The Splash Party with DJ Regi

After fiddling unsuccessfully with the settings on my viewer (Linden Lab´s Viewer 3) for about an hour and a half to get it to play Birdcage for me, I finally gave up.

At the end I reached so far that the viewer told me it was playing Media but I still could not see or hear anything. I know that it is way easier on the Firestorm viewer, because Media has a button of its own there, but that viewer is too heavy and slow for my purposes, and it´s overloaded with shit I do not need or want.

Searching for something else to do I saw that the Second Pride Splash Party was on, so I decided to go there with my music turned down very low - and I do not regret it because the place was filled with Ziggy Starsmith, Levi Ewing, Larz Kaz and a lot of other of SecondLife´s hunkiest male avatars and a few of the nicest female ones too, like Kharissa Indigo and Tootsie Nootan.

The motto for the party was "as bare as you dare, but no erections allowed" which, as I told Ziggy, was the first request I heard of that is actually easier to accomplish in SecondLife than in first life.

For more pictures from this event visit Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life; Fun And Fabulous Second pride Part 6: Ziggy Gets Butt Naked...

The Yifus, Regi and Ty

Firestorm Viewer Update (Updated)

The Phoenix Project has released a wonderful - I think - viewer update today, the Firestorm FUI Beta 4.0.1.27000.

The new viewer includes the amazing FUI developed by Linden Lab for its Viewer 3 and keeps the vertically stacked chats and also seems to have added lots of amazing functions, if one can judge by the video above. The vertically stacked chats, which I have become completely addicted to, were the only thing that made me leave Viewer 3 and go back to Firestorm.

Keep you fingers and toes crossed, I am downloading and launching it now!

PROBLEMS (to be continued)
1. I cannot choose the language for my download, it forces the Danish version on me. Which is plain stupid. Sure as a Swede from the far south of Sweden I do understand a lot of Danish but not the technical stuff and I have become accustomed to the English version and want that.

2. Ughh say whaaaaaaat? I got this when I started the viewer to log in on Wednesday March 21:

I will check to see if a fresh install helps me.

3. Same problem as yesterday occurs again, do I really have to re-install the viewer every time I want to use it?

SOLUTIONS (to be continued)
1, Change the default language to English from "Mig" to "Indstillinger" and then change it in "Sprog"

2. I did a fresh install and the problem came back, but after I had changed the language from Danish to English it did not come back. Really strange and confusing.

3. No problems after the third day using it, really do not understand this, but anyway everything seems to be working fine now.

BENEFITS (to be continued)
1. The problem with me being stuck down to my ankles and not being able to move when I log in has been solved. I had to teleport to another sim to get out of that clinch and to get the sounds working properly. 

Telling It Like It Is

Ziggy Starsmith, my buddy and fellow blogger, isn't all brawn and sexiness, but has a well functioning brain to match.

I never understood the mesh mess and why we should  have to suffer from the introduction of that feature into our wonderful world the way we have been forced to do these many months.

Read what Ziggy has to say in the matter Ban Mesh, Back To the Old Phoenix Viewer.
---

Rodvik Linden and all our other friends at Linden Lab, hear our cries of despair and our prays: Please, please, realize that mesh is a dead end and drop it now! You are killing us with lag and crashes and worsening our over all experiences inworld.

We want clothes that adapt to our avatars, not clothes that force us to adapt our avatars to the clothes. Back to the drawing boards again my wonderful, resourceful and creative team of programming geeks! (Yes, I do realize that there may be more to mesh than the bloody gawdawful clothes... but it still seems to stink.)

UPDATE:
Jessica Lyon from the Phoenix/Firestorm team invites us to a seminar today to discuss matters.

"The Q&A will be held at1 PM SLT at the Rockliffe university regions with the following landmarks.
Note: Due to the amount of people we expect to arrive, please arrive early and use the following landmarks based on the first letter of your first name.


A - I:http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Rockcliffe%20I/2/32/29
J - R:http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Rockcliffe%20Library/227/5/30
S - Z:http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Agile%203D/227/250/31"

Rage Against Technology

I live with the not unreasonable expectation that every time I do a certain thing to a machine or with software programs I should and can expect the same results.

This expectation has more often than not been proven to be false, which absolutely stuns me every time. I think of myself as a human being with some emotional weaknesses but on the whole mostly rational. The fact that machines and software programs have the audacity to act up against me and take on a will of their own totally and completely pisses me off!

What has made the otherwise meek, happy-go-lucky and ever so humble Bock so angry you wonder? Well, this is what happened.

