User:Torley Linden/Vidtut ideas

Headline text

This page is for scribbling ideas for Torley's Video Tutorials, including the omnifriendly "Tip of the Week" series. Feel free to add your own suggestions — if this page gets too long, we may need to organize it better, but for now, go wild using the format below:

== [TITLE OF SUGGESTED TIP] ==

* [FINER DETAILS]

* [MORE FINER DETAILS]

Here we go!

How to use streaming parcel media

Cover music + movies.
Show examples of playing .MP3s and .MOVs.
Video capture of web browser and URLs.
Make the very strong point that Linden Lab does not store what's streamed, we merely pass it along from an external webserver.
Specifically useful would be the ability to watch youtube videos in SL --> how to convert .flv to .mov or .mp4 (or how to directly stream youtube - though I guess converting and storing on own webserver is more likely)

How to login with multiple accounts

Explain command line parameters briefly.
Show Second Life shortcut on desktop. (This will be Windows-specific, but in the text part of the blog post, there should be a link to Mac + Linux info.)
Also show how to login automatically but if I do this, BE VERY SURE to explain security risks involved.
Launch two viewers and show them both running momentarily.

How to terraform

Useful for landowners and showing the benefit to those interested in land.
Explain the somewhat-confusing UI and show what each tool does on a blank patch.
I reckon I'll wait for Gigs' VWR-2331 to be added first, it'd add a lot of nuances to the art.

How to start your own wiki page

This would primarily be web-based and showcase usefulness that most Resis don't know about. For example, User:Tid_Kidd.
Show simple wiki editing. (I should look for a richer, easier editor tho.)
Emphasize that it acts as an extended profile and can be linked to from inworld.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:User_page has good ideas.

Explain how deeded land works

Explain how one deed's land
Advantages and disadvantages of deeding land to a group
What the "Owner Makes Contribution With Deed" button means checking vs unchecking when deeding.
How to recover land from a group.
Warnings on making multiple owners of group owned land

Statistics Bar

View > Statistics Bar (Ctrl-Shift-1)
This could easily be a multi-part series
Most important, Simulator tab, understand why your lagging
What are all those pesky times (ms) ?

SL Etiquette

Teleporting. Explain why blindly walking around too soon around after tp is bad idea (pushing others etc).
(I always fly straight up after TPing to an unknown landmark/place until everything is rezzed.)
Excessive attachments, prims, and scripts. Explain how each impacts others' experience.
(Torley, I will add more to this short list as I think of more etiquette topics!! Others, feel free to edit!)
Flying or standing too close to a stranger--or their homes.
SHOUTING way too often.

More land options

Showing land borders and the meaning of the different colors red/orange/yellow/green
These land borders can be very useful for your SL experience. Can't script/rez on a piece of land? go to the neighbours. Looking for a nice plot to purchase? Look for those yellow borders! How big is your land, and how far can you move that wall? Look at landborders again!
Setting land options. I often run into people who complain about running into lots of garbage that others leave on their land. A quick run through the various land options usually solves their problems.

How to get help

Cover mentors and the support portal
Show examples IMing mentors, lindens or using the support portal..
Video capture of web browser and URLs.
Make the very strong point that Linden's are VERY BUSY.
This would be useful to show at newbie friendly areas.

Useful Debug Settings

Cover some of how to activate some of the more useful debug settings
ImagePipelineUseHTTP - which give a noticible speedup of texture rezzing on lower end PC's
FolderAutoOpenDelay - which will slow down how quickly the inventory folders open when you're dragging and dropping (which is very irritating, btw).
Any others?

Cover Other Ctrl+Alt number screens

Cover the other statistical/debug screens.
CTRL+SHIFT+2 - look at all the pretty colors.....what is this all telling us?
CTRL+SHIFT+3 - Textures Downloading, what it all means, why there are so many showing downloading even when everything appears to be rezzed already.
CTRL+SHIFT+4 - The console, why you might want to look at it when there are problems, what kind of information is there for the young and geeky.
CTRL+SHIFT+9 - More colored bars, what does it all mean?