Is there a way to independently backup one's inventory?

I've read about residents losing inventory recently (some apparently permanently). This made me wonder if there's a way to backup one's inventory separate from SL's backup, and be able to recover it should something go awry. Do such utilities exist? (Not sure if the SL architecture allows such a third-party utility.)

Not that I know of..

no way, youre at mercy at LL asset server, unless its full mod then you can put it on a alt for safe keeping

For the items you have copy permissions, you can rez a box on the ground and put them in the contents. Of course, you need to have the permission to have a box on the land you rez.

I saw someone was working on some... well I don't want to say the word, but it's done with a lot of mmos. The problem is you'd have to use your own machine from what I read.

I rather play the real game just I want to enjoy the game, and know that if I put money into items that it's secure. Inventory shouldn't be a gamble. It should be secure and first priority. The worst part about all this is they continue to leave the grid up and a lot of people can be hurt by this inventory loss that dont' read the Linden's vague blog. It's like they want people to spend money and lose inventory. Not to mention all the while they just talk about all the old gen (but new to SL) features they are adding. The sky and voice won't protect my inventory or add an ounce of help to my building and buying. Secure inventory would. I would love to wake up one day, go to that lame blog and read they are Securing the Inventory issues and planning to work on it for the rest of the year and put the other side junk on hold.

Anyway there is a better version of this type of world coming but I can't talk about it. It's still only a scribble on a napkin over dinner. It'll cripple this game with in-world vertex manipulation. It's too bad it's a ways off.

Well, I think several groups are working at online 3D VR applications. I've heard rumors of Google and IBM doing so. And there's talk that the future of the web will include accessing web sites as avatars visiting a 3D VR "web page world", etc. So this does not surprise me to hear these things talked about.

Years ago, the major online access was by pay services that hosted and controlled everything. Examples were Compuserve and AOL. Then the "open" Internet came on with a vengeance, and AOL has pretty much moved over to that. I suspect the same will occur with online 3D VR systems where they will move to the open Internet and things will be mostly standardized. SL may or may not be at the forefront of this revolution, but they certainly are paving the way, showing how to (and how not to) design such systems. SL has created a lot of innovations which will be integrated into future systems, as well as point out what NOT to do.

Anyway, that's my $0.02, and is offered only as an opinion, not as anything authoritative.

Actually the game I'm talking about is being developed by someone totally different. I might be working on it too, if time permits.

Well, I did imply in my previous reply that it would not surprise me if several groups are working on some sort of online 3D VR "service" (I don't like to call them "games" unless they truly are a game -- in my view SL is not a game but a type of social networking system.) I have only heard of Google and IBM getting involved with this, but these are two pretty big 800# gorillas. IBM is supposedly spending many millions of dollars on this. Google probably is as well.

Time will tell what will shake out, but it would not be surprising to see the rise of a single, open, online 3D VR system that seamlessly integrates into the Web, just as the standards of HTML and HTTP, and web browsers, pretty much created the Web in the 1990's. If so, either SL will lead the way and evolve to that, or it will be left behind trying to maintain a walled garden (like AOL tried to do for many years.)