Scam Alert!

Recently there has been a rash of phone call scams claiming to be from Microsoft. In most cases the callers have a heavy Pakistani / Indian accent. They are very persistent, calling back and asking why you hung up.

Microsoft will not call you except in a few extreme circumstances and then they will insist that you verify the call by calling a number at their web site. See: Microsoft phone scams and Online Privacy.

I have had reports of this both in the US and Europe. My local computer tech says he is seeing this way more frequently lately.

If you get such a call HANG UP! Repeatedly if you have to!

May you live in interesting times.

Firestorm re-opens their preview group

Reblogged from Living in the Modem World:

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The Firestorm team have announced the re-opening of their Second Life release preview group, for those who are interested in assisting the team with identifying potential issues / bugs with new releases of the Firestorm viewer.

The announcement, entitled "Feeling Brave?" from Jessica Lyon, reads in part:

“The perfect understanding of an event after it has happened, often when you realize too late what you could have done to avoid it.” We had one of those moments shortly after our last Firestorm release when we discovered that quite a few users were experiencing a bug that made their screens pink.

Read more… 317 more words

As Inara points out, and Jessica makes clear, there are rules. If you can't abide by them please wait a few days for the official release!

External Reference Points

http://www.youtube.com/user/draxtordespres Drax, yes that Drax, of Flufee fame and the hyper German on Metarality has begun a new project. The Drax Files will be monthly Youtube interviews with creative people in SL. Drax’s Mechinima alone are worth a look, but the first interview is with Kriss Lehmann, the RL person behind Botanical, in my opinion the premiere creator of trees and landscaping in SL. Drax mostly lets Kriss tell his story, filling the screen with Mechinima of the Botanical sim and RL via Skype.

Well done Drax, we look forward to more of the same!

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http://www.virtualvision2020.com/ Virtual Vision 2020 is an ongoing attempt to understand, foster and cultivate community in SL. Their current project is a request for literary submissions involving a Legend of Second Life, they would like to develop a (or several) prehistory, kind of a mythology of SL. An inspired idea.

Visit their site, take the surveys, they are short, but thought provoking. If you are so inspired, submit a legend, you only have until March 31 so don’t procrastinate!

Many thanks to Inara Pey at http://modemworld.wordpress.com/ and Gianna Borgnine at http://metarealitypodcast.com/ for the heads up.

 

Buckle-up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride

At the recent Firestorm Viewer question & answer meeting Jessica Lyon, Firestorm Project Manager, gave a forecast of what we can expect in Second Life over the next few months. You can watch the meeting here, or read summaries by Inara Pey or Nalates Urriah .

Simply stated Linden Lab will be introducing several new features that will effect both the sim servers and all viewers. They are not doing this to annoy us, these are important changes to the way things are done within the programs that are SL in addition to valuable new features. Because the viewers are changing too this requires significant coordination and cooperation between the third party viewer developers and the lab.

If experience is any teacher at all, each of these changes will present problems when deployed to the full grid. All viewers, including the official LL viewer will have bugs and problems. Everyone is doing the best they can to avoid problems and still deploy the new code expediently. We may as well get the pain of the transition over with so we can return to our normal lives in an improved world as soon as possible.

There WILL Be Drama! The wackadoodles will predict the end of Second Life. There will be back seat drivers with “a better way”. The conspiracy theorists will ascribe ulterior motives. Pay them no attention. We have survived bigger transitions in the past with much less to gain.

Hang in there!

Be kind to your third party viewer team, they are doing the best they can in a challenging situation; remember, they are volunteers!

Don’t be too hard on LL, in the long run we will be better off.

May you live in interesting times.

PATTERNS- outside the target zone

I first came to Second Life in August of 2005, in the midst of the big publicity push. Initially it was the name itself that attracted me, an alternative to the endless work-eat-sleep-repeat rut I was stuck in. When I discovered that I could “own” land and build what and how I wanted, I was hooked. As time went on I became more and more involved with the SL community, making friends and enjoying the social aspects of the virtual world I was inhabiting.

One thing that has only gotten worse since those early days is the love/hate interdependency between the residents and Linden Lab. They really have little understanding of the society within the virtual world they enable. A while back they announced that they would be developing other projects in addition to Second Life. I viewed this then, and I still see it as an important move. A diverse and profitable Linden Lab can only increase the long term security of the Second Life platform.

When they offered me a discounted preview of Patterns I leapt at the chance, especially since they promoted it as a “sandbox-building game and 3D space“ and “it’s your universe to shape” (sounds like your world your imagination?).

I must be way outside the target audience they are directing this game at. I find it to be more of a puzzle game than a building game. The building blocks given are much like a box of Dungeons & Dragons dice. They fit together in strange and unexpected ways if they fit at all. It is not unusual for things like a long ramp to not match with the “ground” at it’s destination. Even the wheel they show being made in their promotional video is not truly a complete 360 degree build, the final 2 pieces do not quite join.

Admittedly Patterns is still in alpha, there will be many more shapes to work with in time, but I still see it more as a 3D puzzle than a real building environment.

I hope it is a success and I will continue to monitor it’s progress, but it does not come close to SL as a creative environment.

May you live in interesting times.

 

You May Resume Your Second Life

The Excessive Bandwidth Issue has been resolved.

This problem first appeared after the rolling restarts of August 8^th and was reported in great detail to the jira the next day.

Considering that many people with metered or limited bandwidth internet connections were unable to access SL without running up overages with their isp, over one month was too long!!

If you have been waiting this out, Welcome Back, we missed you!

May you live in interesting times.

Linden Lab Severs Major Communication Link with Residents

There have been major changes made to the Second Life jira bug reporting system, and not for the better!

Effective immediately the jira is a closed system. No one outside Linden Lab will be able to see what you report. There will be no opportunity for residents to comment on bugs that effect everyone, or even to know if what they observe is a known issue or unique to them. Once LL declares an issue you report “Accepted” or “Closed” it will not be farther updated, you will just have to hope you recognize something in the Release Notes as a response to your jira post.

There is considerable speculation about the Lab’s reasoning in taking this action (see Tonya Souther’s blog, or Nalates’ blog, or Inara Pey’s blog). To me the reason is immaterial, it is shutting down one of the best avenues for communication with the Lab.

One of the things Linden Lab, and Rod especially seems not to understand is that Second Life is not Linden Lab’s toy that they let us play in. Second Life is a joint effort of Linden Lab and the Residents of Second Life. That has been true since the day Stellar Sunshine build the beanstalk. When we work together Second Life shines as a community of innovative people on both sides of the viewer. When the Lab withdraws communication or when the wackadoodles among the residents stifle communication with their rants, we all are the poorer for it.

 

May you live in interesting times.