OK, no problem. Let’s take it step by step.

First, open the inventory, switch to "Recent Items" tab.

Then, open the filters subwindow. It’s in the File menu of the inventory window.

Here you can choose which type of objects will show. it works for both "All Items" and "Recent" tabs, but we need the later now. Spot the field that says "Hours Ago" and "Days Ago", right above the "Close" button.

Click it to increase the value until your shopping pray appears. That’s it. ;)

There are two main reasons why circle-shaped, divided in segments menu is much better than the linear one.

As you know, one can change the menu item’s text via script. That is, you can make your object to have "Eat" instead of "Sit" as the upper left item and "Choose food" instead of "Touch" in the upper item. Everybody older than a week knows the mechanic of the world and knows that "Sit" doesn’t always mean sitting. Most of the times it means teleporting. We all know what to expect from the combination of the menu text and its position. And we all know whether we want to touch or sit on the object, no matter how those functions are named and what they will actually do. But now, with the changed menu, we’ll have to think what’s the name of the function that triggers what we want to do and to search for it between all the options. Related to this is the other problem. Not quite intuitive, right?

With pie menu, you don’t have to search for things. It’s just a slight move of the mouse away. And that slight move has a distinctive direction. Not "n items down" move, but left, right, upper-left… you get the point. When you search the item in the linear menu, you actually have to read. In pie menu, you do it instinctively. It might seem like insignificant difference, but those insignificant things that bypass the reading and make things accessible unconsciously  are what makes great interfaces.

There are couple of things to say about the content of the new menu as well. One of the things that were weird in the old one (and that will stay in the next generation) is the "Appearance" option. That is not meant for simple appearance interventions like changing your clothes, it opens the tools for creating and changing your shape and creating new clothes and skins. Yes, you know that, but you wouldn’t believe me if I tell you how many new residents have problems with this. How often we do that? Even the creators. Not often enough to have it right under the fingers. But, if there is an available spot (though I’m sure it can be used better, let it be. But why then "Edit", which is not creator’s tool only, and which is everyday thing, will be completely removed from the new menu? It simply doesn’t make sense.

So, while the new interface is still in the Linden’s workshop and, hopefully, might be changed, please say your concerns and give more arguments, either here or on JIRA. And of course, vote! Thanks.

As said, facelight is one prim. or, it should be. So many times, in the moments just after teleporting, while textures are still rezzing and all is gray, you can see people with several spheres around their heads. Sometimes it's one, sometimes three of them, sometimes they look like a model of a Solar system. In a second or two, the spheres will disappear and start lighting their faces.

So were is the problem? Problem is that due to the OpenGL specs SL client renders only six light sources. Those six that are closest to the specific avatar. And if you have three facelights, there is only three more for the rest of what you see. So, you see most of the other faces with shadows, you have a bad look of the building around you. Don't forget that the artist that made the building probably needed some lights for it. And you are also "stealing" available light sources from the avatars closest to you.

And, there is no much difference in being lighted by three instead of one light source. Not unless you are making a photo and know exactly what you want to achieve with all those lights.  

So, you can stay beautiful and shiny with one-prim facelight. Don't ruin your and other's experiences with all those spheres around you. Please. 

There is no need for the web to be replaced by 3D virtual space. Flatworld will develop in its own path. But, those two, flatworld and 3D world(s) are complements. There are things that are easier to be done in regular browser like Firefox. I don't need an avatar to check my e-mail or to read a document. I don't even need it to write this post, though I like to hang in-world while I write. If one wants to access Wikipedia or any other group of documents, there is no need to do that in three dimensions. No need to have an avatar on the screen clicking the pages of a prim book. It just gets in the way. Many parts of our first lives are done in two dimensions eversince we have invented letters. For thousands of years, it is a good way to go. And that is not going to change.

But, let's forget about that for a moment and take a look on the Second Life™ platform. Let's see what our 3D world is missing to be the next web.

You can use any of the existing browsers to access any of the web pages. It doesn't matter which company hosts the website nor which server they use. You easily jump from one site to the other. In the metaverse, it is impossible to teleport from one world to the other. Not even from LL's™ Second Life™ to any of the OpenSim grids despite that you are using the same client for both. If we was to change a browser and relog for each external link we clicked in the past, web would never developed.

Web is based on standards, set of protocols, formats and other stuff. Sure, those are subject to changes but all the changes are done in a way that community benefits and evolves from them. Except when a big company disrupt the system on purpose trying to get monopoly and suck money from common good. But let's not talk Redmond ethics here.

