Finally Declared Dead…to iTunes

A long time ago in the summer of 2006 I tried to start a weekly podcast called "The Weekly Warf Show" but it was kinda…really…boring. So it went into my archive of Podfade.

It was of course submitted to iTunes, but I deleted the show and its feed last year. However iTunes has only just caught up with this revelation

Dear Podcast Owner
The podcast located at the URL shown below has been blocked or removed from the iTunes directory as a result of technical problems with the feed.
Name: The Weekly Warf Show
Feed URL: http://www.podshow.com/feeds/warf.xml

I wonder how many dead podcast feeds still lie on the surface of the iTunes store…

More on the Dazzle

OK, so a previous post of mine about Dazzle got some traffic and I was informed that the idea of Dazzle is that it can indeed be skinned. Thats great. Infact Itazura Radio even linked me to some skins that are already being shown on the Second Life wiki.

After some prodding around on what it can do I’ve come to some conclusions and formed an opinion.

The current methodology of skinning is far too complicated for newbies and people who aren’t fans of editing code. I personally don’t mind getting around the code and copying & pasting stuff but some people just may not want to touch it.

Secondly, there appears to be no menu in the preferences that allows the changing of skins on the fly.

Also, there are no tools currently that could help people create and customise their own skins.

So here is my proposal on what I think needs to happen. Firstly, the Linden’s need to get their act together and bring in an easier system of importing GUI skins. They should do this by adding a new tab on the preferences called “Interface” or “Skins” (or anything else that describes it. Calling it just a Skin could confuse some people because of the avatar skins).

Next they need to implement a new structure on how skins can be stored. IE. SecondLife\Skins\* (* being the name of the interface)

Then the lindens should make a program that makes it easy for people to create GUI’s as easily as possible. If the lindens don’t do this then it should be fairly easy for someone to make a GUI application in something like Visual Basic .NET or whatever the tools are for the Macintosh. Preferably an open source tool since then its free for all and people can contribute and improve the code and stuff.

Thats my opinions for the designing. I personally don’t mind editing code but I would trade it any day for a simple little tool that can help me easily make a GUI for the new Dazzle interface.

Remember, It’s only a Server

Last week the Lindens announced that they were going to be introducing a new land store system which promises almost instant delivery of sims. With this a price drop was announced for the purchasing of Estate simulators.

When the new Land Store launches, setup fees will be:

* Normal Islands: USD$1000 setup
* Normal Openspaces: USD$250 setup
* Educational Islands: USD$700 setup
* Educational Openspaces: USD$175 setup

For some reason people started to interperet this as being a move against the OpenSim project or that the Lindens are having poor sales.

But if you take a logical approach to it. You will realise that it really isn’t the case. The fact is that technology gets cheaper and cheaper. Take an iPod for example. As more features and storage is added, the prices drops. This is the way that the tech industry moves and it obviously ripples into Second Life.

But wait, what about OpenSim?

Well… I am pretty sure that just last week, it was announced that OpenSim and Linden Lab are working together to integrate OpenSim servers into Second Life.

How is that going to work?

I think that they will probably have a message that pops up every time you enter the area of an OpenSim based server like, “This is a third-party server and Linden Lab is not responsible for what may happen”.

Personally I am excited about the prospect of having third-party servers in Second Life as this will lead to even cheaper server options for people. Of course all the backing up is down to the third-party or you instead of Second Life, hence the cheaper aspect. After all part of the cost for sims is that you need to pay the maintainence fees, backup charges, bandwidth etc.

As stability slowly comes to Second Life…so does some really exciting stuff that I just love the idea of.

Ebuyer Woes

It is very rare for me to do a blog entry on the Real Life, however recent times have prompted me to talk about the technology store Ebuyer and how it sucks for first time users looking to make a quick delivery!

Now earlier in the week one of my uncles came to my house (he only lives down the road) and was looking to get an iPod for my aunt’s birthday (the birthday has not happened yet, but they don’t have an internet connection so posting this blog entry is a safe bet…). The iPod he was looking for was a pink one. Luckily Apple introduced a pink version a couple of weeks back so it was all good.

We decided to try out ebuyer. I had heard about this site before and I thought it was a trusted source for a quick order. The delivery was set to arrive on Thursday and I thought, cool we can get the iPod stuffed with songs for a week and everything will be fine.

On wednesday we get a phone call asking about added Identity Verification. So I sent over ID proving who I was over email and it took about 17 hours for a reply saying UTILITY BILL UNVERIFIED. So I send another one straight away and after 24 hours there was no reply. I cancelled the order over the phone and thought to myself that this is not a good way to do delivery. It is not really user friendly for a first time user who wants to get something Quick and Easy.

Maybe I was just an unlucky one. But today I got the nano from a store and that was no hassle at all. The only problem I had (this is just stuff that bugs me…) was them saying that you need to charge the iPod up when you get home blah blah blah… in my personal experience of using 4 iPods… NEVER has one had no battery life. It was not different this time.

Anyway heres some photos of the pink iPod nano 8GB

Warf Designs comes to Podcast Island

After realizing that the Mainland wasn’t really a good choice for a place to put a store…what with the ugly builds and stuff..I decided to buy another plot over at Podcast Island. Overall it turns out to be cheaper and it may actually get a few sales…also  the SLPN build is just a jump away which makes me go YAY! (yay)

New Second Life Blogroll coming soon!

OK, its been a long time since i did an entry to this blog, but i will be doing an update to the blogroll soon. In the meantime i will also be using a new strategy to do my blogging. I will upload my own pictures to this server and then blog in a nice quality. The gallery will store all my pictures soon.

Coming Soon…

The return of my store called Warfy Warez is coming soon, once i can figure this vendor out i should start selling clothing again. Nice little vendor booth i made for the store i’d say. I will let you all be informed as soon as i can get it all set up posted by Stuart Warf on SoHo using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Gomem Sells Clothes

Gomem Desoto is now selling clothing on the top of his castle on SoHo Island. I have part helped him out with his venture as i made the graphic saying the costs of the products. If you like the military jackets by him then i advise you to go ahead and fetch yourself a copy or better yet IM him for a custom version with name-tag on the back. Come to think of it maybe i should bring back my old store called Warfy’s Warez .

(Image Source from Gomem’s Blog)

Search is Back…sorta

Yesterday Search was restored by the Lindens…however you are unable to search with the control if you are on an Estate (Private Island). This could be annoying for me as i spend a lot of time now on Private Sims.