Your2ndPlace

As a few people within the virtual world of Second Life know, I've been busy in the real world dealing with real land - running roads into otherwise accessible property, planting trees and so on, dealing with the mess of the legalities and procedures of real land. One thing I have learned is that real estate in Second Life is much more easier to contend with.

The other thing I have learned, having been logging in less, is that I don't want to have to download a full client every time I want to log in - and that seems to be par for my log ins these days. Sure, it may be relatively fast but come on... - Second Life, as a virtual world, has reached a point where downloading an entire client to log in is not only a pain, it's... avoidable.

Consider patches. I'm not saying that downloading patches is a silver bullet, but it would probably help a lot with server loading as well as the annoyance I feel when I encounter the 'download new client' dialog when I'm logging in. It annoys me enough to write about it, so I wonder how even more casual users than I feel about it. I imagine it's less than pleasant.

As a software developer with a reasonable amount of experience, I think it's time for the update process to grow up. As a user, I think it's time for Linden Lab to recognize that the issue itself is something that might actually keep people from popping into Second Life. I mean - every time I turn around, I'm piping 30 megs of data down through about 10 servers.

One of the things that has surprised me over the last few days has been how few people seemed to even know about the latest updates regarding the parcel media - especially the HTML On A Prim functionality, not to mention the in world browser functionality. I'm obviously a fan of these tools because they allow more interactivity across the border between Second Life and the rest of the world.

Because I have met so many people unfamiliar with these items, I was planning to put together a post about how to use them. Serendipity, however, lead me to Torley's videos, of which I have the three below to walk people through parcel media. They're good, they work, and Torley's really done a great job on them:

Like many people yesterday, I downloaded the new viewer. I wasn't told by my then Second Life viewer that I needed to - but someone I knew was having problems, and I decided to look at it since customers might have similar problems. It installed, and appeared to be doing well - but within the first 5 minutes, it crashed.

I haven't crashed in weeks, aside from the teleport to grey - getting lost in the ether between sims. OK, fine. I started it up again - and lasted another 5 minutes before another crash. Then, again - another crash - but this one a tad different: I got a 'BAD POINTER' dialog with 'OK' and 'Cancel' as options. I wish I had thought to get a screen shot, but I didn't - I clicked Cancel (knowing full well that I cannot cancel a bad pointer), and of course it crashed again.

Again, restart. Now, I'm not one for submitting JIRA reports for obscure phenomenon. I don't believe "I crashed!" is a true bit of feedback, and even though the crash logger is supposedly better, it struck me - that 'BAD POINTER' dialog - that most users are flying in the dark, and that is probably for the best. But it also struck me that the more technology-capable users might get some ideas to tweak their client if they actually knew what was wrong.

For me, getting rid of Voice seemed to keep me from crashing. Did that cause me to crash? Who knows? And that is sort of my point here. If it were possible to allow users to actually see some form of error when a crash occurs - hints such as 'Your video card ran out of polygons' or 'Voice doesn't like you', people could put 2 and 2 together and figure out a lot of stuff on their own and perhaps even submit better informed JIRA reports.

It might even help users help themselves a tad more.

I attended the Accessing Second Life: Universal Design in a Virtual World event, and even as the after meeting buzz continues I am writing this up.

Overall, I would have to say that this meeting was a stunning success - I say that because there was a lot of involved and informed discussion on a topic that is hardly mentioned in Second Life or other virtual worlds. It immediately made me think of other synthetic worlds and how usable they are in contrast - and how this could be improved in the future.

Jondan Lundquist kicked this off:

Today, we will explore the ways that accessibility and universal design principles can be applied to the Second Life experience. This virtual world has many inhabitants who have disabilities or impairments that challenge their experiences here. By being aware of these challenges and making adjustments in design of buildings, activities, and interface functions, the 'architects and builders' of Second Life can help ensure that as high a quality of experience is enjoyed by the most residents.

The Second Life experience is an exchange between the user, or resident, and the developers, builders, scripters, and others involved in making the 'world' what it is. There are several considerations on both sides of the equations that effect how the world is built and how the users experience the world, especially those users with disabilities.

On the user's side, there is, first and foremost, their perception of their own disability and how they wish it to be represented or not represented in Second Life. There are those who present themselves as they are in their First Life, with their avatars using mobility devices or other representations. There are those that appear 'able-bodied' in Second Life, yet make it known to others that they have a disability and ask for some accommodation, usually in the realm of communication.

There are those that have significant disabilities in First Life who present themselves without disability in Second Life, yet must deal with interface issues as they navigate and communicate. Each of these options is perfectly acceptable.

Similarly, the individual may perceive their Second Life experience in different ways. They may reveal their disability to a close friend or two, gaining assistance in certain areas of functioning. They may choose to be an 'activist' in Second Life, making their disability the focus of their experience. They may choose to seek assistance from one or more disability awareness groups within Second Life, but appearing and functioning in the rest of Second Life as not having a disability.

After reading Sarah's blog about Montelli Vantelli's experience with Celene Ballinger, I found this statement to be laughable (if not crying about your losses)
--Not a lot of people give land back where they can make easy $450.--

Celene Ballinger is the ONLY one who does not. And now that she/he has decided to return property - She/He/IT - hold it for ransom first.

When I first heard this person was returning property, I promptly messaged Celene Ballinger and made some very strong statements about what a liar she/he is and guess what NO REPLIES..of course not..she had nothing to hold over my head to get me to admit she isnt a thief preying on others errors, uneducation, lack of KNOWLEDGE, or even an SL glitch. I am being kind and not saying what I really feel like about her, I wouldn't lower myself to that level anyway.

Let the Lindens know? Why are they getting upset with you? To many complaints?

[20:01] Celene Ballinger: Please let Lindens know too and confirm that to me. I will come over in a bit and set your land back to you for 10K
[20:02] Celene Ballinger: Thanks for agreeing. Not a lot of people give land back where they can make easy $450.

What a laugh.

In what I am taking as good news, LL has brought down the beta grid to update it. According to the official SL Blog this is a merging of the current client/sim code base and the havok 4 beta client/sim code base. I think this indicates that we are moving closer to deployment on to the main grid, which will benefit everyone.

This is one of the few big changes in the year and 1/2 I have been in SL I have been excited about since it reaches deep in to the user experience in a good way. I still haven't warmed to voice, communicate box, or windlight. I will do an another post on the preview grid when it is back online.

While my laptop was crashing this evening, I got advised of a change in the Terms of Service of Second Life that was really a trojan horse for the Second Life Viewer Susceptible to Quicktime Security Flaw.

Cool. Quicktime. Flaw. But what does the flaw actually do? Simple. Your virtual pocket can be picked. If you're planning to watch streaming pr0n in Second Life next to those anonymous folks you trust to be the same gender as their avatar, maybe you shouldn't have that money in your account.

Reasonably, the Linden Lab word is: Don't use your video around people you don't trust. This is the virtual equivalent of telling you to make sure that condoms are involved - so do that. How does a Quicktime bug allow the transfer of Linden dollars? The short answer is that the Quicktime video sends your Second Life client to a website (where the video is hosted) that can allow someone to take over your avatar. Virtual body snatching. Woohoo. The voodoo you do.

You can read more about the technical side here.

Tateru has a nice write up on how to deal with the issue here.

Of course, this could open up all sorts of interesting issues like wire fraud, which can't happen because the Linden dollar is just fictional currency (wink wink nudge nudge) and who is liable. Might be an easy way to get a new Mac.