Where the fuck have you been?

The answer to this question is simple:  I’ve been working.  I was offered a rather excellent job as a project manager outside of Second Life and I took it.

Yes, I still intend to be active in Second Life, and I’ve been working on a couple of projects I’m very excited about.  I just got hit with the learning curve of working with a new company, coupled with some major changes in my personal life, and I needed a haitus.

I’m really excited to be back in-world, though, and I have some great ideas to start putting to prims.  We’re going to be culling our inventory - removing any products that we consider to be obsolete or no longer relevant - so that we can focus on making a few really, really good products.

Thanks for your patience, and I’ll see you in-world!

1. Unpack a fresh set of your Scorpions (If you used your Scorpions and got the CCS error message, the CCS API disabled those entirely, so toss them).
2. Rez one of the freshly-unpacked Scorpions on the ground (do NOT wear it - if you attach it, CCS will shut it down).
3. Wait a few moments.
4. You’ll receive an inventory offer from our update servers.  Accept it, and you’ve got version 1.23!

We apologize for not being able to offer 1.23 as a firmware update, but we had to make some changes to the core item in order to pass CCS requirements.  In version 2.0, we’ll be separating the two versions (CCS and normal) to avoid this kind of problem in the future.

If you do not receive your version 1.23 Scorpions, contact aubreTEC Commerce for a manual update.

We’re very sorry for the inconvenience this caused to some of you, and we promise to do everything we can to avoid this kind of mix-up in the future.

We’re pleased to announce that we’re back in-world now, working on new products and improving old ones.

Among the questions we want to hear from you about:

1. Should we turn it into a HUD (heads-up-display) or keep it one of the few non-HUD attack systems out there?
2. What non-attack features would you like to see?
3. What attacks would you like to have at your disposal?

We can’t guarantee we’ll take every suggestion, but we’ll consider anything tossed our way.  Remember, those who speak get heard, so sound off in the comments with your inevitable opinion.

Casting keys as strings allowed us to store 13x as much data.

We ran different tests, with different configurations, compiling the lists in different ways, for a solid hour, and kept arriving at the same results: a key, stored in a list as a key, ate 106 bytes. The same key, casted to a string, ate 8 bytes. We were able to create a list of 7692 (under ideal circumstances) 36-character strings (keys converted to strings) before the script ran out of memory and stack-heaped, but only 583 keys.

This is pretty odd, and I’m not yet ready to declare that conclusive, as that’s a rather huge discrepancy. List memory usage in Mono is supposed to be calculated thusly:

string: 22 + 1 byte per character
key: 34 + 1 byte per character

So while strings should be a little bit more memory-efficient, they should still eat nearly 60 bytes. Why, then, the script would be storing them as 8 bytes is beyond me.

These tests all stored a global list and ran a loop adding keys to the list (with results displayed via llSetText) until the script barfed up a stack-heap collision.

If anybody else who has more knowledge about LSL memory would like to enlighten me, I’d love to hear it.

WHERE CAN I USE THIS CARD?

You may use this card at any official aubreTEC location. This card will not work on reseller or catalog vendors; you will need to visit one of our company stores.

You may use this card at any official aubreTEC-owned location, such as our main store. This card will not work on reseller or catalog vendors; you will need to visit one of our company stores. Generally speaking, you can use the card at any vendor in one of these stores.

HOW DO I USE IT?

Using an aubreTEC gift card is simple:

1. Go to the aubreTEC main store and find the item you want at any of the aubreTEC vendors. Make sure the item you want is on the main screen.
2. Drag your gift card from your inventory on to your body - it will wear on your left hand.
3. Click the vendor. The vendor will automatically detect your card and ask you if you would like to redeem it.

It’s that simple! If you’re buying an item that costs less than the value of the card, you’ll keep the remaining balance and be able to use the card over and over again until it’s completely drained.

IMPORTANT: The vendor will subtract the amount of your card from the price of the item. Gift cards are NOT redeemed via refund, so ensure that you are paying the correct amount. If done correctly, you will only need to pay at all if the value of the item exceeds the value of the card.

Selecting a gift in Second Life is no easy task - it’s impossible to tell what people already have, permissions are a mess, and a lot of gift items can’t be returned or exchanged.  What’s the solution?  An aubreTEC gift card!

HOW IT WORKS

The aubreTEC gift card works much like a real-life gift card - hand it to anybody you want, and they can redeem part or all of it for their favorite aubreTEC products!  Your recipient can use whatever amount is on the card towards the aubreTEC product(s) of their choice.  They can use it to pay for part of a product (and pay the rest in $L) if they want something that costs more than the card balance, or they can use it to buy several products within the limit of the card - the balance carries over.

Using an aubreTEC gift card is simple:

1. Go to the aubreTEC main store and find the item you want at any of the aubreTEC vendors
2. Rez your gift card (or wear it if you do not have rez permissions)
3. Click the vendor, and follow the instructions to redeem your card.

It’s that easy!

IMPORTANT: All aubreTEC gift cards must be used at an official aubreTEC location - our reseller vendors are not able to honor the card.  Generally speaking, cards can be used at any vendor in our main shop.

DENOMINATIONS

The denomination of the card is exactly what you pay for it, with no hidden fees.  Gift cards are currently available in the following amounts:

• $250L
• $500L
• $750L
• $1000L
• $1500L
• $2000L
• $2500L
• $3000L
• $5000L

THE FINE PRINT

This card is valid for use as full or partial payment on aubreTEC products.  It will not expire and is valid as long as aubreTEC products are sold.  The monetary value of this card will not be refunded due to inventory loss, damage, or misuse, and may not be redeemed for cash.