Linden Lab

OnLive's SL Go allows you to access Second Life on mobile devices - including recently added iPad support - and Draxtor Despres has produced a fun video ad for the service that you can watch below or on YouTube :f4nvbfrNojQ As the ad shows, SL Go allows you to enjoy Second Life even when you're away from your main computer. Where will you take it? For more info about SL Go, including regional availability, pricing options, and to get started with a free trial, visit the OnLive website for Sl Go and get playing outside.

If someone who is experiencing this specific issue is able to try the viewer, and attach their log file to the jira: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-7776, this would be helpful information. Thanks!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "At the Circus" by Carthalis Rossini. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

For those who crave year-round chills and thrills of the last month - the Haunted category remains open with spooky attractions that have not packed away their Halloween decorations. For those inclined to fall into the crunchy leaves of November, we encourage you to grab a steaming mug of cinnamon-spiced coffee or hot mulled wine, and check out what’s new this autumn in the Second Life Destination Guide. This week, we have a range of diverse activities for you to choose from - from a risque murder mystery from the folks at MadPea to a German electronic club and much more in between. While you’re out making new memories and exploring, be sure to share the memories on the official Second Life Flickr Page. You might even get a last minute entry to the snapshot contest - you’ve got until 5 PM on November 8th, PST. If there is something cool you’ve come across in Second life that you don’t see listed in our Destination Guide, be sure to share. Blood Letters Become the lead character in an erotic thriller and assume the role of a private investigator specializing in infidelity investigations. You've caught the attention of an infamous serial killer and it’s clear that you're going to be the next victim. Will you catch the killer before you’re dead? This immersive and interactive grid-wide adventure is strictly for adults. Visit in Second Life The Dirty Turkey Hunt 5.0 The Dirty Turkey Hunt 5.0 runs from November 1st through the 30th, marking Depraved Events' fifth year on the grid! Over 100 stores are offering new, exclusive and free gifts to hunters who find the hidden hunt objects. Each store provides helpful hints and a full gallery will be listed on the website when the hunt opens. Make sure you join the Depraved Events group for helpful hints and chatter along the way. Visit in Second Life Eupalinos Ugajin's Taxy to the Zircus Eupalinos Ugajin is an artist who highlights the surrealism in his work, while enriching it with interactivity and humour. Come see his newest work, Taxy! to the Zircus, from November 1st through December 31st. Don't miss it! Visit in Second Life Unique Breedables Unique Breedables is a company dedicated to creating breedables that are fun and unique, with a fresh approach to how the breeding in Second Life works. They listen to their customers and welcome input on how to improve the overall experience of breeding animals. Their goal is to innovate and improve upon the breeding and the community in order to foster a more enjoyable environment for all. Visit in Second Life Sound Pirate SoundPirate ist ein einzigartiger Club! Hier treffen sich nette Leute zum feiern, plaudern und vieles mehr! Kommt vorbei und genießt die ganz andere Atomsphäre Ihr seit Spasskanonen wollt einfach nur FUN und gute Musik? Dann seid Ihr hier genau richtig! Wir freuen und auf Dich. Visit in Second Life

Last week we deployed the change to serve all texture and mesh data primarily through the CDN, as we've been doing with avatar textures since March. In addition to reviewing feedback from Residents we've been monitoring and measuring the effects of the change, and thought it would be interesting to share some of what we've learned. First the good news: Load on some key systems on the simulator hosts has been reduced considerably. The chart below shows the frequency of high-load conditions in the simulator web services, and you can see the sharp drop as the CDN takes on much of that job. This translates into other things, including region crossings and teleports, being faster and more reliable. For most users most of the time there has been a big performance improvement in texture and mesh data loading, resulting in faster rez times in new areas. The improvement has been realized both on the official viewer and on third party viewers. However, we have also seen that some users have had the opposite experience, and have worked with a number of those users to collect detailed data on the nature of the problems and shared it with our CDN provider. We believe that the problems are the result of a combination of the considerable additional load we added to the CDN, and a coincidental additional large load on the CDN from another source. Exacerbating matters, flaws in both our viewer code and the CDN caused recovery from these load spikes to be much slower than it should have been. We are working with our CDN provider to increase capacity and to configure the CDN so that Second Life data availability will not be as affected by outside load. We are also making changes to our code and in the CDN to make recovery quicker and more robust. We are confident that using the CDN for this data will make the Second Life experience better. Making any change to a system at the scale of Second Life has some element of unavoidable risk; no matter how carefully we simulate and test in advance, once you deploy at scale in live systems there's always something to be learned. This change has had some problems for a small percentage of users; unfortunately, for those users the problems were quite serious for at least part of the time. We appreciate all the help we've gotten from users in quickly diagnosing those problems. We think that the changes we've begun making will reduce the frequency of failures to below what they were before we adopted the CDN, while keeping the considerable performance gains.

