Perfect, shiny and new
July 16th, 2010 at 08:32am Ryan Darragh
Where does the time go? My apologies for recently being rather more absent than present. I had a bit of a domestic crisis that demanded my attention, at first because there were things that had to be done to restore order, and then because there was something shiny and it was difficult to look away. I realize that was fairly cryptic; I shall elaborate.
Our TV blew up. Not literally—there were no sparks, or in fact anything dramatic. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that it gave up. It was a ProScan 27” tube TV, fantastic in its day and it had served long and well. But it was old and tired and ready to make its way to the clearing at the end of the path. There were signs—it had been flickering a bit for a while, and some noticeable geometric distortion had crept in. Oh, and once or twice it dropped into black-and-white mode, as if it simply couldn’t muster up the energy to do color. All this said loudly and clearly that an internal power supply or some such was just about done. Finally last week, it just quit one night, about 10 minutes from the end of Top Chef. Ouch!
Now, plans had for some time been in the works for a Chez Darragh-Clancy home theater makeover. Some components had already been purchased and were simply waiting for someone to actually do something regarding installation. Clearly a catalyst was necessary; if you hadn’t realized it before, I can be quite lazy and procrastinatory. In our house, a dead TV was all but apocalyptically bad. Top Chef! True Blood! Dr. Who! Oh noes!
By Sunday we were the proud owners of a spiff new Panasonic 42” LCD HD-TV. You know what? Standard definition DirecTV looks fairly like crap when it’s blown up that big. So, by Tuesday we had upgraded to DirecTV HD and (cue the angel chorus) all was well. Except for the fact that BBC America HD is for some unfathomable reason not available from DirecTV. Dr. Who! Oh noes! I have already submitted my complaint/request and am anxiously awaiting a response, by which I mean the addition of BBC America to the channel lineup. Yes, DirecTV, I’m talking to you. Oh and also, isn’t it cute how we still refer to them as “channels”? Anyway, the TV itself is very big and very shiny, and all that highly definitioned programming is also really very shiny, and I’ve found myself distracted. I think this weekend we’ll be taking a whole evening for “The Return of the King” (the four-hour extended version), or maybe “One from the Heart.”
On a less tangential note, I’ve also been spending a inordinate amount of time trying to make my peace with Viewer 2.0, and so far I must say that We Are Not Amused. In fact, we are quite annoyed and frustrated. I think I feel a rant coming on. If I can get my thoughts together in anything approaching coherence, it may get posted here. Watch this space!
Entry Filed under: Announcements,Commentary
9 Comments Add your own
1. Rhys Ackmann | July 16th, 2010 at 9:20 am
Poor Ryan! No Dr Who? I have to say the last two shows really pulled the whole mess out of the fire for me… I’m even a bit in Love with Rory and thus can put up with his dull cow of a girlfriend…
As for Viewer 2.0… why is it Linden Labs seems to forget that their core demographic is old, ur, um older, well aged? My typos have become much worse as I can’t read what I wrote anymore…. the largest I can get the chat type seems to be a size 9?!? OK, how is that large??? If find myself logging in with one of the other viewer about half the time… I only use 2.0 when I use SLURLs… there has to be a way around that… hummm.
2. Otenth Paderborn | July 16th, 2010 at 10:37 am
I love a good rant, but they are always better when the author is well informed. I hope that you try the StarLight skin. It’s quite easy to install (and comes with complete, step-by-step instructions for PC, Mac, and LInux). I use it, and it improves my viewer 2 experience a LOT. You can find it (and other skins) here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:Viewer_Skins
3. Rhys Ackmann | July 16th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
And the first thing I noticed on the web page is “Use caution when installing these skins, as modifications to your installed software files are not officially supported by the [http://secondlife.com/support Second Life support “….. So I’m thinking my rant is still good, how about you Ryan?
So it’s still a risk Otenth and LL still gets ranted at!!!
But after a bit more digging I see that it says
“This skin is designed to give more choice, and hopefully improve the usability and promote usage of Second Life Viewer 2.
It consists of a number of previously published viewer tweaks – produced by various residents (see credits in the downloaded ‘Read Me’ file) and added to, together with a slight reskinning to give the interface a lighter feel. It should hopefully benefit those people who have no wish to edit the XML code themselves, yet wish to benefit from a number of tweaks made by other residents, without using a third-party viewer. how does the skin help font size issues?….
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_Skins/Starlight
Why is it LL not only makes the users create all the content but now fix the content viewer too! lol
So thanks for the back handed help
4. Ryan Darragh | July 16th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
@ Rhys – I probably should have been more clear – BBC America *is* available from DirecTV, just not the HD feed. So we are not deprived, but we are annoyed.
@ Otenth – Thanks for the tip on the skin for Viewer 2.0. I’ll be sure to give that a try before I render final ranty judgment. So far I’ve stuck with the viewer “as is,” which seems fair enough to me as a starting point, but since you recommend the Starlight skin I’m more than willing to check it out.
5. Sean Clancy | July 17th, 2010 at 1:24 am
The Starlight Skin will have to get rid of that execrable sidebar and its ridiculous behavior with regards to inventory, properties and profiles before it will transmogrify Viewer 2.0 into something that doesn’t make you want to throw your computer and the entire Metaverse through a closed window.
6. Ryan Darragh | July 17th, 2010 at 8:33 am
Haha, I see that Sean has already begun to formulate and disseminate his own opinion. Excellent use of “transmogrify,” btw.
7. Rhys Ackmann | July 17th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
So
1, have you seen the Dr Who 2 part season send off and if so
2, aren’t you just a tiny bit loving Rory?
I didn’t really get Rory at the start, I kept thinking why him, why not Jeff (the good looking one with the laptop that lives with his gran….)
8. Ryan Darragh | July 17th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
No, we’ve only just watched “Vincent and the Doctor” and are ready for “The Lodger.” The two-part season ender isn’t even on the DVR yet – don’t spoil anything!
9. Men's Second Style &&hellip | July 29th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
[...] ranty piece on Viewer 2 (in its greater substance, at least) several days ago, shortly after I more or less promised to do so. Unfortunately I was then unable to commit any time to testing out the StarLight skin recommended [...]
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