Tag: SL News

Raising the roof: HTTP gets a blog post

Posted on by Inara Pey

Those who read this blog know I try to report on the various LL projects which are on the go, both server-side and viewer side and – in some cases – both.

Monty Linden: sdpearheading the HTTP work
Monty Linden: spearheading the HTTP work

One of the latter is the HTTP project work, which has been in progress over the last couple of years and spearheaded by Monty Linden, who has been slowly but surely making dramatic changes to SL’s sometimes creaky communications mechanisms. This work started with texture fetching, way back in 2012, and has steadily progressed from there,  with changes being made both server-side and within the viewer.

Much of this work has gone unsung among the greater populace of SL as a whole, which is a shame, as Monty is perhaps one of the great heroes of SL and the Lab for taking-on this work and developing a project and roadmap which not only massively improves viewer / server communications and their overall robustness, but which is also having beneficial impact elsewhere (such as Monty rebuilding third-party libraries critical to the viewer and putting in place mechanisms to ensure they are properly maintained going forward) and also preparing the ground  for HTTP pipelining.

Monty's HTTP work encompasses viewer / server communications
An early phase of Monty’s HTTP work from 2013

Most recently, Monty’s work has involved overhauling the way in which mesh is handled between the viewer and the server (both uploads and – in particular – downloads), something which has been an issue since mesh was first introduced, due to the manner in which it effective “shotguns” the network, and also because – to a degree – people don’t fully understand the impact certain debug settings have on viewer / server communications.

The fruits of this labour have already been released server-side, and now the viewer changes are reaching a point where they will soon be filtering into viewers of all flavours, the code having now moved from a project viewer to a release candidate viewer.

(This viewer should also address the DNS problems many users have experienced and eliminate the need to use the Google DNS workaround for those who have been affected.)

The HTTP project has improved "under the hood" performance in SL in a number of areas, starting with texture fetching, anf through greater robustness of connections through the use of keepalives
The initial HTTP work raised the request rate ceiling within the viewer for texture and mesh data from A up to the blue line of C. Future work will hopefully raise it still further

The blog post is a careful and clear explanation of the work which has gone on to date, covering all aspects of the project, the positives and some of the negatives, while touching on some of the complexities of viewer / server communications which are outside of the Lab’s direct control, but which these changes may well still help alleviate to some degree. The piece also looks to the future and what also might be folded-in to the work, allowing for management decisions, staffing, and other priorities as well. While the look ahead is somewhat speculative at this point in time, it does point towards some intriguing options, such as updates to HTTP services such as inventory operations…

All-in-all, the post is a worthwhile read for anyone with any interest whatsoever in the work the Lab is putting into trying to improve Second Life and improve the experience for all of us who use it.

Lab issues Required Account Documentation notice

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeIn November, the Lab commenced e-mail users meeting certain criteria to submit tax documentation to the Lab. The requests were met with a certain amount of confusion, which the Lab attempted to clarify later that month via a blog post on the matter.

On Tuesday January 14th 2014, the Lab issued a new blog post indicating that they would once more be contacting users who again meet certain criteria with a request they provide required account documentation required by the Lab to fulfil its legal obligations.

The blog post, which appeared in the Commerce section of the SL blog (and thus avoided appearing on users’ dashboards), reads in full:

In addition to required tax documentation (which we blogged about in November 2013), US law separately requires that institutions such as Linden Lab obtain, verify, and record information confirming the identification of account holders who submit a certain volume and/or amount of Process Credit Requests.

We have recently begun emailing users who need to submit this information. If you receive such a notice from us, you will need to follow the instructions and provide the required documentation within thirty (30) days.

These emails are being sent through our Support system. If you are among those individuals who need to provide this information, you can verify the request in your Case History in the Support Portal and reply to the Case if you have any related questions.

There has already been some consternation on Plurk on the matter of required documentation, noticeably among merchants requesting to upgrade the Business Level of their account, only to find their ability to cash-out frozen while they supply the required information and who have yet to receive any e-mail from the Lab forewarning them of these requirements.  While perhaps a matter of unfortunate timing on terms of such requests being made and e-mail being sent out, it does also perhaps suggest that (again) the Lab need to rethink their approach to handling what might be regarded as critical communications with their users.

This could be handled simply by the Lab ensuring such announcements appear on the dashboard of people’s accounts (regardless as to how widely or not LL believe the dashboard might be used) and, given they have an “official” presence on both Plurk and Twitter, actually Plurked and Tweeted, particularly given the information given in such blog posts is of far more import to people than pointers to the Pic of the Day, at least until the supporting e-mail arrives in their in-box.

Paradise lost: new teaser / trailer released

Posted on by Inara Pey

In December 2013, I was one of several bloggers who provided preview notice of the upcoming new production from the Basilique Performing Arts Company, which will be opening to the public in Spring 2014.

Paradise Lost: The story of Adam and Eve’s original sin is an ambitious and sweeping re-telling of original sin based on John Milton’s Paradise Lost, choreographed and set to the fourteen movements of Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D minor.

