As Akela previously indicated, Havok4 is indeed out on the preview grid. Andrew Linden gracefully donated some of his time answering a few questions and he will be available for office hours this weekend. Should you want to chat with him directly:

Go to the Brampton Linden Stage (Brampton 106/166/25)

This Saturday September 29, 2007 08:00 AM PDT

Tuesdays 21:00 PDT (ongoing)

Thursdays (starting October 4, 2007) 08:00 PDT

Thanks for your time, Andrew!

Linden Lab tells us that Second Life will be taken offline for an update on Wednesday, 6 June. The grid is going down from 6am to noon SLT (US Pacific) for an update to 1.17.0. So ... what are we getting?

That's a little harder to say. The notice begged off giving any actual information until Tuesday, however, the beta grid (Aditi) has been updated with 1.17.0 and the release notes for that are available.

1.17.0 contains your recommended fortnightly intake of bugfixes, plumbing for assorted memory leaks, and the beta version contains expanded voice systems - which will not be a part of the version rolled out onto the main grid on 6 June.

The current Second Life beta test grid (Aditi) has been updated with 1.16.0(4). Linux is back on the beta grid menu again.

No official or unofficial announcement has been made of the update at this time, so here's the bugfix list for this version:

Bug fixes:

• Fixed VWR-657: Beta -> Linux -> Startup -> Crash
• Fixed object loss occuring when taking an item
• Fixed render issues with tapered cubes
• Fixed sculpt texture loss after when texture picker is cancelled
• Fixed flexible sculpted prims becoming distorted
• Fixed textures applied to sculpted prim at a 90 degree rotation

Get the beta viewer for Windows, Mac and Linux from the usual place.

The beta grid has been 1.16.0(1) fixing all the bugs that Linden Lab says they know to exist with sculptable prims - although existing sculpt textures will provide inverted displacement (your inny bits will be outed, and your outy bits will be innards). To fix that, flip your texture horizontally.

This version also introduces a new communication function: llRegionSay() which will chat to every listener in the region, but cannot use channel 0 (open chat).

We guess (but do not know) that this release is being aimed for 23 May. Either way you should check it out. Grab it from the usual place or see the release notes here.

The current Second Life beta test grid (Aditi) has been updated with 1.15.0 (the version formerly known as 1.14.1). This version is not going to fly this week because of a number of unresolved issues. From where I'm sitting, I guess I owe thanks to the people who downloaded it, got themselves onto the beta, hammered at it, and reported issues. Without them, we'd have been in a world of hurt on Wednesday.

I'm definitely going to take the time to try it out myself this week. Everyone's effort counts as a gain for every Second Life resident. Even the smallest efforts can be worth a lot. Get your beta stuff here.

Linden Lab has released a new beta onto the preview grid. This contains a new useful LSL function call (one that many scripters will find extremely welcome) as well as a number of bug-fixes contributed by the community. By far the largest change in the new release is a major change to IMs and group messaging. Probably the largest change to those systems since the messaging scalability upgrades that came in with 1.9 (and are still very troublesome).

The release triggers an annoying interaction with the voice beta viewer, however. When the voice beta viewer launches it believes there is an update available. That update is the 1.14.1(1) non-voice beta viewer -- which, if you're a prospective voice beta-tester is most definitely not what you want. If your voice beta viewer is accidentally overwritten by the update, you'll need to replace it. People testing the new non-voice viewer on the beta grid can get it here.

The bug-fixes have been coming through pretty much daily on the beta grid, and the final testing preparatory to wrapping it up and deploying it on the main grid is starting. It's not yet been announced, but it's likely that next Wednesday, the 14th will be the day.

Perhaps the update will include the maintenance work that was supposed to happen to improve load-handling and stability. It's unclear how the various maintenance teams go about their tasks during an update. Perhaps Linden Lab will publish a bit of an essay on the process at some point.

