Ashley Stone

This is a hobby project performed in Ashley's spare time. This is a system that allows the user to link a virtual area in Second life to the QuickFox IRC network. This solution was independently developed by Ashley as part of bridging less intensive communication systems to Second life, which has been known to be very demanding.

The Second life portion of the system is opensource, released under GPLv3 and written in Second life's unique scripting language LSL (Linden Scripting Language).… Show more

This is a hobby project performed in Ashley's spare time. This is a system that allows the user to link a virtual area in Second life to the QuickFox IRC network. This solution was independently developed by Ashley as part of bridging less intensive communication systems to Second life, which has been known to be very demanding.

The Second life portion of the system is opensource, released under GPLv3 and written in Second life's unique scripting language LSL (Linden Scripting Language). On the IRC network side, a custom service using server2server communications to simulate Second life users as genuine users on the network. A custom webserver, HTTP client and XML-RPC solution were developed from scratch to interface with Second life's external communications APIs very efficiently. The latency in communications between both in-world and IRC are fast to the point, that often messages may appear slightly sooner before an actual in-world viewer receives messages.

This solution has been used to accommodate some IBM in-world events, Linux User Group meetings, Linux User Group conventions, make Second life more accessible for disabled persons and others. Due to the open source nature of the solution, numerous people have extended the original code to create new and unique experiences in Second life powered by this system. Show less

This is a project performed in Ashley's spare time. QuickFox.net was originally known as TheDen.ws. TheDen.ws was formed sometime during March 12th (year 2004) by a group of individuals, who had a bad experience with the past networks they were previously operating and the way these networks were managed by their head managers (founders).

The goal was to establish a truly stable IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network with a stable, and beneficial for it's users, network management - a network… Show more

This is a project performed in Ashley's spare time. QuickFox.net was originally known as TheDen.ws. TheDen.ws was formed sometime during March 12th (year 2004) by a group of individuals, who had a bad experience with the past networks they were previously operating and the way these networks were managed by their head managers (founders).

The goal was to establish a truly stable IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network with a stable, and beneficial for it's users, network management - a network management that would have absolutely no conflicts among the personnel who operates it and would take quality above quantity. Furthermore, the mistakes of the past networks and their head managers were learnt from and prevented.
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This is a hobby project performed in Ashley's spare time. Exodus Viewer is an open source alternative browser for the Second life virtual world platform, packed with useful features to enhance the experience of competitive play in Second Life. Roleplayers, fighters and virtual sport stars will benefit from a viewer designed for maximum performance. Exodus Viewer also packs some cool visual effects that are perfect for photographers and machinima film makers.

Ashley was part of a… Show more

This is a hobby project performed in Ashley's spare time. Exodus Viewer is an open source alternative browser for the Second life virtual world platform, packed with useful features to enhance the experience of competitive play in Second Life. Roleplayers, fighters and virtual sport stars will benefit from a viewer designed for maximum performance. Exodus Viewer also packs some cool visual effects that are perfect for photographers and machinima film makers.

Ashley was part of a close-knit team that developed Exodus Viewer in their spare time and had a very varied role and responsibilities. Ashley's roles included hosting and maintaining the server infrastructure (webservers, continious integration environment, build servers, content distribution network end points), security auditing (both code and server environments) as well as helping develop and testing various functionality. Show less

This is a hobby project performed in Ashley's spare time. Ark is a virtual online army on the Second life platform. Second life as a virtual world platform is constantly evolving and provides users with rich content creation tools. Areas exist on Second life where virtual armies take part in combat. Unlike general games, militaries develop their own weapons, uniforms, vehicles from scratch (this includes 3d modelling, programming and animation).

Ark lead by Karl Watkins has proven to be… Show more

This is a hobby project performed in Ashley's spare time. Ark is a virtual online army on the Second life platform. Second life as a virtual world platform is constantly evolving and provides users with rich content creation tools. Areas exist on Second life where virtual armies take part in combat. Unlike general games, militaries develop their own weapons, uniforms, vehicles from scratch (this includes 3d modelling, programming and animation).

Ark lead by Karl Watkins has proven to be an innovative group, in a world where real R&D can make the difference between your capabilities with an opponent, the group has employed use of advanced tactical tactics while maintaining a high degree of quality allowing the group to dominate significantly larger forces (even by a factor of ten).

Numerous quality 3d models that rivalled games of a similar genre were produced by Moses and Karl, completed with beautiful animations and a high degree of functionality. Ark's systems were the first to be managed and controlled through external (real world) systems that made it possible to enforce region specific rules without the need to do continuous in-world updates.

