Sitting with my pink prim

A cute little pink prim has been living in my house for almost a couple weeks now, quietly monitoring various statistics for the region Bay City - Dennis. "Pinkie" – formally known as Ansi's Performance Prim (and available from Ansi Soderstrom here by subscription) – would have been very helpful back in the day when I helped out the the Isle of Lesbos for she (yes, like cars, ships, and airplanes, the prim is a girl) tracks various data points from the sim such as prim usage, frame rate, traffic (the number of visitors in a given time period), and more, all of which is then reported on a secure Web site (see below).

Estate managers will love this. For example, by knowing a region's "natural" performance peaks and lulls event planners can see what times might be best to stage events. In the same vein, access to detailed traffic numbers can be used to judge how well said events were received. Did traffic drop shortly after the DJ started a Cantonese Bluegrass set at quarter past the hour? Just drag over the little time span box below the graph to "zoom in" on the data.

This view lets me see how busy Bay City - Dennis was during the Thursday night "Rumble" car race and compare it to the general performance of the region as shown by the red Frames Per Second Line. There was some peak lag and I can see where the sim emptied of racers during the legs that crossed into adjacent regions. I can guess that the sim crossings caused the lag spikes. By mousing over data points I can even see the names of those present. Imagine being able to tag griefers by name!

The panel above contains useful information should an Estate Owner/Manager need to contact Concierge Services about issues with the region, in particular the last date/time the region was restarted and the sever information.

Pinkie is alone in my world but an Estate Owner/Manager could put out one on each region to be monitored and reported on the Web. Unlike some systems I've seen, there's no need to teleport to the reporting prim for information. In fact, there's no need to log into Second Life at all. This also reduces the total Land Impact (LI) needed compared to some systems (I saw one the other day when I was exploring it was something like 20 LI as it rezzed prims as needed for various data points).

This is a Beta service for now but it is working very, very well so far. The cubed needed to be replaced once when the monitoring site was suffered a DDoS attack. And there was one update when Ansi found a minor bug (which I never noticed).

The update process was amusing. I dropped the updater on the ground and it zipped about to find Pinkie. After a couple moments the crosshairs disappeared and a Torley Linden-themed sphere orbited Pinkie for a few more moments then de-rezzed itself upon update completion.

Ansi plans additional features, too: Memory usage by avatar; E-mail alerts based on activity; Ban list control; and "onethousandtwentyfourandahalf other features" to come. Of course, Ansi's exceptional customer service (she proactively contacted me several times) and all these features aren't free. As I mentioned, this is a subscription service but the cost is very low at L$250/week ($1.32 USD as of this writing ... less than a cup of coffee).

Yes, Pinkie is quite the gadget. Regular readers know I don't normally review products (full disclosure: Ansi sent a demo unit to me) but Ansi's Performance Prim is certainly an item I will tell my friends about. Any Estate Owner/Manager will find this tool helpful and well worth the investment.

 

Stop Reading This

Stop reading this and head on over to Honour McMillan's blog now for her post about an SL Text-to-Speech device from Ferd Frederix.

What? Back already? Or you didn't go? Well, I'll summarize, but go there sometime to read about the gadget that could help all us mute (unable to speak) folks in SL.

Basically, if I wear a HUD and give out a special Website URL to those around me in-world, what I type is spoken on the Website so others "hear me" participating in the conversation. No more getting ignored in groups as Voice users gradually ignore chat as time goes on. Maybe. I haven't tried it in a group yet. I noticed that the system reads what objects say, too, like the tour boat on Phaze, the sim where I got the device (SLurl). There is a version for Viewer 2 users that requires in-world Shared Media, too. In fact, if you are a user of v2, wander about the sim to explore ... lots of Shared Media treats. The place is a blast to explore and the shop has tons of unique freebies, including vehicles, pets, gadgets, and more. I've been here for an hour now and stopped exploring only to write this post.

WTFrak was I thinking?

One of the first things I did in the New Year was to become a guest writer for Gadgets for the virtual world, a blog created by my friend Peter Stindberg. I'll be one of several recruits adding posts in the coming weeks. There will be the occasional link back to posts on this blog as I have a few items about gadgetry in-world. If there is a gadget you would like for me to write about, drop me a note card or contact me through the gadget blog.

