Blue's Blog
SL early beta resident turned Linden. Always concerned with and representing the resident experience. Always want to know what you think. Always wondering when I can next get some sushi, except when stuffing sushi down my neck.
Friday, February 13th, 2009 by: Blue
[2009-02-25 @ 11:10 AM PST] The new blogs are UP NOW! blogs.secondlife.com (note the extra “s”, the singular will also redirect to the new blogs soon).
[11 AM PST] WE’RE SO CLOSE!
[8 AM PST] Pardon the mess, it’s temporary. We’re upgrading to our new blogs! Stay tuned…  -Torley
UPDATE – Due to some last minute technical naughtiness, the launch of the new blogs has been delayed to early next week.
I’m disappointed about the delay of course, as I can’t wait to get started blogging in earnest. If you are disappointed as well, I apologize. But you know the old saying: When life gives you lemmings, make lemmingade! And so without further ado…
Welcome to BLUE’S TOLD-YOU-SO COMPETITION where you can turn snark into valuable prizes! The game is simple. Just come up with the ultimate told-you-so to go with any event, whether it’s the delay of the new blogs, McCain losing the election, or your boyfriend getting towed for parking in a handicapped spot…it’s up to you. I’ll even get you started with an example:
Yoz: Hey Blue, we have to delay launch due to some technical issues.
Blue: Told ya we shouldn’t be using that Commodore64.
The best comeback wins one lucky resident a dream date with me, your pal Blue, to an exciting inworld location as part of my SL Travel Blog. Yes you heard right. Immortalized…on a BLOG. How can you resist? Just write your comeback on a notecard with the title TOLD YOU SO and drop a copy on me inworld. Even if you don’t win, a witty dis is its own reward!
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The Second Life Blog was once a place where the Lindens talked casually with you about policy, their projects, recent news, the future of SL, etc. Residents regularly told us that they loved having access to such broad insight into the company and frequent communication with the full range of Lindens. And Lindens loved the ongoing dialog with residents.
Over time however, as more Lindens came to participate, the blog got a bit manic. Some of you complained that reports of temporary performance issues would eclipse larger conversations related to long term plans and features while others believed that tutorials and opinion pieces were distracting them from the hard news of inworld issues they needed to know about in order to run their businesses.
In other words, we outgrew our single channel blog. It was no longer serving people’s individual needs. Perhaps worse was that the signal to noise ratio in comments had gotten bad enough that Lindens weren’t able to depend on them as a way to clearly hear the range of needs and desires of the community. As such we had to limit blog participation to a smaller number of Lindens on certain types of topics and move extended discussion to the forums.
We knew it was important to get back to using the blog as a key means of constructive two way conversation with the community, so we put together a shopping list of must-haves for a new blog suite which included…
- Individual channels of communication for each subject
- Numerous means of accessing channels (including RSS and email subscription)
- Discussion format sub-blogs for extended conversations with threading, voting etc…
- Private sub-blogs for communities working in Second Life (like educators and Solution Providers)
After comparing options, we believe we’ve found one that will best suit our ongoing needs. We expect that it will allow us to get back to the days when any and all Lindens could participate freely and hope that it will provide a convenient way for you to engage us on a wide variety of topics.
So we hope that you’ll join us here, on Thursday the 19th of February, for the launch of a whole new Second Life Blog, where it will be the good ol’ days all over again!
See you then,
-Blue
Posted in Announcements & News, Blog Improvements, Blogroll, Business, Community, Community Gateways, Concierge, Customer Service, Education, Enterprise, Forums, Land, Marketing, New Releases, Tips & Tricks |
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Thursday, September 18th, 2008 by: Blue
As we’ve discussed several times in this space, improving the “first hour” experience of new Residents is one of our primary goals. As our use cases and base continue to diversify, it’s important to begin tailoring the Second Life experience to the specific needs of our audience and reduce the time it takes to access and begin exploring the virtual world. One of the ways we can address this is to look at how first-time visitors are finding and accessing Second Life.
It’s with that mission in mind that we are launching Direct SLurl, an improved web address vehicle that enables first-time visitors to arrive directly at a location within Second Life, as their first location, by clicking on a Second Life URL from the Web, email, etc. Previously, all new Residents were directed to Help Island upon registration, where they went through orientation before they began exploring Second Life. In this new model, a first time visitor will be directed to www.slurl.com where, on that page, they click “sign up” and quickly register, download and login to the viewer, and arrive at their originally intended destination. A quick tutorial will open upon their initial arrival.