If this is going to be something serious and not just a geeky game and something that media likes to talk about, if it is really going to be the future, then it is going to be planned seriously and openly. If it is going to develop then it will be free for studying and development. If it is going to be usable, then it will not restrict users on one type of client, one type of server and one grid. if it is going to be really widespread, then those 12 millions of registered accounts are not enough. Then we don't need one big grid but a set of grids and freedom to move with the same avatar without reloging and without even noticing that anything has changed under our feet. 

How long we have to wait? 

Hey! I remember that feed reader showed the headline about new version of release candidate is available. But there is a difference between available and mandatory.

OK, downloading time. I don't mind downloading new clients when they come out. But I don't understand why it is so heavy to type one more word in the headline of the announcement. Why do we have to learn that new version is mandatory just a second before we reach for that coffee? Frustrating, isn't it? Sure, it could be worse. I could have an appointment. It is a bit of embarrassing to write that email to somebody you work with saying that you'll be late a bit because you need to download.

So, instead of my virtual coffee, I've spent that half an hour downloading and filling out JIRA issue. Please, vote for it. 

Dear Lindens, please, with a cherry on top and a gentle kiss, when you post about new versions of the client type that one word and tell us if the upgrade is optional or mandatory. Thank you.

Additional internal web service infrastructure work to remove dependencies on central databases (initially disabled, we’ll then slowly start flipping services on). In translation, network under the grid will not be centralized anymore. 

Not that this is not bad as aforementioned rant is suggesting. It is good. Instead of having a central asset database that will serve all the grid, all of the 50.000 residents active at the same time, that huge job of distributing data will be divided on thousands of smaller servers, those that "hold" sims as well. But let's go a bit under the hood. It won't be painful, I promise.

You log on the sim. Things are starting to rezz from nothing. First you don't see them, then they are gray, then get some textures over them. Avatars start to appear. First ruthed, then shaped but gray, then in their full beauty. While we are waiting, sim server is contacting a big nasty thing called asset server and asking data for each object, its shape, position, script, texture, everything. Then the sim server gives it to your client so it can draw it.

With the change in architecture that is in front of us it should be pretty much the same, except for those big asset monsters. They are to be kicked out. So where our textures will come from? From the sims themselves. Many of them.

Why this is good? Because if you have many smaller servers instead of two big clusters, you are less likely to have a bottleneck. Just imagine how many data is flowing in and out the entry point of the asset servers. How many textures are requested for at each second of vivid life of the grid. No matter how big and fast and great those servers are, they are stuck most of the time. And you feel it. Each time when your beloved avatar is gray, there is a texture request somewhere in some buffer waiting its turn to be accessed. And we are not talking just about textures. We are talking about everything. Yes, everything we see, hear and interact with in second life. All the thousands and millions of us.

So, it was inevitable to give the monsters a bit of rest and reorganize things a bit. Instead of everything calling the same cluster for data, everything will now call all the thousands of sims, each keeping a bit of the world. One good thing that comes to mind is that, probably, objects created on a particular sim will be stored right there, on that sim. So you won't wait for it to come over seven seas. It will be right there. And even the things that will be stored elsewhere, the waiting line will be much shorter. It is not the same as P2P model I wished for, a year ago, but it is still much better than having all the world packed in one place.

There is one more thing. Second life as a platform is at the crossroad point. If it is not to be world for itself, a ghetto, a nice toy for a bunch of enthusiasts it has to open itself. OpenSim is already here, demands for interoperability are louder and louder. Soon enough, there will be no place for centralised platform that tends to stay closed in itself. In less than a year, we hope, there will be a whole world out of Linden Lab's. And if Linden Lab wants to stay a part of that world, it has to make a system that will communicate with the rest. Decentralizing the network might be an important step towards that goal.

If the aim is creating an "augmented reality" with a camera that will mocap humans face expressions and moves to map them on the avatar all the time, then it's more trouble than it's worth. It will lag and our avatars will start behaving weird. Just imagine all those avatars moving their hands in front of their faces to light cigarettes that exists only in meatspace, to bring invisible food or glass to the mouth, chewing while talking to you, writing on unrezzed pieces of paper… you know, avatars imitating all the things humans are doing in front or their computers. It is not a question of augmentation, but humans and avatars are not doing the same things at the every given moment.

On the other side are things humans should do to move their avatars. Are you willing to act all the things you want your avatar to do? It is more effective to type "LOL" instead of sitting alone in front of the monitor and laughing. Most of the time, avatar is laughing loud while human is just smiling or chuckling. That difference is not lying nor exaggerating, it is just that the two, human and avatar, are in different context. We usually laugh loud when somebody is present to share a joke, and that presence is on the grid, not in the meatspace. Forcing a human to act laughing would be lying and very bad for both augmentation and immersion. Obviously, we'll need one more "push to talk" button, something that will filter the gestures that we don't want to map.

