Blog Archives
Viewer 2.5 Released
Q Linden announced the new version of Viewer 2.5 on the Official Second Life Blog yesterday afternoon (SLT), which comes with the new web-based profiles. I downloaded and installed the new version from the Viewer 2.5 release notes page from the SL wiki to view the recent changes. I noticed that Viewer 2.5 on my PC was faster in performance which is way better than previous versions of Viewer 2.
New Profiles
I still much prefer to see profiles in-world (sidebar) instead of opening up a web browser or tab to view them each time. It would be good to have a choice between them. The new privacy settings make sense for how public SL profiles are seen and there is definitely room for improvements and changes for web-based SL profiles like including Plurk in social networking options. There is still alot of mixed reactions to the new SL profiles on the web and it’s going to be interesting to see what Linden Lab does with web based profiles during 2011.
Landmark Favorites
I think this is a great feature that Linden Lab has introduced with Viewer 2.5 to access landmarks from the login screen to favourite places in-world. It would be nice to view existing favourite LMs from one’s inventory too.
History Timeline of Viewer 2 Versions
- Launch of Viewer 2 Beta - 23rd February 2010 (Viewer 2 1st year anniversary coming up soon)
- Viewer 2.0.1 Beta 1 – 15th April 2010
- Viewer 2.1 Alpha – 10th June 2010
- Viewer 2.2 Beta - 23rd September 2010
- Viewer 2.3 Beta – 27th October 2010
- Viewer 2.4 Beta - 3rd December 2010
- Viewer 2.5 Beta – 19th January 2011
What do you think of Viewer 2.5 release ?
Attending The Phoenix 101 Class
On Tuesday4th January 2011, I attended the Phoenix 101 Class, hosted at Wailele Moku region in Second Life. The class started a few minutes after 1pm SLT hosted by Ed Merryman, the Support Leader. The Phoenix team were only expecting around 10-15 residents to attend however 60 residents attended the voice-enabled class hour. Ed Merryman did a great job at giving residents a voice tutorial about the basics of the Phoenix viewer and answering questions during the class. Ed Merryman went through the preferences menu features and talked about different parts of the viewer which I throught was really interesting. The class lasted for 1 hour & 44 minutes.
Upcoming Phoenix 101 Classes
Phoenix 101 Classes
In our ongoing efforts to help and improve the user experience, we are starting educational “Phoenix 101″ classes for our users on the Phoenix Viewer. The first set of classes will be covering our extensive preference options and explain what they all do. The classes will run from 1-1.5 hours long and done in voice.
The initial classes will be on the following dates.
Tuesday Jan 4 2011 @ 1 PM SLT
Thursday Jan 6 2011 @ 8AM SLT
Saturday Jan 8 2011 @ 6PM SLT.Classes will be held at:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wailele%20Moku/64/64/22
Hosted by our very own Ed Merryman, Support Lead.Once we get through the first set of classes we will be able to better modify our format, curriculum and demand needs. We will then announce regular on going classes of different subjects here on this blog.
If your a Phoenix user or thinking about switching viewers or perhaps your a new Phoenix user then I highly recommend you attend these classes to learn the basic-advanced info about the viewer. Thanks to Ed and Jessica and Phoenix team.
Timeline of Viewer 2 Betas so far this year
- Launch of Viewer 2 Beta - 23rd February 2010
- Viewer 2.0.1 Beta 1 – 15th April 2010
- Viewer 2.1 Alpha – 10th June 2010
- Viewer 2.2 Beta - 23rd September 2010
- Viewer 2.3 Beta – 27th October 2010
For viewer 1.23.5 there is still no confirmation on when the support will end. The Snowstorm team works on the development of Viewer 2 and have been since SLCC 2010 during August 2010.
- Check out the Snowstorm Wiki Page
- Snowstorm Daily Scrum Archive
- Check out the breakdown of release notes of Viewer 1 and Viewer 2 here
Release Schedule
Our plan is to update Betas weekly with new official releases happening every 3-4 weeks.
Do you prefer Viewer 1, Viewer 2 or another viewer ? Feel free to comment!
SL Recap of October 2010
- Two Important Updates on 2011 Land Pricing – 4th
- On the map of the worlds online communities, Second Life is a small island in the Gulf of Lag – 6th
- Philip Linden: “SL is growing, not failing.” – 7th
- Jack Linden and Dusan Writer discuss Mesh on Designing Worlds - 11th
- Mesh Import Open Beta – 13th
- Back to Basics Technology Improvements – 14th
- BURN2 Festival Opens 2010 – 16th
- NEMO – The sim will definitively close – 18th
- Philip Linden changing roles & searching for new CEO – 19th
- Linden Lab is Beta launching a Second Life Advertising service – 25th
- Viewer 2.3 Beta has now brought display names to the main grid – 27th
- The Second Life Economy in Q3 2010 – 28th
- My 4th rezday in SL – 31st
At the end of every month I publish recap posts on my blog and I will look forward to what November 2010 brings.
Phoenix Viewer, Emergence Viewer & Ascent Added To TPV List
Today Linden Lab added Phoenix Viewer, Emergence Viewer & Ascent to The Third-Party Viewer Directory list. There are now 13 entries on the list as of 7th September 2010. This is really good news. 
Update: Emerald Viewer to be Blocked From Second Life.
As of 10am PT Wednesday, September 8, the Emerald Viewer will be blocked from logging in to Second Life as a result of violations of our Policy on Third Party Viewers.
All versions of the Emerald Viewer will be blocked from logging in to Second Life as of tomorrow at 10am. Please be aware that attempting to circumvent our blocking to access Second Life with a banned Viewer is a violation of the Policy on Third-Party Viewers and may result in the loss of one’s account.
RIP Emerald Viewer!
Emerald Statistics published by Modular Systems
On the Modular Systems blog this month there are new Emerald statistics on users, downloads and bandwidth. Emerald viewer is one of well known and popular viewers used to connect to Second Life.
- Over 100,000 people now log in once or more regularly in any given 24-hour period.
- This number was, for example, 103,288 on Sunday, July 18, 2010.
- 283,260 people logged in once or more between Jul 11, 2010 – Jul 17, 2010.
- Since we released Emerald Viewer 1.23.5.1636, the Windows binary has been downloaded over 220,626 times.
- In the current month, we have so far used nearly 4000 gigabytes of bandwidth on our primary server alone.
- This gives us a total bandwidth capacity of 300 megabits per second, and 15 terabytes before we even have to pay for additional bandwidth.
Really interesting statistics and I think more monthly stats should be published.
Emerald Viewer Added To Third-Party Viewer Directory
Emerald is one of the most popular SL viewers used today and as of 22nd April 2010 Linden Lab have officially added Emerald to the Third-Party Viewer Directory.
Currently showing 7 third-party viewers in the Directory with more to be added soon
To be listed in the Viewer Directory, a software developer must self-certify that it complies with Linden Lab policies. Beware of third-party viewers that are not in the Viewer Directory – they have either declined to self-certify or been refused for noncompliance with our policies.
Visit the Homepage and click on the Apply Now button to be in the Directory
