Browsed by
Tag: inventory-management

Mar’s Inventory Faffage – The Great Sortification!

Mar’s Inventory Faffage – The Great Sortification!

*taps on the screen* – *peers into it* – Is it on? Oh! Yeah, I think it’s on! – *clears throat*

Hi peeps!

Are we back? Well, we just might be. No guarantees, because I have noooo idea what the remit of this blog is going to be in the new SL shopping climate of weekend sales and the like.

In days of old (“Eeee, when I were a lass!”) I’d blog about freebies and cheapies with an upper price limit of about L$75, as well as the odd simple tutorial here and there. But like I said, the weekend sales have those under-L$75 cheapies covered like woah these days, so I’m honestly not sure what this blog will turn into. Maybe a “best of” or “here’s some lovely things I found this weekend to make an outfit” type thing? Who the heck knows! All I know is that I have a bit more time now, I can be in-world a little bit more now, and I felt like revving the old blog up again.

So, to begin with, what the heck is that post title all about, Mar? Inventory faffage? Is that some kind of naughty euphemism?

Nah, sorry to disappoint!

I’ve spent a couple of weeks faffing around (from the definition above, it feels like frantic activity, but it’s actually kinda zen and meditative, because I love getting all organisational) and sorting inventory, following this method by The Virtual Bloke. His method spoke to me and my chaotic (and multiple-sorting-attempts!) inventory, so I thought I’d give it a go. And flippin’ heck, was it an eye-opener! Shoving everything from one store into a folder just for that store, and then filtering inventory alphabetically showed me just how many times I’d picked up duplicate freebies. I had stuff that I’d unpacked several times over, and you don’t even want to know the item count of my folders for the Legendaire and Sn@tch stores. Let’s just say that I winced when I saw the final total, which was in the thousands for both of them. Ouch!

I’m still wading through the initial creation of folders for stores and shoving everything by those stores into their folders, but I’ve also tried out some of the sorting advice in that post for when you want to tackle one of those store folders. It really does reduce everything down, and I love the idea of sub-folders for each item type. In fact, I might just keep my inventory filed that way: by store name, with sub-folders for different types of things sold by that store, rather than creating sub-folders elsewhere in my inventory. I do tend to think of things ‘by store’ when I want to find something in my inventory, and that blog post has got me really fired up and sorting like a madwoman! Give it a read and see if it sparks anything for you.

What else have I been up to since I started logging back in? Well, I’ve rezzed a lovely old apartment skybox that I’ve had for ages but never used, and furnished it so I have an actual home now instead of just a big square box with a full-bright photo booth along one side. I still have a photo booth in the skybox, but it’s in a rezzer that I’ve set up, so it’s only out when I need to use it (and it’s also no longer full bright). I’ve also got a little platform to the side of it with some ready-made (and prettily-textured!) archive boxes that I can shift-drag more copies of when I’m boxing up my inventory and working through it. And, of course, at the moment I have a gorge Christmas tree and some lovely decorations set out, because ’tis the season to do things with halls and holly and balls and jolly… or something like that! ;)

A few pics of the new place are below. The big old box is still around for now, since some of my friends have it set as their home location and I don’t want one of their logins to end up in a 1500m plummet to the ground! But I’ve got the decorating bug now, so I might retexture that old skybox soon.

The cosy seating area with a lovely snuggly-warm fireplace.
My writing area, replete with Christmassy stuff!
Back of the room, showing the removable photo booth (it rezzes from a button in the wall) and the little deck of pretty inventory archiving boxes.

Blog-wise (if that’s not already a word, it is now) I’ll be going through all the linked blogs and places in the blog’s sidebar at some point, to find out what’s still relevant (or even around). That’s going to take me a while, so I might tackle it over the holiday break.

But for now, it’s nice to be back!

Mar’s Inventory-Sorting Tips: Those extra sizes and mesh body parts!

Mar’s Inventory-Sorting Tips: Those extra sizes and mesh body parts!

Hi, peeps!

I figured it was about time I dug back into my inventory-sorting tips, because we now have a new inventory-bloater to deal with: the extra sizes of mesh that we don’t wear, as well as the extra options fitted for mesh bodies and feet etc that we don’t own!