Product Review: (mirada)smartCAM

Fate picked me to beta test a wonderful new product, the (mirada)smartCAM. Specifically, it was Damien Fate, the maker (and ebil genius behind great things like Loco Pocos). Why me? It pays to be quick. And to beg. Not sure cuteness was a factor. But I got to play for a few days and I love it.

In the picture above you'll see a HUD in the upper right. It controls a camera that you rez from your inventory. For one function, simply cam to the view you want, press a HUD button to memorize it, and do that up to 6 more times. Then whenever you want, you can have your camera go back to each of those presets quickly and easily. The inset shows three of the views I had from where I was standing as shown in the bigger picture. I was watching my Shilo (such a sweetie), then watching what she was building, and keeping an eye on the Lucky Board in one of my shops (SLurl). The Big Pic was a fourth preset, but I arranged things so you could see there orb-camera in the view. Normally it trails behind your camera's focus point, usually behind you unless you alt-mouse a new view.

Which is part of the other function of the gadget: Follow Cam. Of sorts. You can give a special HUD to anyone else and their view will synchronize with yours with the press of a button. Imagine shopping and being able to show someone across the store what you found. Of course, scripts must be enabled and you need rez rights, but you get the idea. This made me think of all those school trips where the teacher used a laser pointer to show everyone where we should work. In SL® folks often use their "edit" beam to point, but that isn't always effective. With the synchronized views an instructor has better assurance the students are watching. This would also be great for group builds and machinima projects. For the latter, the HUD can display framing guides.

The potential uses are many and varied. One of my concerns was security. There is a function to make the camera invisible, great if multiple people are using the system for a machinima project, but that gives it the potential to be a spy device. At my suggestion Damien added hovertext on the camera so anyone seeing it would know who the operator is without needing to "inspect" it but that hides when the camera does. The preset views function gives it great utility for security officers, though, so I guess there is a balance. You are limited only by your draw distance (if your graphics are set to High, many prims and avatars won't be visible past 128m even though you can have the preset across a whole region) and your cleverness.

A very good manual is included and covers many of the details I didn't mention here. You can also read an overview on the Loco Pocos blog or simply buy one and play with it yourself. It's a hoot to use and very useful.

Wandering Flip Title

When I started a shop in Second Life some time ago my Freebie Box contained a number of gadgets including a hover text titler called a FlipTitle. Little did I know that upon first use the item would notify me of the new owner and location. At first it was amusing but as more folks visited my shop or passed on a copy of the box the messages became annoying. After some work I managed to all but kill the messages. Apparently, though, a major retailer has included my original box with a collection of freebs from around the grid so about once a week or so I still get a message from a FlipTitle. Kinda reminds me of the Geo Bear project ... a stuffed bear clothed with a backpack stuffed with pre-addressed/stamped postcards is given to someone who takes it "far away" before sending back one of the cards and passing the bear on to someone else.

Bouncy Bosoms

I'll try to update this with pix, but right now I'm too angry.

There is no way I can recommend the Bouncing Bosom Tintable Wife Beater Top by Raven Ivanova (available on SLex, her store, or discussed here).

Cripes. I wish I had seen the review on SLex before buying this product in the store. The way that this even remotely works is a black shirt with black prims. Otherwise you have a tinted shirt with texture and tinted prims with no texture. The picture on SLex is the same as the one in the store ... completely contrary to what it looks like in-world.

To the maker's credit, they do mention in several places that the product does not work well with Windlight-based viewers. What they should say is that it does not work at all. I tried an older viewer and some colour combos were acceptable but as most folks don't use those viewers (or tweak graphics on the newer viewers per the maker's instructions) there is no point. This product should not be sold as is. Either updated pictures should be show comparing the viewer types or the product needs to be pulled. This was purchased for me as a gift and I felt so bad I gave the generous person thier money back.

I also don't understand why an AO is in the box if the post-purchase information notes that the effect doesn't work with AOs. There is no mention before purchase about this serious problem.

I agree with Aydan Darcy: "Don't waste your money.

(posted here)