, bitchy, and scatterbrained–all at the same time), the Self-Rejuvenating Virgin, and the Good Ole Boy in all his coats and stripes. (The Clinton questions–is he a G.O.B. or isn’t he?–Miss king covers in her hilarious new Afterword.)
No one has ever made more sharp, scathing, affectionate, real sense out of the land of the endless Civil War than Florence King in these razor-edged pages.
Wednesday June 15th 19:00: Raymie Nightingale
Caledonia Skytower reads Kate DiCamillo ‘s 2016 children’s story.
What do you do when your father takes off with a dental hygienist? Be upset? Miss him? Rail against him? Or hatch a plan to get him to come home?
Raymie Clarke decides on the latter course of action. Dad needs to come home, and it’s down to her to see that he does – and that means winning the Little Miss Central Florida Tyre contest. Doing so will get her name and picture in the papers, which are sure to be read by her father, prompting his return.
Except… In order to win the contest, Raymie must do good deeds and learn the graceful art of baton twirling. Worse, she has to go up against the nauseating, show-business steeped Louisiana Elefante, who has fainting for effect down to an art form. Then there is Beverly Tapinski, who has entered the contest not to win it, but to wreck it for everyone else. So Raymie faces a mountain of challenges she must overcome.
Then fate plays a hand, circumstance and events bringing the three girls together in an unlikely friendship in which each has a role to place in supporting and aiding the others.
Thursday, June 16th
19:00:The Scrying Glass with Shandon Loring
Scrying (also referred to as “seeing” or “peeping”) is the practice of using objects such as crystal balls, smooth crystals, reflective of translucent glass and even water or smoke, to divine the past, the immediate future or the far future. Also on Kitely – check the Seanchai blog for details during the week.
21:00 Seanchai Late Night
With Gyro Muggins.
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Please check with the Seanchai Library SL’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule.
The featured charity for May / June is Habitat for Humanity, with a vision of a world where everyone has a decent place to live – a safe and clean place to call home.
The Lab has recently released two new project viewers, the VLC Media Plugin viewer,and the Visual Outfits Browser viewer.
As they are both project viewers, they are not in the viewer release channel, and must be manually downloaded and installed via the Lab’s Alternate Viewers wiki page. Also, as they are project viewers, they are subject to change (including change based on feedback), and may be buggy.
The following notes are intended to provide a brief overview of both. Should you decide to download and test either, please do file JIRAs against any reproduceable issues / bugs with them, please do file a JIRA, giving as much information, including the info from Help > About Second Life and any log files which you feel may be relevant.
Visual Outfits Browser
The Visual Outfits Browser (VOB) viewer, version 4.0.6.316123, appeared on Monday, June 6th. Simply put, it allows you to use the Appearance floater to capture / upload / select images of your outfits and save them against the outfits in a new Outfit Gallery tab within the floater.
The new Outfit Gallery tab in the Visual Outfit Browser allows you to create photos of any outfits saved to My Outfits as thumbnails. You can then use the Appearance floater to scan your outfits to decide what to wear, and use the context menu to wear the one you want
The new Outfits Gallery tab (right-click your avatar > select My Appearance > Outfits Gallery) should display all of your created outfits as a series of folder icons, each one displaying the name of the outfit beneath it. You can replace these icons with an image of the outfit in one of three ways:
You can wear the outfit, then right-click on its associated folder icon and select Take a Snapshot (shown above left). This will open the snapshot floater with save to inventory selected by default, allowing you to photograph yourself wearing the outfit and upload the image to SL, where it automatically replaces the folder icon for the outfit
You can use Upload Photo to upload an image of the outfit your previously saved to your hard drive, and have it replace the folder icon
You can use Select Photo to select an image previously saved to your inventory, and use that to replace the folder icon for the outfit.
When using the capability there are a number of points to keep in mind:
Both the Take a Snapshot and the Upload Photo options will incur the L$10 upload fee, with the images themselves saved in your Textures folder
In all three cases, link to the original images are placed in the outfit folder
This approach only works for outfits you’ve created using the Appearance floater / the Outfits tab. It doesn’t work for any other folders where you might have outfits – such is the Clothing folder.
