Don't Install v2.8.0.236429

The march of Second Life viewer updates continues and I've installed v2.8.0.236429 from The Lab despite the ominous warning on the Release Notes page. Really, now much notice did The Lab need that a new operating system was coming for one of the most popular-selling computing ecosystems available? Even I could have paid the fee to become a developer and receive all the materials necessary to create or update applications. Not that I'd have the talent to be a developer, but I would hope that someone at The Lab would be so blessed.

But judging by the way the new Region Environment Settings have been implemented, I begin to doubt that there is such a person (or persons). Somehow, they've managed to add several steps to the process of adjusting Windlight settings. There is now no direct way to access the individual settings used for small tweaks to any Preset. Further, the control panels that one can eventually access are larger than before, thus blocking more of the view so one has to continually move the pane about to judge the changes, even on a big 27" monitor with 2560 x 1293 resolution.

Another example of The Lab demonstrating a lack of technical ability? Our Web Profiles. If you log http://my.secondlife.com/ you will see the new "Facebook"-like commenting system that is preconfigured to decrease your privacy by allowing others to post comments to your Profile. If you don't want this feature, you can turn it off, but it should be off by default. Until you do that you'll also have the viewer stall much like when Friends sign on or off (the system updates your Calling Cards when that happens and it causes the viewer to "stutter") whenever a comment is posted because you see a notice in-world.

In-viewer bugs have made Profiles in accessible starting with v2.7 so I don't know if I can post or read Profile comments or not.  And the comment notices cause a noticeable freeze just like when friends log in or out.

Rough comments from someone who usually defends The Lab's viewers, I know, but they are completely off base with these changes. Instead of looking for someone to rebrand Second Life (Web) I think they need to hire a GUI design specialist. Google did for it's new Google+ (Web) ... why can't The Lab?