Example of use that sounds exciting but introduces potential problems is Mitch Kapor's for Cnet news:

So, if I look to the left in the real world, I just want my avatar to look to the left. If I smile, I just want my avatar to smile. The cameras should be good enough to pick that up. I think we're going to see an amazing jump in the sense of presence.

If I look to the left, my avatar will look to the left but I will looking through the window straight on the street. We'll still want a piece of hardware to do things that are easier to be done with our fingers. Let's not lie to ourselves, we use mice and keyboards for decades. By now they both are a part of our unconscious routine. While using second life or any other thing that shows on the monitor, we need our eyes to look at the monitor, not through the window. And all the instinctive attempts to altcam into a screenshot from the second life are witnessing that using alt, ctrl and shift to do that it's a good way to do look around.

But, having such a nice tool and improved face and hands animations can make this world make one big step forward. It might be useful both in creating and in real-time communication. Creating animations will be much closer to the users that are not proficient in animating software but very good dancers and actors. We'll have more spontaneous reactions in real-time and an opportunity to move our puppet's strings in a more interesting way and out of the possibilities predefined by short list of animation in the poseballs and animation overriders. If you've tried wiimote, you know what I mean. Though it feels strange at the first moment, as soon as you get a grip of it it is a wonderful experience. And the one that ask for a bit more space in front of the monitor.

As with any new part of hardware in the interface, it is not only the wires that matters. It is how those wires are connected to the humans to make a thing useful. 

It is simple. Many of griefing attacks are done in anonymity of the account without payment info used. Also those attacks need rezzing and/or scripting permissions on the targeted land.

On the other hand, parcel options gives you control of the access to the land based on paying info of the avatar and rezzing and scripts running permissions based on group. We need it a bit differently.

If one can prevent non-identified avatars from rezzing and running scripts that would prevent something like 80% of the attacks.

On the other hand, we are stripping the stigma from accounts that are still without payment infe so noobs are free to come and try the world out as much as they like. Other good point is that large population of avatars that are standing with their info in front of Linden Lab and the law can rezz the objects they need and run their scripts. We don't need to keep our land too restrictive for residents that are hardly a threat.

Any thoughts about this?

*** EDIT *** 

Now when I've learned not to put proposals in the security category (thanks Torley!) this issue is here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1924

First way, if you have permissions to manage the land, click on the parcel's name on the top of your screen (A) and open the objects tab.

There you have the list of the owners of all the objects on the parcel (C) which you should refresh (B). Now you probably can find out the name of the wiseass. If that is the only object that doesn't belong to you on the parcel, you can return it (D) and solve the problem. Most of the times, you'll have to clean it manually so we need the

Second way which takes some more screenshots. Here we go:

1. Turn those annoying particles off. Not only they are iritating, you cannot see the object that is somewhere in the center of them. You do that by key combination ctrl alt shift = or  if you prefer menus
   

   You have to have Client and Server menus enabled which you do with ctrl alt D or ctrl alt shift D. This doesn't stop particle spam, this just make you, and only you, not seeing it. And don't forget to turn particles back after you finish, so you can enjoy all the blinging again. :D

2. Now we have to find the object. It is probably very small so you'll have to zoom very close, and it even might be transparent. OK, let's make transparent things appear. It is either ctrl alt T or
   

   Yes, now you can see all the invisible attachments around and learn which spots on your friends might be xcited :p

3. Still not see it? Let's go one step more. There is no shortcut for this one so you'll have to visit the Client menu
   

   That will make a nice amount of white floating text over every particle emiter so you shouldn't have trouble to find the one you (don't) need. For this occasion it doesn't matter what it says, it is just to make things more apparent. Now we have it!

   
4. Don't delete it! Not before you submit abuse report. Not only you but everybody around. Yes, it s important. Spam Lindens with those. If you don't know how, just ask, I'll write that how to, too.
5. Now delete the little bastard and turn all those settings in previous state. 

Not good. I was supposed to lay back, relax and have a nice evening chat with friends about holidays, snowboarding, in-world drama and other things that goes well with tea and cookies. Instead of that, I was forced to find my way through all the group notices, offers, payings and the other stuff sent while I was away. It was now or never, but not in the romantic and thrilling way that usually goes with that phrase. It was now or never because the client insists that all the message boxes stay on the screen until I deal with them and offers no possibility to do the boring job later.

I was lucky. Vint can tell you it can be much much worse:

Second Life crashed. 2 seconds after I logged in. Which means all the nice Xmas whishes and all the pretty Xmas textures & gifts I received are _gone_. I did not have time to accept them.

Question is quite simple: Can we have some kind of inbox which will save our messages even if we the client crash and which we can access when we feel like it? Even lousy MySpace has that.

So, go to JIRA issue and vote! Now, not later!