THiNC Printing Press and Books v. 2.5

 

Item: THiNC Press and Books

Recommended by: Dacob Paine

 

Created by: Toneless Tomba

Purchased from: XstreetSL Site

Price as of Jan. 2009: 895 L for printing press, 75 L for each book

 

Permissions: Modify and Transfer for press, either mod/transfer or copy/transfer for book

Prims: 20 for press, 9 for books

URL for Press: http://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=36648

URL for Books: http://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=11933

 

DISCLAIMER: The following is a brief, impartial and independent review of the above entitled product/service/object as currently available for purchase within the virtual world of Second Life. I, Dacob Paine, was not compensated for my work in any form. I am not involved with the creators of any reviewed products in any form. My reviews and recommendations are not to be misconstrued as endorsements or warranties as to the availability, usefulness, function or continued utility of any product presented here.

 

Features:

 

• Books can be bought for 75 Lindens each

• Press is not required to publish books

• Press is used to convert books to having copyable and transferable permissions

• Press also encrypts your information, so it can not be stolen

• Books can contain many pages, up to about 1000 or so…

 

Review:

 

This is a fascinating and extremely well-built product. The THiNC book is a 9 prim scripted object than can contain a vast number of textures. Yes, textures – while this is a book, it uses textures for all its information, not notecards. If you have a story or novel, you will have to typeset it any image manipulation program, like Adobe’s Photoshop or the GIMP. The scripts in the book are rather complex, but the book itself is simple and easy to use. The books are 75 L each, and are not copyable. So it you just want to make a few sample books or photo albums to give away to friends, there is no need to buy the printing press as well. However, if you want to create a book and then have copy rights to it, so you can give away or sell unlimited copies, the press will take care of that conversion. The actual process of converting a no-copy object to a no-modify object is a bit complex but I’ll summarize it for this review. Once your book is full of the textures you want, you simply rez your non-copyable book and select the menu option to convert it. The book will then say, in local chat, a list of encoded information, which you then copy to a notecard so it can be read by the printing press’ scripts. The book is then placed into the contents of the press, and it gets converted to an object with copy and transfer permissions. However, once converted, the book will no longer be modifiable. What is fascinating is that after conversion, the textures are removed from the books inventory, and are replaced with UUID references. This is more secure – but – be sure to not delete the textures you used to create your book, or they will no longer be available to be displayed on the copies you give out. That’s really all there is to it – once the press has processed the information and converted your book to a copyable form, it will deliver it to the press’ front hopper, so you can take it back into inventory. Books are very easy to browse – when first rezzed, they will be closed, and you need only touch the front cover to open it and start reading. Books can be resized, and you can specify custom textures for the front and back covers, as well as the inner cover and spine. With a multitude of customization options, the ability to publish complete books and distribute them in SL, and the robust but simple to use interface and menu system, the THiNC Press is a wonder of SL technology, and a product I highly recommend.

 

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