Feedback
How useful people find this is open to debate; I actually don’t use the Outfits capability in the viewer as I find it clumsy and inefficient for my needs. However, it would seem that pointing people towards the appearance floater in order to preview outfits, when most of us tend to work from within our inventories, would seem to be somewhat counter-intuitive.
As such, it’s hard to fathom why the Lab didn’t elect to include something akin to Catznip’s texture preview capability within the VOB functionality. This allows a user to open their Inventory and simply hover their mouse over a texture / image to generate a preview of it (as seen on the right).
Offering a similar capability within the VOB viewer would, I’d suggest, offer a far more elegant and flexible means of using the new capability than is currently the case*. Users would have the choice of previewing outfits either via the Outfits Gallery tab in the Appearance floater or from within Inventory.
There are also a number of wardrobe systems available through the Marketplace. While these may require RLV functionality and come at a price, they may still be seen as offering a more flexible approach to managing and previewing outfits. As such, it will be interesting to see how the VOB capabilities are received by those with very large outfit wardrobes.
VLC Media Plugin Viewer
As Apple recently announced they are no longer supporting QuickTime for Windows and will not be offering security updates for it, going forwards, the Lab is looking to remove all reliance on the QuickTime media plugin, which is used to play back media type likes MP3, MPEG-4 and MOV, from its viewer, and replace it with LibVLC (https://wiki.videolan.org/LibVLC/).
This project viewer – version 4.0.6.316087 at the time of writing – replaces QuickTime with LibVLC support for the Windows version of the viewer only. The OS X viewer is currently unchanged, as Apple are continuing to support QuickTime on that OS. However, the Lab note that they will eventually also move the OS X version of the viewer to use LibVLC as their 64-bit versions of the viewer start to appear, as the QuickTime APIs are Carbon and not available as 64bit.
*I’ve been informed, and hadn’t appreciated, that this approach can be graphics memory intensive – see FIRE-933.
The Lindex has been in a state of flux of late, something that has been the subject of discussion and speculation on a number of fronts. Reader Ample Clarity first pointed things out to me earlier last week via IM (I’ve been rather focused on other things of late, so haven’t been watching the broader news as much as I should), and I’ve been dipping in-and-out of conversations and reports on things since then.
The fluctuations started towards the end of 2015, and were perhaps first discussed on the pages of SL Universe. The discussion resumed in April, when further swings were noted, causing additional concern among those looking to cash-out L$ balances, while sparking some of the more widespread discussion.
Lindex fluctuations (with thanks to Eku Zhong for the screen capture)
Various theories (and not a few conspiracies) have been put forward to explain what has been happening – although determining precisely what the cause is, is pretty much anyone’s guess. But purely in terms of the more recent fluctuations, New Worlds Notes (NWN) is promoting a theory which might just be plausible: that one (or more) large land estates have been liquidating L$ stocks in order to realise additional US dollar funds to take advantage of the Lab’s grandfathered buy-down offer.
The theory actually comes from Plurker T-Kesserex, who is quoted by NWN as saying:
I think it’s people cashing out to get capital for the $600 dollar sim price reduction … If you own 10 sims you need $6000, so that’s not easy without some cashing out.
At the start of the buy-down offer, Tyche Shepherd, of Grid Survey fame, estimated that around 85% of Homestead regions were already grandfathered, but only around 11% of full-priced regions of all types, leaving enormous potential in the market. During the first month, this figure increased to almost 21%, with the number of grandfathered full-priced regions rising from around 1,039 to 1960, demonstrating a thirst for conversion. Thus, the idea that one or more large estates might be liquidating L$ stocks to cover the cost of further conversions isn’t an unreasonable speculation.
But even if it is a fair assessment of the situation, it doesn’t offer any hint as to what – market forces or otherwise – has been pushing at the Lindex since late 2015. Nor does it offer any comfort to those concerned about cashing out at a reasonable – or at least stable – rate. All that can be said for certain is that, if you have the need for L$ in your account, buying them hasn’t been this attractive in a good while.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 