Second Life is finally, gradually being migrated to the Amazon cloud, region by region -- but is your region part of that "Uplift"? Now available in the SL Marketplace, the free Fourmilab Cloud Halo cleverly comes to the rescue:
To use the Cloud Halo, simply add it to your outfit. It is an attachment, worn on the head, which has the form of a halo floating above it. The halo is not normally visible. When you arrive in a cloud region, a glowing gold halo will appear above your head, sparkling for a moment, and an ethereal harp will play a few notes. When you arrive back in a non-cloud region, a dull grey halo will appear and a “Sad Trombone” will play.
This is a seriously fun way of checking for cloud deployment across the virtual world grid, even turning it into a game. For server geeks, here's how the back-end works:
It is possible to determine whether a region is on an original host or the cloud by examining the host name of the simulation, but many users aren't familiar with the arcana of doing so. Fourmilab Cloud Halo is a light-hearted attachment which makes it easy to see the hosting status wherever you happen to visit and alert you to changes when you arrive in a new region.
But buyer (for this free item) beware: I just got a copy and tried it, but it wasn't working for me. But that could be because Second Life is reportedly experiencing performance problems... because Second Life is being migrated to the cloud. Womp womp indeed!
Hat tip: Devi Pumpinks, who used it to discover the Veranda Sandbox region is all up in the cloud n' shit.
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