Samuel produced advanced metrics, group points/credits, raid management solutions through a mix of in-world HUDs and external systems allowed for better organisation and understanding of combat situations in real time as well as post-combat analysis, allowing for effective new strategies to developed. Samuel is also responsible for the first combat viewer that truly provided a real advantage over standard Second life viewers without resorting to 'cheaty'​ functionality like 'wall hacks'​ or 'aimbots'​.

Ashley's role often involved contributing to his knowledge on a variety of matters he is a subject matter expert such as ciphers, Second life physics, Second life glitches/unofficial features, while operating, maintaining, managing and ensuring the security of external servers involved. Show less

This is a hobby project performed in Ashley's spare time. This could be summed up as a working virtual replica of the Stargate from the popular sci-fis known as 'Stargate: SG1'​, 'Stargate: Atlantis'​. This was a project that involved reimplementation of a Stargate along with all it's lore on the Second life platform and has been referenced by some as the most accurate and complete implementation of a Stargate. Some of the notable requirements that were implemented are:

• Full animated… Show more

This is a hobby project performed in Ashley's spare time. This could be summed up as a working virtual replica of the Stargate from the popular sci-fis known as 'Stargate: SG1'​, 'Stargate: Atlantis'​. This was a project that involved reimplementation of a Stargate along with all it's lore on the Second life platform and has been referenced by some as the most accurate and complete implementation of a Stargate. Some of the notable requirements that were implemented are:

• Full animated build of Milkyway and Pegasus galaxy models
• Accurate real world scales
• Positional coordinate systems based on Second life region positions
• Scriptable API for users to create their own unique accessories for the network
• Stargate teleport redirection when failure occurs
• Handling of devices on network in a completely stateless method, having to deal with availability issues on the fly much like with real world mobile devices
• Real time, in-world communications relay through 'radio' API between connected gates
• Management interface to deal with user abuse situations
• Point of Origin customization on dialing ring
• Server infrastructure and software design to handle thousands of communication events per second efficiently with low latency

Ashley did numerous tasks on this project, not withstanding contributions to development, support and server maintenance of the system. Show less

This is a hobby project performed in Ashley's spare time. Deshima Station is a virtual interactive space station where a constant flux of users travel through and stop by the station. The station offers interactivity beyond most gaming platforms as it ties real world computing systems such as full desktop environments with custom made applications to control various aspects of the station like power grid management, firing control systems, communications etc.

The virtual simulation made… Show more

This is a hobby project performed in Ashley's spare time. Deshima Station is a virtual interactive space station where a constant flux of users travel through and stop by the station. The station offers interactivity beyond most gaming platforms as it ties real world computing systems such as full desktop environments with custom made applications to control various aspects of the station like power grid management, firing control systems, communications etc.

The virtual simulation made heavy use of the latest Second life technologies when they became available to introduce interactivity beyond the standard experience offered in Second life, from media on prim to provide real interactive desktops, keyframe motion, raycasting to experience tools that provided seamless experiences.

Ashley's work on the team involved highly technical workarounds and implementations of systems in a performance and efficient way. Often coming up with new experience enhancements, such as recreating collision sounds at the point of impact rather than the centre of objects (something the Second life engine does not support inherently), or integrating with real world desktop systems, along with locking them down to ensure that user interaction with such systems won't lead to unwanted tampering. Ashley also ported and wrote new ciphers for use in Second life, using Second life's limited LSL (Linden Scripting Language) to implement the system.

Deshima also offered the first use of true reactive artificial intelligence systems written in LSL to manage various aspects of the station, advanced auto pilot solutions that could react to changing circumstances as well as learning systems weapon control systems to deal with varied and unique vehicle systems that anyone on the Second life platform could produce. Show less

This is a project performed in Ashley's spare time. A webhosting provider created for non-profit purposes. Around the time of it's creation, numerous ad-filled free webhosting providers existing that did not offer sufficient storage space, no server side scripting languages and excessive limitations on bandwidth a website could consume. QuickFox websites were created out of frustration of being unable to find reasonable webhosting providers and did so without intention to create profit. With… Show more

This is a project performed in Ashley's spare time. A webhosting provider created for non-profit purposes. Around the time of it's creation, numerous ad-filled free webhosting providers existing that did not offer sufficient storage space, no server side scripting languages and excessive limitations on bandwidth a website could consume. QuickFox websites were created out of frustration of being unable to find reasonable webhosting providers and did so without intention to create profit. With limited resources and a small team, QuickFox Websites was able to handle a large onslaught of sign ups, heavy bandwidth requirements while providing PHP and MySQL access and a rigorous security auditing and setup to ensure that users could not compromise other user accounts.

The project closed down in 2004 when numerous alternative and comparable providers with better resource backing came into existence. Show less