There will be lots of screenshots for this post, so hop behind the cut :)

…

Read More Read More

Inventory Maintenance: Mar’s 100 Items Challenge

Inventory Maintenance: Mar’s 100 Items Challenge

Oh dear.

*sheepish grin*

Inventory creep. It happens to all of us, right?

I was just looking back through my Inventory Management summary page, and noticed the following on an early-ish post:

…the one where I had that initial panicked moment on realising my inventory was 30K and out of control…

*cough* Um…

Right! Well. Er… nice weather we’re having at the moment, huh?

*catcalls and yells of, “Get to the point, Mar, you slacker!”*

*le huge sigh* Okay, okay. Come on, you know as well as I do that inventory creep does indeed happen to all of us. Even those of us who are (supposedly!) inventory management, er, mavens?

I need a kick up the butt. Do you need one, too? OK, we can kick each other then (and if we wear clogs it’ll look like Riverdance or something). I hereby present…

Mar’s 100 Items Challenge!

Woah, that was big. Then again… so is Mar’s inventory…

Hop behind the cut!

…

Read More Read More

Inventory-management: The ‘Clothing’ folder – Part 2

Inventory-management: The ‘Clothing’ folder – Part 2

Previous parts: one

Well, peeps, here is part two of my attempt to help you sort the Clothing folder in your inventory. Little did I realise when I wrote that first post just how difficult part two would be! The reason for this is purely the way that I think of my inventory (and, if you’ve learned anything from following this blog, it should be that “your inventory should make sense to you, not to someone else that doesn’t have to use it every day”) and that way is… confused at best!

I’ll explain a bit more detail below, and then we’ll try a bit more sorting, although by the very nature of that ‘making sense to you’ thing, my advice should be taken with the proverbial shovel of salt ;)

Hop behind the cut!

…

Read More Read More

Inventory-management: The ‘Clothing’ folder – Part 1

Inventory-management: The ‘Clothing’ folder – Part 1

I recently received an email asking for tips on organising the Clothing folder in Second Life’s inventory. I’ve thus far refrained from writing a hints and tips kind of post about this folder, because it’s pretty much the biggest, most disorganised folder most of us have (and I include myself in that!) and… well, it’s rather daunting, to say the least. However, having read the email I decided I’d start to tackle that post this weekend.

You might think that your Clothing folder is such a mess that there’s no hope for it. Mine’s kind of like that, too (believe it, people!) because – while I try to be organised and, in the main I manage it – I have piles of stuff that is sitting in folders that, to be quite honest, could be better-organised than they already are.

In short, don’t worry if you think your Clothing folder is un-salvageable. It’s not. We’re going to work through it together, with me giving you some organisational hints and tips (plus one big tip to stop it all from looking so overwhelming) and – if you stick with it – you should have a much more manageable Clothing folder by the end of the weekend.

By the very nature of that folder, this will need to be a multiple-post series. This is just part 1, wherein we’ll begin setting up folders and moving the easy stuff around.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

Hop behind the cut :)

…

Read More Read More

Inventory-maintenance: Those extra mesh sizes!

Inventory-maintenance: Those extra mesh sizes!

Hi peeps!

Here’s a quick inventory-sorting post (I’m not logged in right now, so there are no screencaps, but this is pretty straightforward anyway). If you’re using a mesh-enabled viewer and you’re buying and wearing mesh clothing and accessories, then there’s a new inventory-bloater that you need to think about:

The extra sizes of mesh clothing included in your folders!

Anyone who has bought mesh clothing will know what I’m talking about. Usually, the folders will contain several sizes (anything from three to half a dozen) of clothing. You try them on (together with the alpha layer included) until you find the one that works best for your avatar. And then… what do you do? Memorise that size so you know you can always wear the ‘mediums’ from Store A and the ‘larges’ from Store B?

What do you do with the sizes you don’t wear?