All existing SLurls will be enabled with the Direct SLurl extension effective Thursday, September 18th, 2008.
While Direct SLurl will mostly affect first-time visitors, the tool has significant existing benefits for current Residents as well. For example, if you are hosting an event inworld it will be much easier to recruit and attract non-Residents, as you can post your SLurl to your blog, email to friends, etc., and then attendees will be sent directly to your location.
Furthermore, Residents have the ability to create and brand their own page within slurl.com. When a new visitor clicks on your SLurl, they’ll be directed to a page with your content, further extending your inworld brand(s) to the real world.
While all SLurls will be Direct SLurl-enabled, the same security measures and land ownership protections will still apply. If your island is private and not accessible to the general population, it will continue to be so unless you indicate otherwise. If a first-time user is trying to access private content they will be advised of its status and be directed elsewhere.
It’s our belief that taking the steps to make it easier for new visitors to sign up and begin exploring Second Life will improve the usability of the platform for everyone. Further tailoring of the “first hour” experience can be expected in the near future with Direct SLurl being the initial, and very important, first step.
Further Information:
* How do I invite someone who isn’t currently inworld to a specific location?
* I don’t want people to use a SLURL to access my land
* I followed a SLURL and it took me to the wrong place!
View Torley’s informative Video on Direct SLurl
Friday, February 29th, 2008 by: Blue
The LDPW moles are hard at work on the new “Bay City” Regions even as we blog, however we need more ideas and input! Please consider adding your suggestions to the CONTRIBUTE section of the LDPW public wiki page HERE. We’d love your input!
Jack mentioned in the initial LDPW post that we’d be “… finally completing the missing coastline on the southern continent.” Well, the thirty new “Void” regions are now being terraformed, excavated, massaged, smoothed, named, and textured.
We’ll hide a few easter eggs here and there, but we’ll also include a small island which will be set in the gap between McManus and Pogon. We could just throw down some palm trees but that’s no fun so we need suggestions. What do you think? Tiki huts? Evil supervillain hideout? Man eating tigers playing bocce? The island is small (under 100 meters across, maybe 200-300 meters long north-south) and therefore it only has a few hundred prims. So whatever you suggest, consider that it probably shouldn’t be too complex or large as it’ll be a couple of hundred meters from the nearest Resident-owned land.
Jack has now started to contact builders from the applications we have received, we have a few on board but there’s still plenty of opportunity to get involved. If you’ve applied, watch your inbox!
If you haven’t applied and you’re a skilled Second Life builder, scripter or artist and interesting in being part of the LDPW then do it now…you might have what it takes to be one of the few, the proud, the moles!
(more…)
Friday, February 22nd, 2008 by: Blue
Work has begun on Bay City, home of the “Fighting Moles” also known as The City by the Void.
LDPW is getting in touch with, and getting signed contracts from, our first set of resident builders and we expect to have our first team meeting in the upcoming week to discuss allocation of tasks, share reference materials, and hand out trowels & grout bags. These skilled contractors will be given project-specific accounts so should you run into a very small avatar with a hardhat, bearing the last name “Mole” be sure to say say hi!
In the meantime, Michael and I have been organizing the layout of the Regions and parcels. You can expect to see…
(more…)
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 by: Blue
View the latest Second Life newsletter on our website and, coming soon, grab a newly updated copy from one of our in-world location (don’t forget to sign up for automatic in-world delivery of upcoming issues!) This month, find out about plans for the SL’s 4th Birthday party and how you can get involved, find out how teens’ concerns have resulted in a new layout for the Teen Grid, and visit five outstanding environments in Second Life…and more!
Also, as a reminder, we are no longer emailing the newsletter, but will instead continue to improve the online and in-world versions for everyone to enjoy. For example, you can now get the RSS feed directly delivered to your RSS reader du jour. Have any suggestions on how to make the newsletter better? Email them to the editor.
Friday, May 25th, 2007 by: Blue
We are initiating a rolling restart of sims to address issues that arose yesterday, as indicated in a previous blog post. These include slow logins, slow or failed group chat and teleports, and presence issues which can be described as people being reported as offline or online when that is not the case. Also to be addressed are problems with group membership lists.
The rolling restart sweeps through the grid north to south in a wave, asking each region to restart. The regions start a 5-minute countdown with warnings given in-world, then restart. You can teleport south to avoid a restart, or (once the wave hits the mainland) teleport north by several regions to jump “over” the restart wave.
