Ok, back to reality...LL Competitive Practices

Wake Up everyone, I know you have fainted from my last posting, and quite frankly, I'm still pretty darn happy with the new Viewer and SHARED MEDIA; actually if someone out there has the talent to do Web-Development but can't think of ideas on how to use this SHARED MEDIA, contact me in-world, I got a LOAD of ideas for people.

Now, with that being said, I need to bring us all back to Reality, because while one good thing happened from Linden Lab, it doesn't excuse them for the other areas of their Business, and today I think it's time we talk about the Competitive Business Practices from Linden Lab.

Many of you probably don't remember this, but way way way back when our friend Philip was still sitting at the Helm of Linden Lab, he made it a point to let everyone know that Linden Lab WOULD NEVER directly compete against the Customer Base. Of course, we all know that this "policy" was shot down a while ago with Linden Lab acquisitions such as Web-Sites that dealt in the buying and selling of Lindens, Web-Sites that dealt with the buying and selling of Items and Services, and the most recently, Linden Lab has intruded on the Land Lease/Rental market.

My review of these "Premium Homes" that are there for the taking by all Premium Members is really not very nice. The houses look like nothing more then cardboard cut-outs from the 1950's. Not only do they look incredibly dull, but they are packed in so tight you would think Linden Lab couldn't afford a new Server here and there. Overall, the Premium Home experience will be a detriment to keeping New Residents in Second Life. They already have issues with the basic understanding of our World, and now they are going to be given the absolute worse experience in Virtual Home Ownership. I guess we can mark this idea down as, "a bad idea all the way around".

Not withstanding the creepiness of the Premium Homes, Linden Lab has set themselves to be in Direct Competition with one of the Strongest Customer Bases they have; Island Owners. I can't help but to agree with so many of the voices that are crying "FOUL" for this endeavor. Linden Lab not only is in Direct Compeition, but they also chose to CHEAT in order to be in Direct Competition. If you got and inspect these Premium Home areas you will notice that the Homes themselves are constructed of 117 PRIMS. Now normally a 512sq m area only serves up 117 PRIMS, except here in Linden Land, where the 117 PRIMS used for the houses, don't count against the Parcel Prim Count. Instead, the Premium Homes allow for another 117 PRIMS for Decor. So, in order for Linden Lab to compete with their own Customers, they have decided to "stack the deck" in their favor. This is probably a good idea considering how mediocre these homes are. Why it took Jack Linden and the Public Works Department 117 PRIMS for these homes is anyone's guess. I know almost all the really good builders in Second Life, and they could have created immensly more creative homes with 117 PRIMS, then what Linden Lab came up with. Not only that, but why does Linden Lab feel that they need to CHEAT and give themselves DOUBLE PRIMS on their Servers; which btw, they continue to say that this will only cause more lag and is the reason they don't do it for everyone, so what they are saying now is, that they are providing shabbily built cut-outs that will be dreadfully laggy.

What upsets me here, is not that Linden Lab chose to compete with their own Customer Base, but they decided to CHEAT to give themselves an "advantage". I think all Island Owners, no matter if you are in a Homestead or a Full Island, should immediately request that Linden Lab re-configure their Islands with DOUBLE the amount of PRIMS, since we know it can be done, and apparently the lag isn't really that big of a deal.

So, Jack, Blue, M, tell us will you, when we all of us Island Owners be upgraded to the same PRIM Count utilized on your own Islands? You keep saying that your "Regime" is better then the "Old Regime"; least the "Old Regime" didn't try to CHEAT when they competed against their Customers. So, is this the "New Regime" way of doing things, CHEAT if you can't compete?

Of course, I know you all will continue to remain silent, what a surprise, but your silence only goes to affirm my position; otherwise you wouldn't HIDE behind your desks all day, doing nothing.

Hell Freezes Over....Film at 11

Well, I know everyone thought this day would NEVER come, but I've always said, if Linden Lab ever did anything right, I would applaud them for it.

Today, that has happened. While I may not have had the time to delve deeply into this new Beta Viewer, I have been able to look thru it, explore it's different tabs, and items, and I must say, "Fucking Well Done!"

While I don't think this Viewer will help the New Resident as much as those as Linden Lab think it will, I do think it's a HUGE improvement for those of us who are quite familiar with the old Viewer.

I LOVE the fact that I can now make the Text GROW LARGE (Nice of LL to realize some of us are getting older and are eyesight isn't as good as it use to be). Having the right side menu tabs takes a bit to get used to, but, again, I like it better then what it used to be.

