Parallel Universes Part II: OpenSim – Stareyes Galaxy Reporting

Sometimes you hear of veteran Second Lifers (SLers) leave “for bigger things”. Quite often this means OpenSim (OS), or “Open Simulator” grids. OpenSim is a collection of virtual worlds running on Linden Script Language code (LSL) much in a similar way to how SL does. In contrast to SL, OpenSim is an open-source community, which means that the code is shared among developers and contributing to the grid is open to all. 

There are variations with regard to how each grid is run, and the “OSgrids” really make a true “Metaverse”. For Part II of her article series on Parallel Universes, Stareyes Galaxy went over to OpenSim to explore what it is all about.

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TECHNOLOGY: Feature Phoenix Viewer New Update- Jessi2009 Warrol Reporting…

The new release of Firestorm has not been without its fans or its critics. The critics have even gotten to Firestorm project manager, Jessica Lyon, who took to the official Firestorm blog this week to voice her frustration at the criticism of the latest Firestorm release. 

I currently use Firestorm as one of my main Second Life viewers, Singularity being the other one that I use frequently.  In the latest release, Firestorm added many features.  The biggest one was the ability to render avatars using the new Server Side Baking process, which will replace the old HTTP way to render avatars.  Server Side Baking is part of the Linden Lab’s Project Shining, which is aimed at improving avatars and object streaming speeds.

In addition to incorporating this major change, Firestorm also has the ability to back up and restore your viewer settings, which is a very helpful command to have, when your computer dies and you have to reinstall Firestorm and you cannot remember all of those special settings. The Firestorm team has also included a more streamlined and easier way to customize some of your favorite viewer settings, by creating a Quick Preferences panel:

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