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "La Dame de Cirque" by Blanche Foxclaw. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "November" by sukibombuki. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "El Dia De Los Muertos @Elysion" by Gorba McMahon. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Trick or Treat!" by Strawberry Singh. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Tonight is the night when weeks or months of planning costumes, makeup and hair comes to its glorious fruition. Or, perhaps you prefer to masterfully throw something together last minute that looks like you spent months on it. Either way, there’s no denying that Halloween is one of Second Life’s biggest holidays and one that Residents enjoy to the fullest. What are your Second Life Halloween plans? Are you looking to scare yourself silly, explore fantastical locales or party the night away? Check out these great destinations from the Second Life Destination Guide! We’ve scared up just a few of the many great places you can wander this Hallow’s Eve. Explore an exciting look at el Dia de los Muertos, or wander through an abandoned steampunk island town. Enjoy not one, but two exciting Halloween hunts before stopping by a beloved clothing designer celebrating a full ten years on the grid. Lastly, be sure you visit the Haunted Halloween Tour before it vanishes. Just be sure you’re ready for quite a fright! Happy Halloween to all! Smithsonian Dia De Los Muertos Festival The Smithsonian Latino Center in collaboration with the University of Texas at El Paso are proud to present a Day of the Dead 3D experience, Oct 29 through Nov 2, 2014. Join them in celebrating Latino cultural heritage through this holiday for honoring both the dead and the cycle of life and death. There'll be a Halloween dance party, dead poets reading, ofrendas, a meso-ballgame tournament, costume contests, music, art and more! Visit in Second Life Little Town by Cica Ghost The inhabitants of Cica Ghost's Little Town have all disappeared for the day, are they just hiding? Take this chance to to explore their quirky, curious, humorously delightful island. Visit in Second Life Terror-iffic Terror-iffic is a annual quality L$5 Halloween Hunt, bringing together the love of all things Halloween to stores across the grid each October. 100% original content creators bring back the spooky, fun and cute to celebrate the love of all things Halloween, tricks and treat hunting. Come celebrate Halloween like never before, be sure to make it Terror-iffic! Visit in Second Life Second Pride Halloween 2014 Come to Second Pride's 2014 Halloween festival October 25th through November 1st for live performances all week leading up to Halloween. Voodoo is open 24/7 for your haunted exploration. Be sure to check out the haunted mansion, the fun house, the pumpkin hunt and more. Check out the performance schedule at http://bit.ly/1tarW2g. Visit in Second Life DE Designs Offers original clothing for men and women including formal wear, casual attire, shoes, lingerie, dresses, and themed items. Visit in Second Life Haunted Halloween Tour What will you do this Halloween? Help children with a sugar fix? Buy overpriced masks from big-box stores? Do something different, something frightening and fun. Linden Lab is proud to present the Haunted Halloween Tour. Strap in and prepare to experience haunts, ghouls, death, scares, and a descent through madness itself. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart! Visit in Second Life If you know some great spots missing from our Destination Guide, please drop us a line to let us know about them.

Ai Austin wrote: I read the tech paper from HighWinds on the CDN.. and with all the caching and proxies I wonder if it will work well when there are rapidly changing assets such as presentation screen content, moving objects meant to be seen synchronously by others, and changing clothing and hence baked textures for avatars. Does this get pushed quickly to all cache copies? May be worth a test and see if its more delayed than before? No, there shouldn't be any speed changes to texture baking or changing assets.

There have been some major performance improvements made that you can read about in our Featured News blog.  In addition to the high level changes overview there, a more technical look at the specifics of the CDN changes can be found in this Tools and Technology blog. We would love to hear how these improvements are working for you, and invite you to let us know in this forum thread. Please be sure you're using the latest Official Viewer to experience these improvements. 