The creation of Canary Beck and Harvey Crabsticks, the new production will last about an hour and comprise three Acts: The Creation, The Fall and The Expulsion. Through each, we will follow Satan, as he builds Hell, God as he creates the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge, Adam … and Eve; witness Satan’s beguiling of Eve, watch as she and Adam wilfully lust for one another in the face of God’s anger, only to be banished from the Garden of Eden; then finally, watch all that came after: the battle between  the forces of Good and Evil, and Adam and Eve’s lives after Eden. All have been specially choreographed, and each act will comprise a number movements from Mozart’s Requiem.

The Basilique Performing Arts Company have today released the second in a series of trailer for this new piece, which builds on the initial teaser as it reveals God creating Adam and “the beasts of the field”.  It is another marvellous piece which again demonstrates that Paradise Lost: The story of Adam and Eve’s original sin promises to be a very special production.

LL launch “New year, New You” competition, Facebook-style

Posted on by Inara Pey

Back in January 2012 the Lab ran a “New Year, New You” makeover photo competition with some L$5000 on offer to the first prize winner, and which I reported on at the time (and if they ran it again in 2013, I missed it!).

This year, they’re doing it again, as a blog post on Thursday January 2nd announces.

The "New Year, New You" 2013 competition poster, courtesy of Linden Lab
The “New Year, New You” 2013 competition poster, courtesy of Linden Lab

On offer this time around is a “Grand prize” of L$10,000, together with a “First prize” of L$5,000, and L$3,000 and L$1,000 going to the second and third prizes respectively, and the deadline for entries is 10:00 SLT February 10, 2014.

However, there is something of a controversial twist this year: people must log-in via a Facebook account in order to enter.

Possibly in light of the issues surrounding the 2012 competition, which saw people have problems trying to upload their photos to the competition pages, the 2014 event is being hosted over at Votigo, (and is visible from within Facebook). However, if you want to do more than just look at the entries and read the competition rules either via Votigo or via Facebook, you’ll have to log-in via Facebook. Additionally, those entering the competition are also required to “Like” the Second Life Facebook page if they have not already done so.

Whether the Facebook log-in requirement will extend to voting as well, remains to be seen (voting has yet to open), although I suspect it may.

The competition is hosted on Votigo, and requires a Facebook log-in to enter / vote
The competition is hosted on Votigo, and requires a Facebook log-in to enter / vote

Given Facebook’s past record vis-a-vis the use of avatar accounts, etc., within their pages, and the general apathy of SL users towards Facebook as a whole, this is liable to be seen as something of a controversial step by the Lab. It has already lead to some criticism on my.secondlife.com, where questions have also been raised on LL’s ability to police the voting process to ensure fair play.

For my part, while I can perhaps see something of a promotional value involved in leveraging Facebook as the vehicle for the competition, I can’t help but feel disappointment that the Lab are (again) running a competition which would appear to be exclusive (in the bad sense of the word), rather than being more inclusive of its broader user base.

In the meantime, and for those not put-off by the Facebook element and who opt to enter, I can only say: good luck!

Profile feeds direct messaging: Lab confirms “turned off”

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Christmas Day I picked-up on comments that the direct messaging capabilities of the profile feeds had apparently been disabled. I heard things by way of Ciaran Laval, who pointed me towards a thread on the forums.

While one poster – Bondboy Dagger – commented on the thread that LL’s support had indicated  the capability had been discontinued, I was a little cautious in stating this to be the case because my.secondlife.com has been subject to more than a few problems of late – as many of us who still are unable to post snapshots to our feeds can testify.

As news spread, so did the speculation that it may be down to scammers abusing the system with offers of cheap rates for buying L$.

In my original article, I promised to drop Pete Linden, the Lab’s Director of Global Communications a line and ask him for an official comment – although as I explained at the time, it would be unlikely that any answer would be forthcoming until the new year as Pete was out-of-the-office enjoying a well-earned break (and I actually forgot to send the mail at the time – it was left stranded in my DRAFTS folder *cough*).

Anyway, Pete is back in the office today, and did drop me a short reply to my question about the service being discontinued on account of misuse, which reads in full:

Hi Inara,

On this inquiry, I can confirm that yes, as a result of a rise in abuse of the system, we have turned off the direct message function on My.SecondLife.com profiles.

Best,
Peter

So there you have it. The capability has indeed been disabled. Whether it might be re-enabled in the future remains to be seen.

My thanks again to Pete for his reply.

Got Gmail? Seems like you’re missing off-line IMs (and more)? Read on …

Posted on by Inara Pey

googleSaffia Widdershins has blogged over at Prim Perfect about a somewhat annoying situation that has arisen for Second Life users who have Gmail as their e-mail provider. I’ll let Saffia explain:

It seems that a few weeks ago, Linden Labs was put on the SPAM list for gmail. Because of this, many of your offlines from Second Life may have been going to your spam folder (a peek into the dark recesses of your spam folder will confirm this.

She goes on to provide a set of instructions for those so afflicted on how to set a filter to overcome the problem.

Setting filters is good advice for any e-mail service, Gmail or otherwise. I actually switched away from Gmail a few years ago and now use GMX.com.  By default, I use a filter to direct offlines to a given folder  in order to keep them separate from other e-mails flowing into my inbox (or, indeed, ending-up in my junk mail folder). Helps keep things tidy 🙂 .

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