[A Farewell From Jack]

Irrespective of outcomes and opinions, the presence of someone to whom concerns could be directly and sometimes effectively addressed,  and who made efforts to respond, was of great value. It was a tough role and it will be hard to find a replacement, or sad if there is none.

[Mesh Import Open Beta Starts Today]

You can choose to upload textures referenced in the Collada file, but it simply uploads them usiong the existing texture upload mechanism. It will tell you in the dialog how many textures it is uploading. It does not apply them to the mesh and they are not included in the mesh asset. They should be in your textures folder. You apply them to the mesh just as you would for any other prim, drag them onto a face or select face (or all faces) and set texture in the edit dialog. You can also change them and animate them in scripts.

[Changes to Display Names Based on Your Feedback]

The Display Names project also allows us to simplify the registration  process. In the past, name choice has been a point at which many  potential Residents abandon the process.

So, since an unique user name is (presumably?) still required, how will that now be chosen and how will that differ from the current process to make this less inhibitory? Furthermore, how do you know those who stopped here (a) were indeed "potential Residents" or (b) did not come back after thinking about a name and/or to get a different name list (as I did) ?

[Introducing the new JIRA]

Agreed. Horrible layout. Very inefficient use of space. Ridiculous big font reducing how much the screen can hold. Very poor discrimination of jumbled up sections. BUT there is a way out! Change view to printable and it's almost the same as the old jira. Much more readable.