So, here's to the UI Team, you aren't Lazy or Incompetent, and for that, I applaud you and your work. Just one thing, please don't be surprised when this Viewer does more to confuse the New Residents then to help them. Remember, I've said this for years, it's not the UI, it's the whole New User experience. When Linden Lab removed Orientation Island, New Residents had more issues, because they were forced to learn the basics. Yes, sometimes you need to make your Customers go through something in order to make their experience better.

I was going to take this last bit to ride the other departments there at Linden Lab, but you know what, this new Viewer has impressed me enough, that I won't take shots at other departments, once again, Good Fucking Job UI Staff!

Linden Lab doesn't play favorites!

Hey everyone, well here's a twist. Linden Lab isn't playing favorites when it comes to their new Customer Base, Avatar's United, as seen here:

Avatars United Log In Issues

[Posted Feb 23, 2010; 7:30pm] Some users may experience some errors when attempting to log in to their account on Avatars United. We are aware of the issues and are working to resolve the issue. If you are unable to log in, we recommend you wait a short period and try again. We will update this post when we have more information.

Glad to know that Linden Lab is planning on pissing off their new Customer Base as much as they've pissed off their Old One.

I guess I was wrong when I said Linden Lab played favorites all those times. Way to go guys, keep up the wonderfully incompetent work!

Linden Lab goes along a way to prove my POINT!

Over the past few entries I've been talking about how Linden Lab has either hired Lazy or Incompetent Employees. This past week, Linden Lab has gone out of its way to actually prove my point. Just follow the LINK and have a read, come back when you are done though, we should talk about this!

This all started with the rollout of Server 1.36 code. The initial release was causing VENDORS (you know those things that are really really rare and hard to test with) to behave in a very bad way. Vendors? Really? I would love to see the numbers of just how many VENDORS there are in Second Life, most likely it's an astronomical result. So, and I'm just asking a simple question here, why did this happen? Did ANYONE do any kind of testing with this new Server Code? Seriously, how can you miss something like this in testing? You would think that during a Test, someone at Linden Lab would have the top 10 Vendor Systems running just to be sure they were operating correctly after a Server Upgrade; well, at least that makes sense for those of us who have lived and worked in IT most of our Adult Lives.

Anyway, after "The Lab" rescinded the Upgrade process, they "correct" the mistake and try to install the NEW Server Code. Here's something I get upset over, especially when I was managing Coders, but when you find a MAJOR bug in the code you first released, you should spend a LOT of time to be sure that the FIX you are applying WORKS and then go back to the start of your Testing and test it all over again. This way, you SHOULD be able to find ANY OTHER BUGS that might have been caused by your fix or perhaps you missed one or two in the original testing. I would tell my Staff that if there are any more BUGS in the code, especially after you were to have FIXED it, then there jobs were on the line. Unfortunately though, "The Lab" has different ideas about just how well their Employee's perform their Jobs, because after they re-released the new Server Code, there was ANOTHER MAJOR BUG found! This one has apparently something to do with Content Creation Protection, again, NOT something that would be too difficult to test for.

All too often I have pointed out the obvious here and now "The Lab" has done is best to PROVE the point I was making. I guess at "The Lab" as long as your butt is in the seat, then you will have a job. Too bad, because once again, this just serves to show us all, that the New Boss is the same as the Old Boss.

Looks like we got fooled again..

Lazy, Incompetent...and now Liars?

Hey everyone, if you haven't heard the lastest Marketing PLOY by Linden Lab, then you just have to hear this. For every NEW Premium Member that signs up in Second Life, Linden Lab will give them 1000L AND a FREE HOME that the new Premium Member can decorate to his/her wishes; isn't it wonderful that Linden Lab proves themselves to be LIARS?

Liars? What, you ask, am I speaking about? Well, a few years ago, the Customers of Linden Lab were promised that Linden Lab would NEVER directly Compete with the Customers of Linden Lab. Just in case you can't see the point to my rant today, let me explain. When Linden Lab decided to give away LAND and HOME to new Premium Member, they are in direct competition with Land Rental/Sales People AND to those people that product Pre-Fab Homes. Not only that, but they are also UNFAIRLY competing with the Land Rental/Sales people by providing a HOME of 117 PRIMS but the Home Owner still gets 117 PRIMS to use on his 512sq meters of land.

I guess I should ask Blue Linden just when my Island will get DOUBLE PRIMS since Linden Lab is giving itself DOUBLE PRIMS on these SIMs. I guess it goes without saying that Linden Lab are also proving themselves to be LIARS by having DOUBLE PRIMS on these SIMs, when they said years ago that a SIM could NEVER support more then 15,000 Prims; Interesting indeed.

So, me being foolish and expecting that maybe someday someone at Linden Lab will SHUT ME UP, I ask now Blue, tell me please, when does my SIM get 30,000 Prims?