Uh-huh. You need to either ditch those or archive them. If you’re the kind of person who never changes their avatar shape, then junk the spares, but if you anything like me (or most other inventory-sorters that I’ve spoken to!) you’ll want to archive them, just in case. SL has so many packrats! XD

Rez a prim and start archiving those unwanted sizes. Either do one prim per outfit (call it Archive: Un-used sizes, or something like that) and put it in that outfit’s folder or – to bring down the number of prims in your inventory even further – do one prim per store, and keep a separate ‘un-used mesh sizes’ folder going somewhere. And keep on top of it!

Remember: if your archive prim is copiable, when you rez it out to add new unwanted sizes, a copy will remain in your inventory. Once you’ve taken the new, edited prim into your inventory, delete the old one.

Mar’s quick guide to: The Importance of Sorting

Mar’s quick guide to: The Importance of Sorting

Hi, peeps! I hope 2012 is treating you well, both IRL and in SL, and I want to ask you a question:

Are you sorting?

“Huh?” I hear you mutter. “Sorting what?”

Why, your inventory, of course! Didn’t you make that New Year’s Resolution to finally get a decent filing system going and to ditch all those newbie things you grabbed in your first days in-world? And what about that promise you made to yourself to keep on top of trashing all the extra stuff that comes with each retail therapy/lucky chair-hopping/freebie-nobbling spree?

Hrm. *narrows eyes* I think we could all do with a reminder, don’t you? I know I’m doing my best to keep on top of stuff, but there are days when I literally only have two minutes to run in-world, accept any inventory offers, pay my rent (the important bit that I’m actually going in-world for!), and then get offline again. Those hastily-accepted inventory offers then sit in my Objects folder, un-opened and unloved :(

Today I had more time to spend in-world, and on a half hour jaunt around the grid wherein I spent a few L$, meandered around The Free Dove to take a look at their new items, and won a fair few items on lucky boards, I ended up with a decent haul of stuff in my Recent Items tab. So, as I promised I would do, I sat down to sort it. And boy, did it make a difference.

Hop behind the cut!

…

Read More Read More

Inventory De-Cluttering Schedule: Get rid of your spares!

Inventory De-Cluttering Schedule: Get rid of your spares!

If you’ve been in-world for any length of time then chances are you have spares of something. Whether it’s gifts from groups that you received once, then picked up from group notices when you checked them again and didn’t realise you already had them, or whether you’re a fan of the ‘Fish for This’ game at Sn@tch or you play a lot of gatchas, or whether you just like to hang around lucky chairs and lucky boards a lot and get spares when you’re the only person there with the correct initial letter to ‘bump’ the chair or board (even though you already have that item).

It’s time to get rid of those spares. Today we have one simple thing to do, so there won’t be separate tasks according to how much time you have spare.

I want you to sort your inventory by name. Those of you using an old-style viewer will find it at the top of the inventory menu (Sort > By Name). Those of you using Viewer 2 and 3 viewers… I’m not so sure. (I wish Linden Lab would stop messing around and settle on one viewer!) I would imagine the ability to sort by name is somewhere inside the little cog that you see right at the bottom of your inventory window, so look in there for it.

Now head into your Objects folder (stop cringing over there; I know it’s humungous!) and start scrolling down slowly. At some point you’ll come across ‘doubles’, like Mar has here:

She actually has three of one item! So she’s going to keep just one of those marked doubles and throw the rest away. That’s five inventory items she’s managed to get rid of. Might not seem like much, but that’s just one screen of a huge Object folder scroll.

Note: If the item is transferrable, then pack it off to an alt, or create a new ! Give to newbies folder so you can hand things out to new residents.

One other thing you need to do (and this is something that those with a bit more time to spare can get around to) is search to see if you’ve already unpacked those items, but forgotten to delete the boxes from your inventory. This is a huge inventory clutterer, and we’ve all been guilty of it. The quick unpacking before we log off, and we leave the boxes (assuming they’re not No Copy) sitting in our objects folder, where they soon get lost in the general miasma of All That Stuff.

Take it slowly. Sort by name again and open two inventory windows (File > New Window), so you can search for the unpacked item in one and keep track of the Objects folder in the other. Make it easier by working store-by-store, and if you have stuff that you haven’t yet unpacked then unpack it now, check out the contents. Try it on. If you like it, file it in your second window where you would normally file it (or create a new folder in your growing inventory filing system to put it in). If you don’t like it, bin it! OR, if it’s something you don’t want to wear or use right now (maybe it’s season-specific, like a Christmas tree or a Valentine’s gown) then create a new folder called ! To Be Archived, and put it in there, so you know to box it up into the relevant archive when you have more time.

