The Firestorm team has launched a fund-raiser, primarily to help cover the cost of a new main server, used to host the team’s JIRA, web site, wiki, code repository, and so on. However, as the Firestorm blog post on the matter also notes, the team also have recurring costs involved in the license they have to pay in order to use the Kakadu codec for rendering in the viewer, and costs involved in running the land costs (albeit subsidised by the Lab) involved with the Firestorm Community Gateway.
To this end, the new fund-raiser is planned as a hopefully long-term event, and also designed to help people get rid of their unwanted gacha items.
Located over the Firestorm gateway regions is a “Firestorm market” featuring stalls and vendor boards where visitors can purchase collected and donated gacha items. Note that despite the confusing blog title, this is not itself a gacha event – there are no machines, just the opportunity to buy individual items and complete sets previously sold via gacha vendors, which the Firestorm team have collected or have received as donations.
The prices of items vary throughout, and many of them might well be offered under the acronym WTGTG – when they’re gone, they gone.
Anyone wishing to donate items can do so by contacting Kio Feila in-world.
In addition, those wishing to help the Firestorm team but who don’t find anything of interest on sale, can make direct L$ donations, or flow links to the Firestorm listings on the Marketplace, which male and female Firestorm Jackets can be purchased, with all funds also going towards helping cover the team’s costs.
All funds raised will be used directly and solely towards the Firestorm operating costs and overhead; all Firestorm team members are volunteers who receive no financial or L$ compensation.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, August 19th
This summary is generally published on every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, 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 adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version 5.1.7.517973, dated July 30th, promoted August 3rd. Formerly the Quinquina Maintenance RC viewer. No change.
MetaChat – still suspended from download on iTunes; installed version work OK. – read the MetaChat blog post for more. D/loaded + installed versions still work.
A quick round-up of news relating to a handful of viewers and clients.
Kokua
Kokua 64 bit (Windows, Mac and Linux) updated both the RLV (5.1.7.43693) and non-RLV (5.1.6.43692) flavours of the viewer on Sunday, August 11th. I’ve not had time to drive the update – and my not be able to, due to other commitments. However, the core of the update brings the viewer to parity with the SL viewer 5.1.7 code base, and offers some updates from the Kokua team, described in the release notes as follows:
In addition the options for configuring the chat range rings and colours move from the Kokua General preferences tab to Kokua Chat which as well as being more logical also frees up space needed in the RLV version for a new option on the General tab.
The RLV version gains an option on the Kokua General tab which allows @standtp to be disabled. This has been added because @standtp tends to operate in various counter-intuitive ways despite operating as intended.
Here’s one scenario that illustrates the problem:-
@standtp is applied to the avatar.
The avatar hitches to (sits on) a cart.
The avatar pulls the cart from location A to location B.
The avatar is unhitched from the cart (stands up).
At that point @standtp teleports them back to location A.
MetaChat the iOS client is having problems courtesy of Apple. The app was removed from the iStore on August 9th, as part of a purge by Apple on “gambling apps”.
Enquiries have been lodged with Apple on when / if the app will be allowed to re-list, but thus far, no response has been given.
In the meantime, versions already downloaded / downloaded and installed will still work, this move by Apple only affects the client’s listing on the iStore.
iOS / MetChat users can read more on the MetaChat blog, where updates will also be posted.
Firestorm Version Block
A reminder to Firestorm users, Firestorm 5.0.1.52150 (released December, 2016) will be blocked from Tuesday, August 14th, in keeping with the Firestorm team’s policy of only allowing the current, and the two version immediately prior to it.
This means that if you are still used Firestorm 5.0.1, you need to update to a more recent version: 5.0.7, 5.011 or the current 5.1.7 release.
To find out more about why Firestorm versions are blocked, please read this blog post from the Firestorm team.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, August 12th
This summary is generally published on every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, 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 adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version 5.1.7.517973, dated July 30th, promoted August 3rd. Formerly the Quinquina Maintenance RC viewer.
BugSplat RC viewer, version 5.1.8.518305, August 7. 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.
Second Life Voice RC viewer, version 5.1.8.518310, August 7.
Project viewers:
EAM project viewer, version 5.2.0.518362, August 9 – improved region access control tools; see my overview for more.
MetaChat – Apple has (hopefully temporarily) removed the app from the iStore as part of a purge of “gambling” applications – read the MetaChat blog post for more. D/loaded + installed version s still work.
The Estate Access Management (EAM) project viewer (dated August 7th) is a new project viewer to enhance – as the name implies – the estate access management tools available to region holders and their estate managers within the viewer.
In brief:
New viewer UI for displaying Estate Managers, allowed groups and allowed / banned individuals within a region.
New capabilities for sorting / searching lists.
Additional information recorded and displayed for banned accounts.
Number of Estate Managers increased from 10 to 15.
Under the current viewer, the lists for managing Estate Managers, allowed groups and allowed or banned avatars in a region / estate have been crammed into the first tab of the Region / Estate floater (World > Region / Estate).
This has made management of the lists difficult, given only around 5 names can be displayed by each – which can be problematic when the Banned list allows up to 500 names. In addition, lists cannot be searched and, again in the case of the Banned list, no other information is provided against a banned name, making it hard to determine whether or not a ban might actually be rescinded, thus helping with general list management.
As such, there have been long-standing requests for the estate access controls to be improved.
The Estate Access Management project attempts to address these issues by introducing both back-end changes in support of managing ban lists and by revising how the various lists themselves are displayed within the viewer and how they can be used.
In particular, the EAM project viewer introduces a new Access tab in the Region / Estate floater (World > Region / Estate). This tab in turn has individual tabs for managing the lists for Estate Managers, Allowed avatars, Allowed Groups and Banned avatars.
The Estate Access Management lists as they appear in the current SL viewer (l), and the new Access tab with individual tabs for Estate Managers list and each of the Allowed / Banned lists. Note as well the increase in allowed Estate Managers (ringed in each image). Click for full size, if required
In terms of adding or removing names and groups, the new sub-tabs work exactly as the lists in the current viewer work.
However, with the new design, additional functionality is added to some of the lists:
The Banned list additionally records:
The last date on which a banned individual logged-in to Second Life (to assist with housekeeping the list – if an account hasn’t been used in X months or years, why keep it on the list?).
The date on which an individual was banned.
The name of the EM / region holder banning them.
Note this information will be displayed by the EAM viewer for all accounts going forward – even those banned using other viewers, reflecting a change to the back-end database for managing bans. Banned accounts existing at the time the EAM updates were introduced will simply have “n/a” recorded for each of these fields.
The Banned tab can be sorted into ascending / descending order by banned name, date last logged in, date banned, or by person banning them. Click on the column title to sort.
The Banned List includes columns for date of last log-in, date banned, and region holder / EM who banned them. These columns can also be sorted into ascending or descending order by clicking on the field title, as can the account name column.
The Estate Managers, Allowed and Allowed Groups tabs can be sorted into ascending / descending order by name. Click on the column title to sort.
The Allowed Groups, Allowed and Banned tabs all include a search option.
The number of allowed Estate Managers is increased from 10 EMs to 15 EMs – again in response to many requests from region holders.
Feedback Sought
The Lab is keen to have feedback on these new tabs and the improvements made to handling estate access control. If you are a region holder with EM rights, or an Estate Manager, please consider downloading this project viewer and giving it a try. Any issues should be reported via the Second Life JIRA, using the [EAM] project reference in the title.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, August 5th
This summary is generally published on every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, 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 adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version 5.1.7.517973, dated July 30th, promoted August 3rd. Formerly the Quinquina Maintenance RC viewer.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 