New version of Radegast viewer for Second Life released!

This is really good news and I'm surprised I missed it. The folks supporting Radegast released a new version (2.28) on August 19 which fixes a lot of the problems introduced when Linden Lab finally pulled support for some (long) outdated asset fetching protocols. This blew up a number of viewers including Radegast, Lumiya and Singularity. Singularity has released some beta fixes. Lumiya is apparently an abandoned project. Radegast is staying current!

From the Radegast blog:

The current supported method for fetching assets is now supported in 2.28. This is an update you will really want to do. It fixes missing functionality like playing inworld sounds and animations, viewing landmarks. You may also notice a little more “pep” when fetching textures and mesh.

Beside those changes, there are some minor fixes regarding command line arguments, and an OpenTK update. I have more in the works, but wanted to get this change out as soon as possible and as bug free as possible. 

 So it you need a lightweight viewer capable of most Second Life functions, give Radegast a shot. It's perfect for chatting, running multiple instances as bots or on older systems without the graphics or processing power of new ones. You will need Windows .NET 4.6.2 and it does not yet run natively under Linux or MacOS.

Download here: https://radegast.life/downloads/

Singularity Viewer hiccups in Second Life

On July 2, Second Life users using the release version of Singularity Viewer started experiencing bake fails (avatar as cloud), inventory issues and other problems. Turns out Linden Lab formally turned off access to some server-side APIs grid-wide that had long been scheduled to be shut down. Apparently Singularity had some leftover code tstill using those APIs causing the issues.

At first the Singularity devs recommended switching to one of the nightly development builds but that turned out to create new problems (those things are generally alpha releases and not suitable for primetime). A couple of emergency roll-outs later and things are more or less back on track. Assuming you want to mess with nightly releases, here's the link: https://virtual-nexus.xyz/down/

For a more complete (and technical) write-up about what happened, read Singularity Goes Sideways from Nalates Urriah's blog. (If you aren't subscribed to her blog you should be!)

Now if you're like me and don't really enjoy messing with alpha releases there is an alternative -- Cool VL Viewer. It's lightweight and easy on lower powered systems, uses the classic interface and is actively maintained and updated reliably. For more details and downloads, visit: http://sldev.free.fr. When I need better framerates and want to run more than one avatar at a time, I use Cool VL Viewer. It's been very solid for me.

Yes I can hear you yelling "BUT SNICKERS! IT'S NOT ON THE THIRD PARTY VIEWER LIST!" No it's not. The developer, Henri Beauchamp, states that it is TPV compliant but he doesn't want to release his private info to Linden Lab AND he believes the laws in France say that he shouldn't have to. That's fair and to his credit, I have never heard another developer EVER question whether Cool VL Viewer was safe or not.

I really do hope Singularity can get back to having a solid release version since the more lightweight, capable viewers there are, the better.

UPDATE: If you do want to continue using Singularity, UNINSTALL your current version completely and (as of this writing) install version 7685 from the link above!

NOTE: Users are reporting issues with the Android Lumiya Viewer that sound somewhat similar to the Singularity problems. Since Lumiya hasn't been updated for over a year, it wouldn't surprise me if the two were related.

Limited Edition Skin from Stix

Get them while they are hot! Only 35 available -- 10 on Marketplace and 20 at the Stix mainstore. I'm not going to try to show this skin on me because my look is too different. But trust me, Stix skin photos look exactly as intended.

Includes LAQ, Genus, Omega appliers & Classic skins. Body appliers available main store (which are free).

Total price until sold initial 35 are gone is only $300L.

Store: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Coulours/242/110/80

SLM: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Stix-Twee-LIMITED-EDITION-Promo/17474081

Dollarbie wonderfulness (OMG cute)

If you know me, you know I love to shop for inexpensive clothing. Not because I'm cheap but because when I find something really nice, it's rewarding and I can share with friends. Plus anyone who doesn't have a lot of Lindens in their account can get something that won't break the bank.

Today's find is from the SL Marketplace. It's called ShuShu ButtonUp PROMO Set. The cool thing about this outfit is that it comes as a dress with a sort of halter / suspenders look AND as a skirt with a separated corset top.

Yes it look amazing in SL This is natural light (noon, nothing weird).

It also comes with some funky socks and oversized sunglasses which honestly are more like afterthoughts and not really needed.

Yes it's only $1L on SLM. What gets me is that for the price, a few people have whined about minor details and knocked it down to 2 stars. NO NO NO. That's not right.

