Black Swan in Second Life

I was very busy the last few days in RL. That is why there are not too many articles in my blog lately. Sorry for that.
Even Windlight was difficult to try out, due to my responsibilities in RL, but yesterday, I took my chances, and tried several settings out with the Windlight viewer. What I noticed is that the current viewer is more laggy than the normal Second Life viewer. Not all is rezzing. When I logged in, my house stood only half in my screen. I did not know if half of it was gone, or just not rezzed. By accident I moved a piece of my house, and to correct that, I had to log in again with another viewer. And there it was...my house was still there...;)
To try the Windlight viewer out, I thought it would be good to visit the Black Swan Sim. I had the URL from a friend, and as she told me it was a nice place to take snapshots, it would be the best opportunity to do it with the Windlight viewer, despite the rezz problems.
And I must say, you can do great things with the new viewer. The water looks real, the clouds are beautiful. Enjoy the snapshots I took there, and tell me what you think.

Virtual Arbitations in new ToS of Second Life.

Second Life's Terms of Service have changed on Tuesday, allowing residents to settle minor disputes with the company via binding arbitration by a variety of means, including legal proceedings inside Second Life itself.

"The new updated TOS, which are the terms and conditions on which Linden Lab provides access to the Second Life environment, give Residents the option of resolving claims for amounts less than $10,000.00 USD through a proceeding conducted by telephone, online, or based on written submissions. With this proceeding—called “binding, non-appearance-based arbitration”—we aim to save Residents both time and money by eliminating the need to appear in person at the arbitration hearing to resolve small claims." said Robin Linden in a blogpost.

The goal is of allowing Residents to resolve small claims quickly and inexpensively. The updated TOS gives Residents the option of resolving small claims through an arbitration proceeding that doesn’t involve a personal appearance by the Resident or Linden Lab.
The new dispute resolution procedure does not apply to Resident-to-Resident disputes.

It was a whole slice of bread, as we use to say in Belgium, when I tried to log in on Tuesday, reading the new ToS, while I wanted to get on the grid as soon as possible.
Finally I did accept the terms, otherwise I could not get in.;))

But seriously, I think it is good thing of Linden Lab, to give the opportunity to residents to solve those problems inworld. They will realize that the population is growing very fast, and so are the disputes, that there was a real need to solve "minor" problems inworld.

Now I am interested to see how they will solve disputes between residents. This has nothing to do with the new T0S, but I was surprised to hear yesterday from a friend, that all her belongings are taken by the landowner without even warn her, that the land will have another destination, and that she will have X days to move out.
Now she lost the rent, she already paid, and all her belongings. Can you imagine that this is possible?
All concerned residents have sent an abuse report to the Linden. Now wait and see, how this will be solved, and if it will be solved.

Voice live in Second Life

Waw, now everyone can use the voice viewer everywhere in Second Life. It is an optional feature, so you can manage it by yourselves. Read the post here.
And what is more important to me personally, Linden blog announces officially that Windlight is coming to the grid.
I can not wait to try it out!!

Release notes Second Life 1.18.0(5)+0(6) - New update especially for the Germans

Release Notes for Second Life 1.18.0(5)+0(6) July 11, 2007
=====================================
Changes:
* Message system changes to support transport via TCP (HTTP) as well as UDP.
** More details are available here: http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/12/21/a-big-change-youll-barely-notice/
** And here: http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/06/25/dia-de-la-liberacion/
* German language added to the Windows installer
* Updated translations for German language viewer
* Updated translations for Japanese language viewer
* Updated translations for Korean language viewer
* Viewer "channel" (Release, First Look, etc) now visible at login in the lower right corner next to the version number

Bug fixes:
* Fixed SVC-286: deleted fully-permissive objects owned by others skip trash
* Fixed SVC-251: Death teleport fails when teleporting to a home point you no longer have access to
* Fixed MISC-273: Enrollment fee is incorrectly deducted if you belong to max. # of groups and try to join new ones


I wonder when the Dutch language will be introduced!;)

Immediately followed by 1.18.06 (but still no Dutch language.) :(

The grid is back up.......and so are the problems....(part II)

Yesterday evening, I thought to visit some beautuful sims in SL, but from the moment I was logged in, and I was the only one on the grid, believe me (look at the sign in page), there were nothing but troubles. Not direct with me, but things were loaded very slowly, and other avatars still stay grey to others, while they could see theirselves perfectly.
Every place I went was the same, slow loading, and difficult to move and do things.
It went on and on, I met a few interesting people though, but at the end, it was my turn.
Now I had my "gun" with me, and took some shots. The results are obvious.

Second Life 1.16.0(5) May 23, 2007, New release

The grid is back up.......and so are the problems....

From yesterday on, we have a new release in Second Life. The most interesting changes are explained by bluelinden.

New Features:
* Sculpted Prims
** Sculpted Prims are a new primitive type that uses a texture to control its 3D shape
** See http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_Prims for FAQ and detailed information
* Add “Mute” button to block unwanted notecards, landmarks, and textures

What are Sculpted Prims?

A Sculpted Prim is a prim whose shape is determined by a texture. These textures are called Sculpt Textures or Sculpt Maps. You can use sculpted prims to create more complex, organic shapes that are not currently possible with Second Life's prim system. For technical details, see Sculpted Prims Explained.

I hope sincerely that they don't mean your own face, with those new sculpted prims. Because, after the upload yesterday, the details of my face were not visible. At least not to me. I hope it was ok to others.
I was a lousy photographer last night, as I did not take any picture of my face.
But I promise, if today, I have the same problems, I make some pictures of it and will upload them to the flickr site.