I will have her.....I will!!

Okay, I know that it is of questionable sanity to lust after a cartoon character, but I do. She is Queen Of The Dragons and her name is Alexstrasza and I love her. I do! In fact, I took a picture with her today. That's me on the left, my death knight, Taraa. My future cartoon love is on the right. Don't laugh, I will have her!! I WILL!

Phoenix Viewer

Well, in the never ending saga that is Emerald and third party viewers, one of the Emerald team has formed a group that is producing a new (based on Emerald) viewer called The Phoenix Viewer.

My previous post talked about the Emergence Viewer, which was created by LordGregGreg, from Emerald. Phoenix is much the same, and LGG has joined the Phoenix team. I'm guessing that he will no longer work on Emergence and will focus his energy on Phoenix. I have not tried Phoenix yet, but will do so later this week. I have friends who say it's pretty much the same as Emergence, which is not surprising.

On a side note, as of now, Emerald will no longer be allowed to connect to SL, so we're all going to have to find alternatives. I'm guessing that Phoenix will be mine, but I also want to check out another viewer called Ascent. Details forthcoming. :-)

Emergence

My previous posts detailed why I'm looking at alternatives to the Emerald Viewer. This last week, LordGregGreg, one of the trusted developers who left Emerald in disgust, released his version of the Emerald Viewer, called Emergence. This viewer is basically Emerald, except that he has removed some of the things that he found distasteful in Emerald, and also added some things he found useful. The download can be found here: Emergence Viewer and the download itself is in the right column of the page.

I would like to say, after you download it, please don't judge the viewer on the default skin. While I kind of like black and red, the icons bugged me, so I switched skins to something more palatable. There are quite a few skins to choose from, so don't be turned off because of the default skin. All your favorite Emerald extras are here, including the build tools, double click teleports, the fab radar, and of course, jiggly tits. :-)

I'm glad that LGG has given us this, and if you're an Emerald person, this is probably the viewer you want to use. Enjoy!

It wouldn't be Imprudence at this juncture....

Well over a year ago, I started hearing about a new viewer called Emerald. Up to that point I had always, with few exceptions, used the Release Client viewer that LL released. I had heard many good things about Emerald, including features that were very functional, and some aesthetically pleasing as well. I tried it and loved it, and I never went back to the LL viewer.

Well, a few weeks ago, I started reading about some issues that Modular Systems, the makers of Emerald, were having. Or I should say, they were creating issues. I read with interest as a number of people were making claims about a lot of Emeralds developers. Allegedly, some of these developers were banned from SL for copybotting, griefing and similar activities. It seems that LL knew that they were in charge of making this viewer and had considered them reformed and let them go. Part of this, obviously, has to do with the enormous popularity of Emerald, and the incredible revulsion many have for LL's own Viewer 2.0.

As I continued reading over the last weeks, I came to feel that many of these "whistle blowers" who made these claims about the Emerald devs had axes to grind with them. It also came to light that most of these people were themselves banned by LL as well, for...you guessed it....copybotting and griefing. Oh, the irony. So, what to do in all this confusion of he said, she said, NO YOUUU!!?

I kept using Emerald for the time being. There were two people still working on Emerald who I, and most others, still trusted: Chalice and LordGregGreg. Until I had a definitive answer on what was going on I felt no need to make any changes. At this point, the issues being discussed were regarding a project called Onyx, which was a bot of some sort used to scan SL for who knows what purpose. CDS was another project that was used to identify alts based on IP addresses gathered from parcels using media settings, and this information was sold to creators as a tool to ban any avatar shown to be wearing stolen content, as well as banning any alts using the same IP. Many people were upset about this for various reasons, one of which was that the system itself was very flawed. Finally, there was an issue of a library installed in Emerald, and you'll have to forgive my lack of technical prowess on this, that was questioned by some of the devs and allegedly removed. While the library's intended use is benign, some had suspected that it was being used differently and was discovered again in Emerald. The dev was told it was removed again, but was again discovered in the viewer, and said developer was then prevented access to that portion of the viewer. That developer then left the team and posted on his blog that he could not in good conscience work at Emerald any more. Lordgreggreg's blog and that entry is here: LordGregGreg's Blog

