Heralding Secure Builds

Here is how to leave a build out in Second Life so that it cannot be altered:

ANTI-TAMPERING

 The Second Life "default permissions" that you see when you rez a new prim to Second Life are a good starting place. 

in Edit Window General Tab:  

Not Shared with group
Not Allow any to move
Not For Sale

 You can alter these for various reasons, but then you need a secure build, one that cannot be tampered with, revert these settings to default for all prims and objects in the build.

 Next owner permission don't matter for objects not for sale, but best to leave them restricted until you decide to sell your build. If you do make your build "For Sale", make it a "copy" sale so the original stays in your possession and where it is.

in Edit Window Object Tab:

Not Physical
Not Locked

The one change that can make your build MORE secure than the default settings is Locked.  when an object is locked, you can not edit your object until you un-check "Locked" for that object.  If you gave edit permissions (more on this below) to friends or a group, they still cannot edit your locked build.

In your Friends Window, 

one last default is that none of your friends has modify rights on your objects.  You alone can give or remove this right for them. You can see who has this right on your friend list in most viewers.  It's a simple matter to de-select anyone who should not have that right.  Be stingy with with it.  Even if there is someone you want to have that right, you can LOCK any of your builds so that no one can modify your build: not you, not your friends, not your group members, not until you UNLOCK it.

BULK EDITING BUILDS

First, these setting help you edit much quickly, even with large builds with multiple objects and unlinked prims:

• Check "Select only my objects" in your Tools Menu so you can't select other people's objects. 
• Choose a draw distance large enough to make your whole build visible to you in you Preferences window Graphics tab.
• Un-check "Limit Select Distance" in your Advanced Menu so you can select any objects that you can see, even if they are more than 65m from you.

 How To Select Multiple Items video from http://vimeo.com/31667862

Open your edit window Crtl-3 and left-click hold and drag the yellow selection box over an area to select all the prims in the area.  This selects much faster and securely than shift-clicking them one by one. 

Now you should see an edit window reading "Multiple Selections" with owner named you.  Now, with just a singe click, you can set perms and many other parameters of the all the selected prims at the same time.

Revert to these secure settings named above: 
Un-check "Share with group", "Allow any to move" and "For sale"
Un-check "Physical"
Last, check "Locked" so that you yourself cannot change the build by accident.

Now close your edit box and check your work.  Get a clever friend to see if they can move your things.  Rejoice if they cannot.




Last, SL can fail you when regions go down, return times expire, parcels can change group permissions, or you can click something you didn't mean to, like "temporary" and you can lose your work.  The remedy:

Save often.  Back up often

• Save copy to your inventory.
• Give a full-perm (copy, modify, transfer permitted to next owner) copy to another account
• Use a back-up feature that some viewers offer to put builds on your own hard-drive.

How I write.

When composing lectures or posts like this, it is at least a six step process for me.

The first is to listen to what others are asking to find topics. Often I have simple short answers and direct references with easy links.  When there are deeper and more interesting ideas unexpressed,  I gather together the knowledge and wisdom and ideas needed to answer the questions fully.   Then everything gets bound into a single document with little organization, just an olio of ideas.  Often things stay in this way for a long, long time until a delivery time and date is chosen.

The first draft can be very very long and repetitive, but it's taking my scroll of notes, copying it, and thinking about an organizational pattern that is suitable to the material.  Then it's shuffle the information around into an order that might work as a lecture or essay. 

After that at-least-third draft by now, the chore is to consider exactly who and when the information is to be delivered and what illustrations and examples to include for those who might have interest and tailoring the material for them, looking for references and citing what I find.  Now it is close to a final form, and it's copy it all again, and go thru for grammar, spelling , brevity, consistency and all those other things scholars honor.

Now, often the same material might work for two mediums, say a lecture in Second Life and a ethereal scroll(-ing webpage) online.   Then it's construct each format for its medium. In Second Life, in example, I can use objects in illustration, but not in a scroll(-ing webpage). Conversely, I can use images freely in scrolls, but not so easily in SL.

When making both a lecture and a scroll, I will prepare for a lecture by constructing a draft but not publishing the online page.  Then, at lecture time, I copy and paste from my scroll draft copiously.  During the lecture, I often receive insight and questions from the attendees that crystallize important points, or tell me what points need exposition, clarification or example.  I quickly provides those on the fly during the lecture slot if I can.  Then, after the lecture, those additions and amendments get edited into the scroll draft, and finally, the scroll can be released.  This page is an example of such a scroll: 
http://aulethesmith.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-history-of-elvish-weaponry-part-1.html

I could make illustrated classroom books like this one about Sheriwood in Second Life with book writers, but I dislike that medium due to the handling of images and loss of copyable text.  To compress data and image for a "page" degrades both the image and the text some, making the text non-copyable into other media (a good idea sometimes, but not always) and the information available only in this very specific context:

• computer on, in SL viewer, 
• logged into that account, 
• object rezzed, 
• camera oriented, and 
• little distraction  

That is a bit hard to achieve, compared to

• computer on
• browser open, 
• web page loaded

Often, when I find such things as images or note cards in SL, I will, with the author's permission only, mirror the book to a blog post like this: 

http://aulethesmith.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-create-rp.html