During the first ~10 minutes of the wave, it’s expected that Group IMs and email to LSL will be affected. If you are having trouble after 10 minutes please close all IM windows. To restart the group chats, you have to hit the blue button labeled “close” in the group im panel, not the orange x. If this doesn’t help, please restart the SL client.
The restart wave will start at 12:15pm SLtime and take approximately 2 hours to hit the entire grid.
Thank you for your continued patience!
[2:30pm SLTime] Rolling restart is complete.
Thursday, May 24th, 2007 by: Blue
An issue has sprung up this afternoon that has manifested itself in a broad set of symptems including slow logins, slow or failed group chat and teleports, and presence issues. The devs are currently in the process of diagnosing the problem and we’ll be sure to post more info here when we have it. We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused.
[UPDATE Friday May 25th] We will be rolling out a resolution to these issues today. Please watch for new blog post with more info.
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 by: Blue
We’ve identified a memory leak and have narrowed the problem down to Vote Tally Notification, which has been temporarily disabled. Group Voting is functional apart from the IMs… You are able to create and send votes, and they are tallied and the results are displayed in the Group Vote tool, but the IMs are not sent out to each online member of the group as is typical.
We apologize for any inconvenience this causes and will post more info here when it’s available.
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 by: Blue
Release Notes for Second Life 1.16.0(5) May 23, 2007
=====================================
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
Changes:
* Improved muting of particle systems
LSL Changes:
* New function: llRegionSay()
** Allows object to communicate region-wide
** Does not allow communication on channel 0
** This is intended to reduce simulator load by eliminating the need for relay objects
Bug fixes:
* Text for several alert messages has been updated
* Fixed positioning of maximize button when minimizing both script and lsl window
* Fixed positioning of LSL help window after minimizing/maximizing main script window
* Fixed group chat IM showing sender as the only participant until someone responds
* Fixed group chat IM reopening with an error when sending a message after user closes group chat
* Fixed ‘… has left the session’ when leaving group chat after talking
* Fixed failed email when no subject is included
* Fixed object loss occuring when taking an item
* VWR-657: Beta -> Linux -> Startup -> Crash
[5:53am SLTime] Scheduled downtime is proceeding as planned, and logins have been restricted. For details on the contents of today’s patch, please refer to the previous posts here on the Official Linden Blog. I’ll be bringing you the play-by-play this morning, with hourly updates should all go smoothly.
We appreciate your patience as we work to make SL better!
[7:04am SLTime] Maintenance progresses steadily. In addition, we are currently investigating slow logins on the beta grid.
[8:03am SLTime] Beta logins continue to be problematic, but scheduled maintenance is proceeding smoothly.
[9:01am SLTime] Maintenance proceeds apace. Beta grid logins are slow due to heavy load. Waiting patiently while trying to login is recommended as relogging will put you back at the end of the queue.
[10:13am SLTime] Scheduled maintenance continues to proceed smoothly while beta logins remain slow due to a record high concurrency.
[11:08am SLTime] Nothing new to report, but available now are the full release notes (see above).
[11:36am SLTime] We are now expecting the update to run long. No ETA as to when it will be finished at this point, but we will continue to provide updates here on the blog. Thank you for your continued patience!
[12:05pm SLTime] Regarding the update running long…We have isolated the problem to the inbound mail to LSL and email to IM subsystem and are working on fixing it. Some inbound mail to scripts and IM may be lost. More info here as it’s available.
[12:44pm SLTime] The problem with the mail system has been identified and fixed, with a relatively small loss of messages. Per James: “We found a problem where our system was attempting to process e-mail bounces (undelivered email notifications) that the system is supposed to discard.”
And with that we’re ready to open back up. Thank you for your patience!
Friday, May 18th, 2007 by: Blue
Since the rolling restart we received reports of the llGiveInventoryList function not performing as intended and have confirmed that its functionality is impaired. Instead of an object’s contents being copied to a new folder in inventory, the items are placed by type, ie. notecards in the Notecard folder, objects in the Object folder etc. and clothing is immediately worn.
Inventory is not being lost, just misplaced. Please use the Recent Items tab in your inventory to quickly find these mis-sorted items.
It is expected that we will not be able to address the issue until Monday and apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks to those who sent bug reports and used the Public Jira to bring this issue to our attention!
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