At this point, I was starting to search for another viewer. The end for me came a few days ago, when it was discovered that the leader of Emerald, Fractured Crystal, had basically put code in to the viewer that directed everyone using Emerald to visit a web page upon logging in to SL. We didn't see it, but it happened. This is basically a Denial Of Service attack which is illegal and punishable by law, although due to the scale of the attack, will not happen. Shortly after this, Chalice Yao, probably the last grownup to work on Emerald, and someone very well liked and respected, left the team in disgust. The next day, I downloaded a few viewers and will test them out.

That being said, I doubt I will have to look much further. I have since started using Imprudence and, although it's not as good, in my opinion, as Emerald, it's very good and stable and I think my journeys on SL will be taken in this viewer.

I would encourage everyone to consider using a viewer other than Emerald. Although Fractured has since stepped down, I definitely do not trust them with my SL password, and I will not use Emerald any longer.

New WoW UI :-D

I'm Back, Baby!!

Yeah, I know. You'll believe it when you see it. My last return was one post. I get your skepticism, and I personally share it.

But, for today, I am blogging. I've decided to make some changes in my life. I've not blogged about it, but I've been obsessively playing World Of Warcraft, which has led to much less time in Second Life and some shirking of RL obligations, as well. I've been in a total holding pattern in my life, except for the leveling of multiple characters in WoW. As a person in recovery, still possessing very addictive behavior patterns, this is not abnormal, for me or others like me. The only problem arises when I fail to recognize and deal with it in a timely basis.

So, I am here and I have not played WoW yet today. What I did do was wake up, have some water first (my caffeine addiction is kicking in again,) and then had some coffee. I actually went outside and drank some with the dogs. Then I came inside and actually did a short yoga session and meditated! I know! It's shocking! And now I'm blogging? The world may very well be in shock from my behavior today.

I'm actually overwhelmed at what I need to do to catch up in my life right now, but really, when I simplify things, I just need to do a few things each day and within a month, change will be noticeable.

One thing will be changing here. I am going to add another blog for now. The new one will replace my old whitesail.org blog. I will use this blog for only SL posts, so likely most of my blogging will be on the other new blog. I first have to find the perfect title for it. Much of what I will write about will be spiritual matters. I will also be posting more on my Savoy blog. I will be writing more about music and jazz and musicians and the Savoy itself. I would like to see my career manifest itself in music and jazz, so that is a logical and important step for me.

Anyway, I have to take care of some things in RL now, so I will leave you with this. I thank all of you who are my friends, for just being you and staying with me. I've been a bit of a recluse from SL lately. It's a combination of things, including WoW obsession, being burnt out in SL, and just plain isolating, which is an addicts best (unhelpful) friend. I am, however, moving forward again, and we'll see where this takes me. Take care.

Yeah, yeah, yeah......I'm lazy. Sue me!!

I haven't blogged forever. I know. I started working, and summer yardwork, and other stuff, and laziness....and...stuff.

I am, however, making a concerted effort to start blogging again. So what's new in the life of Crighton?

Well, I'm still DJing, but not as much. I'm still running The Savoy Jazz Club and that's been more of a challenge over the last few months due to some turnover and changes. I also am planning on making The Savoy Blog a regular thing, too. Marco Island has also been more of a challenge lately, due to the softness of the land market in SL. I'm still in good shape, but haven't been at 100% capacity for some time now. With the changing season, I'm guessing that should change for the better soon. My alt is still having more fun than me, but that's nothing new. ;-)

My entire life, RL and SL, has become somewhat stagnant. RL gravity has been weighing on me and I have not handled it as well as I could have, but it is what it is. What is important is that I'm taking positive steps to change, and this post is one of those steps. This post is not too informative and not too enlightening, but it is just an update and a harbinger of things to come, hopefully.

I still believe wholeheartedly, that SL is a mirror. I have a theory, however, that SL does not just mirror RL, but that I can use my SL as a catalyst to make things happen in RL. Symbols, archetypes, intent and desire, all come together to create.

Let's see what happens next!