The next version of Second Life is live on the beta grid. Version 1.13.3(0) is slated for release on Wednesday, January 31 in the usual 7am-Noon SLT timeslot. If there are bugs you care about, check out the beta-grid and see how well it all behaves, and if your pet bug is fixed.

As with all recent releases, this one is focused on bug fixes and load-reduction on the databases. The most obvious of those will be the search changes previously mentioned, but other changes are hinted at, along with some unspecified bug-fixes.

The beta viewer is available in the usual place, along with the currently available release notes.

The soon-to-be-a-viewer update, version 1.13.2(13) is up on the preview/beta grid now for your testing pleasure. Linden Lab kindly arranged the preview, rather than springing it on us at the last moment.

This release separates the settings files for beta and First Look viewers from the regular viewer settings so that one cannot mess up the other, and the promised fixes to the build window. There are several other changes listed in the release notes.

You can download the viewer from the usual place, but the beta grid account database only includes accounts created before the account database was copied to it on the 18th of January. If your account was created after that time, you will not be able to log in to the beta grid.

The latest beta is up on the test grid. Remember, we've got an update going ahead on Wednesday January 17 (in case you'd forgotten). The latest beta is 1.13.2(7).

If you're a Mac user you'll spot pretty quickly that the viewer crashes whenever you cross a sim border. Apparently that's being worked on, and is not actually considered to be a final feature for Wednesday's release.

This is a last chance to spot any show-stoppers before Wednesday's update. Do yourself a favor and make the most of it. The download is in the usual place, and the release notes will be here, when someone remembers to update them.

If you are one of those adventurous Second Life members that loves checking out thing early, you can now preview the 1.13.2(2) build on the Beta Test Grid. So, what do you get for your troubles? Well according to the Official Linden Blog, the important bits are:

• "sim-caps" is enabled in this viewer/grid combination.
• One tiny (and oft-requested) new feature: the World Map now has a "Copy SLURL to clipboard" button
• "Xyz is typing..." no longer causes IM tab to flash
• A ton of performance and scaling improvements to searching (although this isn't obvious on the beta grid)
• ...and lots of other bug fixes and infrastructure improvements.

I look forward to the "Copy SLURL to the clipboard" button, but I think the "sim-caps" will be the greatest change to come to the grid. That is, "simulator capabilities" that will enable communications using some standard web technologies including TCP, HTTP, SSL, XML. It all gets a bit complicated, but it should seamlessly improve performance and capabilities of the grid. Check out Zero Linden's post on the subject for a more detailed explanation of the changes.

Residents are expressing concerns publically this weekend on the Linden Lab blog, in addition to filing bug reports about a number of seemingly serious issues that they have encountered on the Preview Grid.

"[I]f this is what we're getting on Wednesday we're all in deep doodoo," said a resident identified only as Beebee, citing movement problems, and disappearing inventory items, particularly clothing.

Miles Sullivan gives repros for two major bugs, "one is an utter showstopper", both involving attachments.

Still, these got caught before Monday. There's still time for the Linden Lab dev team to explore and fix these before the update, if we're lucky.

The next release of the Second Life viewer/grid software is scheduled for Wednesday December 13, in the usual 7am - Noon SLT (Second Life Time) timeslot. You can try it out by getting the viewer from the usual place (noting, that Linden Lab forgot to update the Beta Grid release notes there). Short of emergency fixes, it's likely that this is the last major update for 2006.

As with every update for most of 2006, this one is comprised almost entirely of bug-fixes, with a very few alterations or enhancements. Interested residents should get in there and hammer it. I don't recall ever logging on to the beta grid and not finding four or five things to bug report in the first ten minutes.

If nothing else, it's a chance to find out if Linden Lab accidentally broke your stuff, and a chance to let them know in time to unbreak it before it all hits the Main Grid, with a soggy thump. Some of you don't want to do Linden Lab any favors, but think about doing yourselves one.

Try it. If it breaks your stuff, eats your data, causes hairloss and albinism in pets and the elderly, now is a good time to raise your voice and say 'WTF?' -- because if you wait until Monday, that might just be too late.