Ambrosia Dance Club

By Phil F. Kearny

Without much fanfare the latest Linden Viewer has hit the grid. The good news is that the hated and despised sidebar has now been eliminated and replaced with totally customizable buttons that you can add to either the left, right or bottom of the screen. To access this option you go to Me – Toolbar Buttons or use the shortcut Ctrl + T and then drag either into or out of the box that appears all of the various shortcuts to any location you wish on the edge of the screen.

Other major changes include the removal of the search bar at the top of the screen and replacement with a “shop” button which brings you directly to the Marketplace. This should effectively kill in world sales and complete the Linden’s plan of pushing everyone to buy on Marketplace so they can get their commission on sales.

The Basic and advance mode have now been eliminated in favor of total confusion for noobs and veterans alike.

Chat notifications have moved from the lower right to the top right side of the screen in a clear nod to the users of the old viewer. Personally, I was getting used to the new position in the lower left, but whatever.

The bottom of the screen sees the removal of the visible chat bar in favor of a button for chat which you now have to press manually in order to converse. I can’t think of the logic for this extra step since chatting is a basic function in world.

So now if you want to type you can hit the CHAT button or you can also hit Enter and the chat bar will appear and you can reposition it where ever you wish.

The inventory window now has an extra button which allows you to bring up multiple instances of inventory windows which is infinitely useful.

My opinion is that this is a giant step forward in since it eliminates the hated sidebar and allows for people to configure the viewer into whatever they want. Anything that brings the Luddites that are clutching on to old version 1.23 viewers into the mesh compliant future is a good thing. The biggest pain in the ass is not having uniformity between viewers and the inability to help others with problems because you have no idea how their viewer works anymore.

Try this new viewer, you may like it.

Mesh has arrived but the big problem is that most people are not on a viewer that supports it! People who are addicted to the old viewer code want to see mesh but if you tell them that they need to use the official Linden 3.0 viewer it is like you are asking them if they want to eat molten lava.

Luckily for this recalcitrant lot, the Phoenix viewer team has created Firestorm with Mesh Support. Now you will be able to see mesh creations in all their glory and not see your friends new mesh dress as an inner tube around their midsection.

According to the official Phoenix team blog it was not an easy decision to release Firestorm with Mesh Beta at this time, but popular demand calls for it to be released in Beta form complete with bugs. They caution that do to many existing bugs in the Viewer 2/3.0 source code that there will be problems. But hey, it’s worth it to see mesh, glorious mesh.

Since almost everyone clutches to their Phoenix viewer as if its the holy grail, people will be happy to know that the new Firestorm Beta contains all the privacy invasion tools that they have come to love as well as a Phoenix look and feel with the added benefits of being able to see Mesh. And it brings one step closer to the day that we can all say goodbye to the old viewer 1.23 code and be unified on the grid again. That will be a find day indeed.

You can download it here http://www.phoenixviewer.com/downloads.php

The founder of Second Life, Philip Rosedale, has created a new start up that is intriguing. It’s called Coffee & Power and its stated goal is to transform the way we work and live in our first life by creating a means of communications between people who want small jobs done for them and people who are willing to do these “micro jobs”.

Coffee & Power is a web portal currently in beta that enables people to list little jobs that they would like done in the real world as well as online. It’s denominated in its own currency called Coffee Dollars which are a one to one equivalent with the US Dollar. Just like Linden Dollars, they can be cashed out for real US Currency.

Currently, 1500 Missions have been completed and some of them are quite humorous. You can watch the video here for an explanation of it from Philip himself in this rambling 30 minute interview with Wagner James Au from New World Notes.

Coffee & Power employs a virtual economy and takes it into a real life setting using a powerful set of social media tools incorporating trust ratings, twitter like capabilities, and mobile connectivity to reach out and empower users.

Using its map feature you could list your services for errands around town and people would pay you for small tasks. Perhaps you are a dog walker and would like to list your services to walk peoples dog’s while they are at work. I hate to say it, but I already see the seamy side of this. If you are a call girl, this would be the perfect way to advertise services for “micro jobs”.

The video, if you were able to endure the 30 minutes of rambling, pretty much explains it all. Will it succeed? Will all our 9 -5 jobs really be replaced with micro jobs? We shall soon see. Stay tuned!

Check out the website now

By Phil F. Kearny

Without a great deal of fanfare Linden Lab has introduced Mesh to the grid. What does this mean to the average Ambrosia? Well in layman’s terms it means that certain things in Second Life will look gooderer. The only problem for most people is that in order to see mesh you need the latest viewer from Linden Lab.

So what is the big deal with mesh? What the heck is it about?

Previously, Creators in second life, the people who bring us the clothes and the cars and furniture and all the other wonderful things that allow people to create entire fantasy lives were made using the internal tools that the Lab provided. It all starts with a cube! These tools, however, while giving ordinary people the ability to make simple objects, were looked on with derision by professional graphics artists – sort of like handing Da Vinci a box of 8 crayons to draw the Mona Lisa with.

The content people were able to create with the Linden Tools was quite amazing at times as people pushed the boundaries of what was capable. Then Sculpties were introduced, which at the time was akin to witchcraft. We started to see a wider variety of objects that were freed of constraints of rigid angles and the virtual world become a softer smoother place.

Now with mesh, Creators are able to use a range of external tools to craft content that they can upload to Second Life. They can use the same programs that are used to design the most cutting edge of video games to bring objects to the grid. Programs such as Maya, 3ds Max, and the free shareware Blender allow creators to use exponentially more sophisticated tools to make content that is much more realistic than would be possible using the primitive tools than were previously supplied.

Mesh content is not intended to replace the existing prim-based content system; It will supplement it just as Sculpties did before it. Think of mesh as an amazing new tool that will enable artists to create a level of content with detail that was previously unattainable.

The list of content creation tools and their relative efficiency with mesh can be found on the Second Life wiki. This new content pipeline enables significantly more efficient and detailed content creation than with existing prim content. However, creators need to spend time learning both the applications they wish to use and how to optimize content for Second Life. The mesh system exposes values for models (known as weights) to provide insight into how an object affects performance. Mesh content is not intended to replace the existing prim-based content system; each is a viable method of content creation in Second Life.

Problems with bringing mesh to Second Life are many. One can find free 3D models on the internet and attempt to import them in to the world. The possibilities for IP theft are boundless. But what else is new here. If you can see it on your computer screen, you can copy it be it prim, a mesh or a sculptie. The Lab makes you take a silly test that satisfies some legal requirement before you are allowed to upload mesh to the grid, but really its obvious what a dog and pony show that is.

The biggest problem with Mesh enablement in Second Life right now is the simple stark fact that the number of people who use the official Second Life viewer is low to say the least. People are clutching on to their Phoenix viewers for dear life unable or unwilling to embrace change of any sort. Without using Viewer 3.0 it is impossible to view mesh so its a fail on the part of Linden Labs. Perhaps the only sensible course of action is to disable the use of viewer 1.23 and yank the band aid off fast. There will be screaming and whining but eventually the pain will subside and we can all move forward into the Mesh-Enabled future with shiny new avatars united with one viewer code.