A better SL client?

December 23, 2007
http://viewer.onrez.com/

Made by the Electric Sheep Company (hopefully not the people that just got laid off…).  It was originally done to integrate with their CSI build, but has now gone non-themed.   

I’ve used it for a few hours now.  The UI is cleaned up a lot, but also a little more Fisher-Price (not in colors, but in that “bigger than it needs to be” way).  Most if not all the keyboard commands are the same, so that’s nice.

The biggest step forward is probably the integrated web-browser.  This strikes me as a big move to the future, where the 2D and 3D webs start to blend. And you can launch your link from the OnRez browser out to your standard desk-top browser if you want to or need to (the integrated browser is very lightweight at this time).

The only thing I don’t like is the lack of an integrated Communication pallet.  That was the single biggest improvement Linden has made to their viewer since I started using it.  The OnRez parts are better–they just need to be put together.

I also get more time out of my battery using OnRez vs. the official Linden client, indicating it is probably more tuned as well.  Lag, however, seems the same.

Any way, for those of you that spend any time in SL, I recommend at least checking it out.

Second Life in AJAX

July 24, 2007

And open-sourced. Pretty cool, if only as an experiment:http://blog.katharineberry.co.uk/category/ajaxlife/And the developer? She’s a teenager. Outstanding.