11.07.2014 - For a technical update on specific performance metrics since the launch of our performance improvements, please check out this blog in Tools and Technology. Has Second Life seemed a bit faster for you lately? Improving performance for all Second Life users has been an important focus for us at Linden Lab, and we’ve recently seen some great results from several projects that should make your Second Life experiences faster, smoother, and more reliable. Speeding Up the Marketplace If you visit the Marketplace today, you should be seeing a much snappier experience than in the past. We recently deployed infrastructure upgrades for the Marketplace, and the site has since shown some of the best performance we’ve ever seen from it. Even during peak usage periods over the weekend, when in the past performance would degrade, we’re seeing response times that average 70% faster and page load times that are 30% faster than before the changes. Improving Group Chat Last week, we also deployed new group chat server configurations. Our internal metrics are showing dramatic improvements in group chat performance, and we hope that you’re seeing that in your own experience as well. We are still seeing some cases in which performance for some groups degrades for shorter periods of time than before, and we are continuing to investigate and make changes; the project isn't finished, but we've made a lot of progress. Faster Texture & Mesh Loading The entire grid is now using a CDN service for textures and meshes. This change means that textures and meshes should load more quickly, particularly for those who login to Second Life from places that are far from our US data centers. Our testing showed dramatic improvements: average download times for textures and meshes have been reduced by more than 50% on average, and the improvement is even more dramatic outside of North America. Quicker Viewer-Server Communications Another way we’re enhancing Second Life performance is through our HTTP project, which improves the way your Viewer communicates with grid services. With the HTTP Project Viewer out now, the faster content download times you’ll see thanks to the CDN change get even better - we’re talking 80% faster! As you look for these improvements, please bear in mind this important note from Oz Linden: The CDN (and HTTP in those viewers that have them) improvements for texture and mesh data are improvements to how long it takes to download the data. Once they've been downloaded, your viewer caches them locally so the next time you need that data it doesn't need to download them at all. What that means is that these improvements mostly affect how quickly you see new things: places and objects you've never seen before. You probably won't see a big difference in familiar places because your viewer should be using cached data for those. So... now's the time to try checking out places you've never seen before! The use of pipelined HTTP for the initial load of your inventory when you log in matters every time, since while we cache some inventory data locally we always make sure it's correct by loading it all at the beginning of your session. So, How’s Second Life Performing for You? Performance improvements are generally behind-the-scenes work, and we know it’s not always as exciting as rolling out a new feature, but these changes directly impact all our Second Life experiences and our daily lives inworld. We hope you’re starting to notice the effects of these improvements - if you are, please let us know in the Forums, on Twitter, or however you prefer. Don't forget to grab the latest Official Viewer to experience the improvements.

11.07.2014: An update on performance improvements and adjustments is available here. Second Life was originally designed for nearly all data and Viewer interactions to go through the Simulator server. That is, the Viewer would talk almost exclusively to the specific server hosting the region the Resident was in. This architecture had the advantage of giving a single point of control for any session. It also had the disadvantage of making it difficult to address region resource problems or otherwise scale out busy areas. Over the years we’ve implemented techniques to get around these problems, but one pain point proved difficult to fix: asset delivery, specifically textures and meshes. Recently we implemented the ability to move texture and mesh traffic off the simulator server onto a Content Delivery Network (CDN), dramatically improving download times for Residents while significantly reducing the load on busy servers. Download times for textures and meshes have been reduced by more than 50% on average, but outside of North America those the improvements are even more dramatic. That is great news, but the most amazing improvement has been on the simulator servers themselves. The following chart graphs servers on a production release-candidate channel with high HTTP load conditions before and after we rolled the CDN code onto them: The high load conditions almost completely disappeared! We knew that we would get a major drop in load with the move, but this blew us away. At first we didn’t believe it and spent two days trying to figure out what we did wrong. There was nothing wrong; this was real. The results of all of this are faster scene loads, quicker object rezzing, far fewer problems with fuzzy or cloudy avatars, fewer teleport failures, and more! The feedback from Residents has been fantastic. We’re loving it, too! Everything is just so much snappier. We have finished rolling the CDN code out to the grid, and the results have remained extraordinary. This week, we are also fully releasing our HTTP Project Viewer, which will make the CDN change even better by taking advantage of the elimination of server-side rate limiting. We have been extremely happy with the results so far (psst, we’re talking an 80% reduction in content download times).The CDN benefits are available to everyone regardless of which Viewer you choose to use. All users of the official Viewer will also be able to enjoy the results of the HTTP improvements, and third party developers are able to adopt these changes in their Viewers as well. We are very happy to be finally releasing these improvements to everyone. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Pig Puggle in Little China" by Edmungo . Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "The day of the Dead" by Thalia Heckroth . Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Halloween Hall" by Kynne L. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Storm is coming" by Lam Erin. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