Anyway, here's the URL to the outfit on SLM.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/ShuShu-BUTTON-UP-outfit-PROMO-set-SLink-Maitreya-Belleza-Tonic/13707920

Just about every mesh body available is supported too. Shown here with Maitreya Lara and Lumae Eirtae skin.

Two Bento dresses from Arcane Spellcaster

Gramy by Arcane Spellcaster

OK, I admit it. I'm a sucker for the unusual when it comes to fashion. Retro, modern, odd. Anything that looks different from the usual cookie cutter fashions or mesh template outfits. Today's finds came from Arcane Spellcaster at the February 2019 Designer Showcase (link is SLURL).

First up is Gramy. The dress is Bento rigged and comes with an optional "jacket". It's really an interesting outfit especially from the back. Very much an OMG that's so cute moment.

Gramy from back

Gramy is HUD driven and the jacket and dress are separately colored 10 ways. So for $350 you get 10 different outfits or if you care to mix and match the jacket and dress, 10 to the something power lol.

The last view shows how you might color the top and dress separately. Probably would be better if I'd done black and white but oh well.  Click on any of the images to view them full size. Note that there is quite a bit of side boob and the bottom is VERY short so it might not work for some.

Gramy is $350L at the showcase and worth every $L.

Pirette by Arcane Spellcaster

Next up is Pirette, also by Arcane Spellcaster. This one is borderline BDSM but it has an extra feature that really says buy me. The mesh is animated to look like the wind is gently blowing the back of the skirt up from your butt! Sort of a Marilyn Monroe poof on a mini-skirt.

Like Gramy, it comes with a color HUD but with 20 options.  I've show it here in black, teal and bright pink with advanced lighting but it seems to look a bit more natural without advanced lighting.

The designer claims both meshes are original and I have no reason to doubt that. Nothing else like these have crossed my fashion inbox. :)

Pirette is $450L.

For anyone who cares, my skin is Lumae Eirtae, body is Maitreya Lara, head is Utilizator Normie, hair is Roxana by Truth and shoes are Boston by KC.

Side view

The death of Flickr?

Since Flickr (the online photo sharing service) was purchased by SmugMug, a lot of people have wondered what the new ownership would do with its new shiny toy. Well yesterday, the other shoe dropped and here's what Flickr users are now being greeted with:

While 1,000 free photos sounds like a lot, the longtime integration between Second Life and Flickr (with Linden Lab having an official presence on Flickr) means that it really isn't. Many Second Life users have Flickr accounts with TENS of thousands of photos. Per Flickr, come February 2019, anyone OVER the 1000 photo limit who does not upgrade to Flickr Pro at $50/year, will have their photos deleted. It's not clear from Flickr's blog how they'll determine which photos get ditched.

Another worry is that a LOT of work available through Creative Commons is hosted under free accounts at Flickr. It's not clear what will happen to that content although Creative Commons is said to be working with Flickr on solutions.

Second Life users have long had another outlet for photo sharing called Snapzilla. It's a sister site to the virtual worlds online forum site, virtualverse.one (previously SLUniverse.com). I reached out to the owner/developer of both, Cristiano (aka Cristiano Midnight) who had these observations:

"I have been following what's going on with Flickr - there's an active thread here (virtualverse.one) about it. While I think their 1000 image limit is still fairly generous, SL Flickr users are definitely looking for alternatives. Snapzilla has always been focused on SL (though I'm expanding it right now to include other worlds including sinespace, Sansar and OpenSim grids), so it's a good fit for SL bloggers and photographers. It already has 13 years of SL history on it. 

I just recently moved Snapzilla to new hosting and split the actual image hosting off from the main site to make it more manageable and scalable (web hosting can be expensive, while image storage is fairly cheap). Transferring 600k images was a challenge, but it all worked out well. 

I think there may be an influx of some new users to Snapzilla from Flickr - I'm not concerned about the impact really. The site could handle it if they do decide to switch, even if it is a large volume of new users."

I'm am personally not someone who feels compelled to document every moment of my existence -- either in Second Life OR in real life. So it's hard for me to imagine accumulating tens of thousands of photos in the first place. But for those that do, I'm sure there's some very real angst involved. After all, Flickr did promise everyone a free terrabyte forever. Storage is cheap, user retention is harder. We'll see how it all shakes out.

Halloween 2018

• 

Cobbled together from 3 outfits and some extras. Skin is by Lumae. Makeup was a freebie from SLM. Lara body.