The tutorials on this site are provided as text and an audio mp3 file of the text read by the author. The reasoning behind this is that I find video tutorials rather impractical, even though they seem useful at first glance. However, they’re not searchable, and it’s neccessary to sit through them until the end. You can’t parse them at your own speed, or skip to the part that’s relevant to you. (Well, it’s possible to skip to any point in a video, it’s still useless because you don’t really know at what time the point is that’s interesting you.)
On the other hand, most of the tutorials require you to be logged into a different application – most of the time the viewer you use to access Second Life or OpenSim with, and if you’re anything like me, that viewer will cover all your screen. So it’s likewise impractical having to switch to and fro between your browser and the viewer to read the tutorial and try it out. (Well, you could open the tutorial in the built-in browser in the viewer, but that would still cover up space inworld.) So the audio files are there to enable you to listen to the tutorial while you’re logged into a different application.
I try to give step-by-step instructions where possible, but some topics require a more principal explanation of how things work. Also, I try to use free software and tools where possible, and only recommend proprietory and costly software when neccessary or when I believe it’s a really awesome application that’s worth its money. (This doesn’t mean there’s no free software that wouldn’t do the same work in all these cases; it might be I just don’t know about it, or it doesn’t run on my system, or I believe the costly software is still worth the price for what it offers.)
If you have any problems understanding the tutorial or additional questions, feel free to leave them in the comment section of each tutorial (and don’t be shy about it; chances are you’re not the only one).