We interrupt this month’s bevy of doom and gloom Halloween themed destinations for some bright and light destinations - but don’t get scared - we’ll return with more delightfully dark treats next week. So stay tuned! This week, the Second Life Destination Guide Highlights leads off with an inworld stroll to help raise Breast Cancer awareness. The event starts Sunday morning, at 9 AM PST - so set your clocks. There’s also an intimate and atmospheric art gallery, some wild music venues, and a chance for you to party your way through Burn2 on the open pixel-playa! And for those of you (like us!) who just can’t get enough trick or treat fun, peruse a shop filled with Halloween and autumn decorations or traverse an island spawned from darkest nightmare. We couldn’t help but include a little seasonal fun. Hoping to get your cool spot in the Destination Guide? Share it. See what other people are up to on the Official Second Life Flickr Page. Making Strides Walk Making Strides Against Breast Cancer is the official breast cancer charity of the American Cancer Society. The Making Strides Walk is an annual event in honor of breast cancer awareness and fundraising. Join the very first Strides Walk on October 26th as everyone makes strides to promote awareness, honor caregivers and survivors and remember those lost. For more information, visit www.makingstridessl.org. Visit in Second Life Petit Chat Art Gallery Underneath a southern French garden soothed by a concert of cicadas stands a dark and peaceful art gallery. The artist, Trinity Yazimoto, gives an ode to the beauty of Second Life. Come see her she gives her whimsical view of both Second Life and life in general. After the visit, why not follow the ladder to a superb garden landscaped by Trixxie Nitely? Visit in Second Life Burn2 A festival of fire, art and community in Second Life, Burn2 is the virtual world version of the real life Burning Man community festival. Burn2 is a unique culture which seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. Visit in Second Life SoulForge Electronica SoulForge Electronica was built by and for lovers of electronic music to present artists from all areas of the genre. Their artist-created mixes are unmistakable and helped to shape the world of sound in Second Life. It is also place for new DJ’s to achieve in private parties and open stages. Come explore the 10 clubs and three open stages of SoulForge. Visit in Second Life Halloween at Snuggles Come to Halloween at Snuggles to find everything, from spooky Halloween stuff to cute Autumn decorations. With over two sims to wander through, your sure to find just what your looking for. Visit in Second Life Mystic Haunted Island Enter if you dare! Ghost, ghouls, zombies, spiders, pirates and more await in Mystic Haunted Island, hidden amongst mist and tombstones. Float a boat along the river, be sure to set your environment to region default to see the blood river at its best and bloodiest. Wander through and enjoy, if you think you'll survive... Visit in Second Life

This Sunday, October 26th, at 9 AM PST you can be a part of Second Life history by attending the 1st Annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk in Second Life. Make strides to promote awareness, support caregivers and survivors, and honor those who have passed. The event takes place at the Making Strides Walk location here. Lace up your most comfortable virtual shoes and show your support by showing up. For specifics about the event, how it works and who it benefits, you can visit the official Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Across Second Life blog.

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Untitled" by Miaa Rebane. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Bones" by Caitlin Tobias. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Keeper of Lost Souls" by Pretty Parkin. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

This time of the year ( and well, all year, really!), residents take pride in pushing dressing up to a whole new level - but as the rollicking extravaganza that is Halloween tears through, leaving ghosts and candy in its wake, the spirit of costuming is off the charts! So embrace the fun, Second Life-style, and partake in some fiendishly fun outfits before exploring yet more of Second Life’s most frightful and delightful offerings! Go on a journey into the mouth of madness at the Haunted Halloween Tour - a treat from the mad scientists at the Linden Lab for everyone. If you survive that ride, wander an outdoor haunting with scenes guaranteed to chill even the bravest of viewers, or find the perfect makeup and costumes at some seasonally festive shopping events. After all that, you may want to take a moment to reacquaint yourself with the earthly realms and visit a charity festival in support of breast cancer research. Don’t forget to share those ghoulish discoveries on the official Second Life Flickr Page and enter them to the 2014 Second Life Fab-OO-lous Snapshot Contest for a chance to win some L$s. Do you prefer your Halloweens dark and gritty or bright and candy-filled? Let us know and show us your Halloween spirit! Haunted Halloween Tour What will you do this Halloween? Help children with a sugar fix? Buy overpriced masks from big-box stores? Do something different, something frightening and fun. Linden Lab is proud to present the Haunted Halloween Tour. Strap in and prepare to experience haunts, ghouls, death, scares, and a descent through madness itself. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart! Visit in Second Life Damned Divine Haunted House Come visit the Damned Divine sim-wide haunted house experience! Will you survive the many and varied intricately-terrifying horror zones? Visit in Second Life The Cosmetics Fair Halloween Edition Running from through October 31st, the Cosmetics Fair Halloween Edition is a great place for all your makeup, henna, freckles, blushes... Know what? Come here for all of it. Visit in Second Life Bloody Horror Fair Running from October 15th through November 5th, the Bloody Horror Fair is a place of dark deals and delightfully grim fashion. Come see a host of vendors offering everything your dark heart desires in this darkly atmospheric locale. Visit in Second Life Cure Con Festival 2014 Cure Con is a nerdy/geeky/gamer-themed event with a heavy focus on pink, breast cancer awareness, costuming and cosplay. Come see amazing items from some of Second Life's nerdiest designers! For more information, be sure to visit http://bit.ly/1w43EJA. Visit in Second Life

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Zombie Glam" by ByrneDarkly Cazalet. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!