The Lindens have finally done it.,,

For the past month, each update to the Second Life (SL) client and SL Grid have made using SL more and more problematic. It seemed that they were making progress with the First Look viewers (which were a kind of full-on beta test on the live Grid), but no more.

Now, a new experience for me, and apparently many others. The Lindens have now borked the logon system somehow.

As it was, sim performance, even on my private land on a residential sim, was getting ridiculously slow. Now, apparently, it has ground to a complete halt.

Just lately, my experience has been that I need to park somewhere to chat or IM my SL friends, because once I begin to move around, everything goes haywire. This has gotten much, much worse in the last two weeks in particular.

I hope this latest update actually fixes something. It would be nice to see Linden Labs do the XP-Service-Pack-2 deal. Stop most forward movement whilst they squash bugs and scale sims.

A guy can dream...

@home Entertainment Designs

@home Entertainment Designs is a provider of various video and audio entertainment systems in Second Life.

Their primary product is a video screen. But not just any video screen. Theirs are large, elegant, and are capable of keeping you entertained for hours. The screens tune in four types of programming:

1. Freely-available television shows and movies
2. Internet-radio-based audio streams
3. Music videos from two distinct channels (HD and MTV)
4. Some adult content
   

These four items come with the screen as part of the package. As of now, no monthly fees or rental fees are required once you purchase the screen. Some of the movies are old, and probably public-domain by now, but I did stumble across a classic Vincent Price horror movie, so you never know what you may see next.

@home also sells free-standing radios. In addition to the usual high-tech-display model (looking much like a satellite radio receiver), they sell radios-in-disguise. These radios take on the shape of a Calla Lily, or a tissue box. One might assume that any sufficient shape might hide a radio, but I neglected to ask if they do custom work.

@home also sells repeater screens, so you only have to buy one "tuner" to feed video to all parts of your home. This is handy, since it also means you really have only one TV to turn on and off. The repeaters work by echoing whatever the main screen does.

Their quality craftsmanship and creativity are matched only by their customer service. When my wife and I managed to bork our giant-size Wonder TV, the shop-owner himself, Mr. nightlife Overlord, came to the rescue, replacing the Wonder with the correct version for us. He even swapped out our separate remote unit to ensure it was synced to the Wonder. (Yes, you can fight over the remote in SL, too!)

We received fabulous customer support and we are very impressed. We hope every experience we have in SL is so rewarding.

You can find Mr. Overlord's shop here.