I’ve always wanted to do this:
(click to enlarge)
Try it yourself! (To work around SL’s issue with frames, use http://ajaxlife.net/noframes.)
Okay, so I found the error. It was an error in the deploy script.
IE6 gets a different script to everyone else (grumble). I’d managed to make a typo in the deploy script that caused the following line to embed itself in the script:
//}();/* Copyright (c) 2007, Katharine Berry
Instead, it should have either been omitted or read as follows:
//}();
/* Copyright (c) 2007, Katharine Berry
Unsurprisingly, there was a syntax error on the line immediately following this one. The typo causing this has been fixed.
As an added bonus, you can now log in simply by hitting return. This will serve as an interim fix for those whose screens are too narrow for the login screen to fit until I come up with an implement a better solution. Also it’s generally easier.
Note that IE6 still occasionally hangs on “Precaching…”
This is caused by the mapapi failing to load, and can generally be fixed by reloading the page. It’s horribly inconsistent. As are many IE6 issues. 
After some maintenance, AjaxLife has been restored. As a bonus, it’s now available in Japanese and Portuguese (Brazil). Just pick the appropriate language from the box at the right of the screen. Also supported: English and Hebrew.
Thanks to Alissa Sabre for the Japanese and Aurelio A. Heckert for the Portuguese.
[UPDATE] IE6 still doesn’t work. I don’t really care any more. Go get a decent browser, the 13% of you who still use IE6 with AjaxLife (IE6+7 are at 25%, Firefox is now at 62%, Safari at 8%, Opera at 3% and the built-in SL client at 0.5%).
I can’t test IE6 in the same place I can work on stuff, so it’s officially unsupported. Because it’s horrible.
I may or may not have fixed the issues with IE6 that crept up in the last update. We’ll find out tomorrow!
Also, AjaxLife is now available in Hebrew:
Grumble. I have some AjaxLife fixes (I think), but LL broke SL again, so I can’t test them. Sigh.
Side-note: There’s a crash bug related to viewing certain scripts (and possibly notecards) that brings the whole server down. I think I have that fixed, but I can’t tell. Grumble.
EDIT: Turns out it’s not fixed. Looks to be either a bug in libsl or a regression between mono 1.2.5.1 and 1.2.6.
EDIT 2: It seems to be mono 1.2.6’s fault. Reverting to 1.2.5.1 fixed the problem. I’m putting up the fixed version - should be ready in about half an hour.
EDIT 3, half an hour later: Oops, made a typo. Done in fifteen minutes!
EDIT 4: Taken the site down. It’ll bring itself back up with the new patch once the instance launches.
EDIT 5: Finished at last. Fixes include: Doesn’t bring the whole thing down when viewing certain scripts, some minor changes I forgot.
The hosted version of AjaxLife has changed significantly - or, at least, will have by the time your DNS cache updates.
To sum up all the changes in a sentence: AjaxLife is now hosted on Amazon AWS.
In more detail:
AjaxLife’s texture cache is in an S3 bucket
This ensures that it won’t get lost, and also that it works comparatively well.
AjaxLife’s static files are in an S3 bucket
Hopefully more reliable than my hosting. Definitely much faster than my hosting.
AjaxLife itself is run on Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud
This means that AjaxLife has a bigger server to run on. It also means that, once I’ve figured out the critical number, I can set up the loading system to bring up another server if needed. Another advantage is that AjaxLife should finally self-correct failures - should the AjaxLife server fail, the server it’s running on will be terminated and a new one launched within ten minutes. The servers are configured to load AjaxLife as they boot up.
ajaxlife.net is now on the same server as katharineberry.co.uk
Saves me £35/$70 per month. The new system actually costs more, but is also much more powerful. More on that later.
As such, logging onto AjaxLife should now follow a sequence something like this:
- Navigate to ajaxlife.net in your favourite web browser.
- You will may receive a message telling you AjaxLife’s down, in which case it should be automatically restored in a few minutes. You will otherwise be redirected to a seemingly random IP
- Log on and use as usual
BIG IMPORTANT NOTE THING: The observant among you may notice that AjaxLife no longer uses HTTPS. Don’t worry - your details are still safe. Since HTTPS is a significant contributor to lag between the client and AjaxLife server, not to mention the impracticality of getting SSL certificates for whatever odd hostname the application ends up on (ec2-67-202-36-23.compute-1.amazonaws.com, anyone?), it was dropped. Instead, AjaxLife uses 1024-bit RSA encryption to ensure that your password cannot be read in transit, combined with a challenge/response to ensure it is not susceptible to replay attacks. Although anything past login is not encrypted, this is not actually a loss - they were never passed to SL encrypted anyway. That said, if it bothers you, try https://old.ajaxlife.net/client/ - although the certificate won’t be valid, and it’ll usually be down.
Other changes made with little or no relation to AWS:
- AjaxLife can now download textures with transparency correctly
- AjaxLife will pull profile images directly out of SL’s search, for speed reasons. This results in a tiny watermark in the bottom-right corner, however.
- The minimap seems to work again
- Updated to libsl 0.3.2
I hope you enjoy the theoretically more reliably service. However, there is another note to add: These improvements cost me money directly proportional to your usage. If you find you use the service frequently, please donate using the button (that will be) in the sidebar. Thanks!
This test has now finished. More details will be given later.
I’m making some significant changes in the way AjaxLife is run. As such I request that people log into http://67.202.38.80/. Don’t worry about the lack of SSL - your login details are still encrypted before being sent (feel free to check network traffic as you log in, if you want to be sure).
You can see the count of logged in people by clicking the “Stats” button, if you aren’t using Internet Explorer.
Explanation will follow soon. Also note that this one does not support viewing textures yet.
Holidasy: I’m on holiday. As such, I’m somewhat less likely to get any messages you try to send me. Next week I won’t get any at all. Sorry about that.
Development: AjaxLife’s source has now been commented, at least to some degree. Client-side’s done, server is still to do. I have some nice things to add in the near future as well. Stability is a work-in-progress.
Stuff: A couple of days ago someone told me “Nobody would care if I called you Meredith.” - this may well be true, but it seems a somewhat random comment. In any case, it’s one of the few things from two days ago I actually remember, so I decided to put it down here.
Oh, and running WindLight on my laptop gives me the following highly encouraging message:
It still manages to run faster than the standard client anyway, so meh. (20 FPS instead of 12 - with “Low” settings. Or 12 with “medium” + local lights.
Oh, more stuff: TSL Profiles is back. I’m going to put up some help pages in the new future so people can work out how to use it.
I’m going to be hanging around in various middle-eastern countries for the next two weeks. I’ll have filtered internet access in one and none in the other. Expect even less activity than normal, and expect no AjaxLife access at all.
Bye!
Over the last three days, there have been 584 visits by 384 unique visitors to AjaxLife’s login screen.
Here’s a nice map:
These were generated by Google Analytics on the login screen. I don’t have any means of counting how many of these logged in.
Attempts to access the service while it was down are not counted.
As a further tidbit, 47% of visitors used Firefox, while 46% used IE. 3% used Opera and another 3% used Safari. The remainder is the PSP (which wouldn’t work anyway), Mozilla and Konqueror. 90% of visitors use Windows, 5% use Mac OS and 4% use Linux. The remainder is either unknown or a PSP.
The majority of users appear to come from within companies or universities. Who’s logging on in Wells Fargo instead of working?
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