Yesterday I read about the new Linden Lab Beta Viewer 3.2 on Sven Idyll´s blog. He was very convincing so I uninstalled my Firestorm viewer, cleaned up my computer from anything SecondLife and downloaded and installed the new viewer.

I was totally enchanted by the exceptional usability of the new user interface and by the fact that my personal and group IM´s were vertically stacked (see picture).

It´s an awesome feature that prevents you from missing any IM´s and also keeps them collected in the same space instead of spreading out all over ones screen.

Well today I did the mistake of reading Sven Idylls blog again and seeing his praise for Starlight I decided to try that feature too. I shouldn't have done that! Because when I had installed the Starlight my vertically stacked IMs disappeared and seem to be lost forever.

In an effort to try to retrace my earlier steps I have uninstalled Starlight. uninstalled  Beta Viewer 3.2, cleaned up my computer completely from SecondLife, re-installed Firestorm and chosen the vertical tabs, uninstalled Firestorm, cleaned up my computer, re-installed Beta Viewer 3.2.

Nothing helps and my vertically stacked IM´s are gone and instead I end up with this (see picture).

Thinking about this I realize that I am mostly angry with myself. When the f**k will I learn not to mess with something that is good!

P.S. Finally I must emphasize that this was none of Sven´s doing he only got me excited when I read his blog. If I in any way have given you that impression I apologize to Sven Idyll!

BREAKING NEWS: Firestorm Viewer Impregnates Avatar

It is rumored that The Much Honored Bock McMillan, Laird of Southern Charm and Prince of Cascade Falls, has been taken to hospital in a state of shock due to suddenly believing himself to have been impregnated by the Firestorm viewer.

According to what has been pieced together from interviews with the lairds primatar (name withheld) and members of the McMillan household this is what seems to have happened.

The laird had been having an extremely enjoyable - although very crashy - evening at the 4th Anniversary of DJ World. When he got back in-world after his last crash of the evening, he landed on his back-porch where he has set "home".

You cannot believe his amazement when he saw the red clouds disappearing and he suddenly found himself looking like this.

"I was in total shock", the laird revealed to his spokesman Wild Zepp, "I couldn´t understand how this happened. I have been celibate for the past year and a half - I swear!"

The laird told Wild that as soon as he came to his senses he took a look at the bulge growing out of his belly in "Edit". "The edit told me that the bulge was not a baby, but a "Medium sized building block type rock" or something like that. It disappeared mysteriously seconds afterwards, but I better get this checked. It could still be growing inside me."

After the laird McMillan had been rushed to his private physician for a check-up he was sent to The Royal McMillan Hospital (a part of the BMcM Corporation) for surgery to remove the block from him.

Wild Zepp also told the assembled SecondLife media that he expects that the laird will want to pursue this event with litigation against the Firestorm-team. "After all we oldtimers are used to having our hairs moved to our crotches and our boots stuck up our asses should we now also accept the indignity of being pregnant with rocks also, I ask you? No way, I say, we cannot have primatars traumatized like this by sloppy technicians. The laird will naturally file his suit in the United States and is expecting it to result in damages in the range over and above what that stupid woman with coffee got from the McDonald´s fast food restaurant.* The laird is after all nobility, whereas she was only a commoner. His feelings are deeper hurt than hers could ever be. Before the household decides whether to sue or not, we will of course welcome any reasonable offer from Miss Jessica Lyon or any other representative of the Firestorm-team." 


*) Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants, also known as the McDonald's coffee case and the hot coffee lawsuit, is a 1994 product liability lawsuit that became a flashpoint in the debate in the U.S. after a jury awarded $2.86 million to a woman who was heavily burned by hot coffee purchased from fast food restaurant McDonald's. The trial judge reduced the total award to $640,000, and the parties settled for a confidential amount before an appeal was decided. 

I Switched To The Firestorm Viewer

I have been reluctant to switch from the Phoenix viewer because it has worked wonderfully for me. I have very seldom experienced crashes and almost never felt any lag expect when that must be expected.

Well with all the talk about mesh coming and how important it was to get ready for that change I finally dared to take the big step, especially after watching Jessica Lyon video tutorial four (4) times about how to configure the Firestorm to look like viewer 1. I also remembered the praises for Firestorm by my friends Ziggy Starsmith, my regular tech-head Vampi Twine-DeSantis and Sven Idyll.

So far everything seems to be working as promised, and I have all my stuff back in their regular locations on my screen. Next thing will be to see how it works for me when I am doing my thing, but I´ll leave that for another day.

Firestorm Public Beta Has Arrived

My friend Ziggy Starsmith over on his blog "Ziggy On The Edge" today informs us that the new Forestorm Beta viewer is here.

Head om over to Ziggy´s for his review and a link to the download site