…which I hope means, “Thus passes Ruth-ly glory.”  Of course, it could mean that as much as “Ich bin ein Berliner” (allegedly) means “I am a jelly doughnut.”

In any case, most of us should have the 1.20 viewer release by now.  (It’s an optional download, but I’d encourage it; more later.)  Linden Lab is touting 1.20 as the most tested and commented viewer to date; and they’re probably right, as this has been in development since the release of version 1.19 sometime early this year.  In their announcement back on July 24, Ramzi Linden suggested that reliability (based on crash reports) is improved by 20% — a boon to many folk, of course, and far better than at one point when I was crashing every time I tried to teleport into a full region.  (That was back in the early 1.18 days, I think.)  There are a slew of bug fixes, several Open Source inclusions, and the inclusion of the controversial Dazzle viewer skin as an optional use.  Torley is already doing tutorial rundowns on 1.20; his first is here.

I’ve been using it for a little over a week now, and I’m mostly satisfied with the results.  There are no surprises; it works quite smoothly.  The most fun thing, in a weird sense, is seeing someone rezz up at login.  As noted, the well-known Ruth — the former default avatar on system entry, a sheet-steel grey with no clothes or other differentiation — has become a sparkling grey-white nimbus that is replaced by an avatar with somewhat more definition.  It’s kinda fun watching someone log in and stabilize, and it’s definitely prettier than being surrounded by Ruths.  The prettiest thing is the random screen you get when you bring the viewer up, before you log in.  Instead of one stock shot, you now have some 3-5 shots that will appear at random.  Whoever designs these landscapes for the Lab is good.  If there are any problems, I haven’t run into them knowingly yet.  I’d recommend upgrading if you haven’t already.

Having said this, I am putting together a laundry list for the first time:  things that I would like to see changed.

• Improved Inventory management — in terms of better tools to sort/filter the tottering mountains of stuff that we all accumulate.  (How the ghost of George Carlin must be smirking at all of us on the Grid!)
• Repositioning of minimized windows — Way back, when we minimized the inventory or chat windows, we could move them around, max them back up, then reminimize them to the same place.  Now the windows fall back to default location at the screen bottom left, no matter where you tug them.  Is there a setting to allow “sticky” repositioning, or is this something that Linden should restore?

I think there’s at least one more thing, but I can’t recall it at this hour.  I’ve been building pictures of Louis Armstrong for the store, and I need to get to bed.

Any other thoughts…?