One more thing (I sound like Columbo here!) – when you’ve unpacked those boxes make sure you delete the original one from your Objects folder. Not doing that is what got you into this mess in the first place!

Inventory De-cluttering Schedule: Sunday

Inventory De-cluttering Schedule: Sunday

Okay, so I’m a slacker and haven’t been doing these every day. Sue me! :p

(I need an excuse! Um… er… oh! Well, we all have more time at the weekends, right? So I’ll do these for the weekend. That’s a good enough excuse!)

Anyway, on with the show! Today we’re going to think about your inventory filing system, and we’re going to start putting together a mirror of it on your hard drive (or you can put it onto a flash drive). Read the post and you’ll see why.

For those with a lot of time to spare:
– Log into SL and open up your inventory. Then, alongside it, open up your Documents folder (sorry, I’m a Windows user, so Mac and Linux peeps just open up whatever your equivalent is!) and create a new folder there. Call it something like Second Life Inventory Mirror.

– Inside that mirror folder, re-create the basic SL Inventory folders, like this:

(Don’t bother with the folders for Calling Cards, Current Outfit, or Lost and Found.)

– If you already have sub-folders in your SL inventory, then recreate those folders inside the hard drive/flash drive folders.

This is going to be where you organise your inventory and eventually keep pictures of your outfits and various other items. Today we’re just going to start with your My Outfits folder.

– Make a simple white photo background (or grab the dollarbie one I put on Marketplace, here) and try on all your saved outfits, one-by-one. Take a screenshot of each one and use whatever photo editing software you have (Gimp, Paint.net, Photoshop, etc) to crop each one down. Save them into the My Outfits folder you created on your hard drive/flash drive, using the same name you gave them in your inventory.

You now have a very quick way of seeing exactly what each outfit looks like, without having to upload photos (which will take a while to rez, anyway) to their relevant inventory folders!

UPDATE: Libera has a great tip in comments that will save you from having to resize the snapshots in an external graphics program. Scroll down to read it!

For those with a bit of time to spare:
– Create the folders, as above, and whenever you get some spare time start taking and filing those outfit screenshots. Or you can begin to think about sub-folders for things like your Clothing or Objects folders, and working out a new inventory filing system. The reasoning behind putting this offline (on your hard drive/a flash drive), as opposed to working on your inventory in-world, is that you can begin to organise your inventory when you’re not logged in (because when you’re logged in you often want to do other stuff, right?)

For those with less time:
– Create the folders, as above, and whenever you get a few minutes to think about it, start working in those folders to create a new filing system that you’ll eventually transfer to your in-world inventory.

Inventory Management: Textures (a tutorial for using tx Oh’s YATO-BF)

Inventory Management: Textures (a tutorial for using tx Oh’s YATO-BF)

If you’ve ever built anything in Second Life, then chances are that your inventory is heaving with textures. Once you start obtaining textures in SL it can lead your inventory to spiral rapidly out of control. You start with a few freebies from the NCI Freebie Wall packs, and before you know it you’ve spent thousands at some of the big texture stores in-world.

Thing is, you need to be able to access those textures quickly the next time you’re building something, and it helps if you can see them displayed, rather than clicking one texture after another in your inventory and waiting for them to load. But if you have lots of textures sitting in your inventory so you can access them easily, then you’ll never get that inventory size down.

So what can you do about it?

Well, naturally, the answer is some form of texture organiser, and you’ll find a whole bunch of them on SL Marketplace, from free to not-so-free. Some have a gazillion bells and whistles and some are very simple. In this post I’m going to give you a quick guide to using a dollarbie texture organiser that comes with a HUD (most of the cheapies and freebies don’t include a HUD version, but this one does) – tx Oh’s YATO-BF (aka: Yet Another Texture Organiser- But Free!)

Hop behind the cut!

…

Read More Read More