General Orders No. 5

I'm thinking that some folks out there are going to be soon challenged to a duel. At the urging of my girlfriend, Karri, we joined Facebook together. Within 12-hours of being a member I saw photographs of people I haven't seen in 20 years, was openly mocked on my "Wall" about the image from the VHS collection I posted to represent me, and realized that I have more virtual friends than real ones.

All joking aside, social networking seems like it could have significant benefits to the Virginia Historical Society. By collecting virtual friends, the VHS can instantly communicate with a number of people and, through them, a whole host of other people. Considering the limited resources for advertising and the short time it takes to update a profile page with new information, the exposure on-line that the VHS could receive seems like it would multiply in cyberspace and reach a good many people. Plus, it's FREE. That is unless you can't get the person in charge of updating the profile to stop looking for old boy/girlfriends and schoolmates.

Now... time to 'poke' someone...

General Orders No. 4

I spent a bit of time last week reviewing all of the "For Fun" websites... For someone who likes own books (reading them is kind of an afterthought). I really liked the potential of LibraryThing as a way for people to discuss books in a virtual environment. For quite some time now I've been reading books in a bit of a void... you know how it is. You read the book, you get to the end, you make an assessment about whether you liked it or not, and then the book goes back on the shelf and you really don't think about it again.

I also learned that according to Generator Land...

THA NOTORIOUS NOODLE is my Gangsta name, HECTOR THE GOON is my Mafia name, MORNINGPOLLEN WINDVOICE is my Hippy name. If I were a Greek God I would be URANONO, God of Neutering and Frequent Urination. If I were an American Indian I would be SNUGGLES MUD of the Plattbego Tribe. If I were a Star Wars character I would be ANDTA RABOS Vokcaravan of Walatin.

Best of all though was a video I saw on one of the websites that led me to a literal version of the Aha! video for "Take on Me." Too funny... here's the link for those of you who remember pop culture in the 80s. You can watch it if you click here.

Lastly, I have decided that I don't want my cell phone to call me to tell me to bring things home. That's why I bought myself a girlfriend.


A.H. Talkov
Brigadier General Commanding

General Orders No. 3

The battle lines (or shall I say blog lines) are drawn.

Our forces are now connected to a Bloglines account and are receiving information from two Civil War related correspondents. For some long I've been hesitant to seek information from the blogs because I couldn't keep track of all of them. With the aggregator it's a snap! One mouseclick and I can receive the latest intelligence (sometimes more and sometimes less). In addition, if I'm surfing the web and find a blog or newsfeed I want to follow I can add it to my Bloglines account with another click.

We shall make great use of this technology in our effort to defeat our greatest enemy - ignorance.

A. H. Talkov
Brigadier-General Commanding

General Orders No. 2

Richmond, Va., October 20, 2008

We have conducted our reconnaissance into the territory controlled by the Flickrs and, in the immortal words of Captain James T. Kirk, "Too... much... information... makes... my... brain... hurt."

I did a search for 'Civil War' and came up with a collection of images related to the American Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, and whatever is happening in Iraq that they refuse to call a Civil War. I'm not sure but it seems as though Flickr might not run on a Google-type search engine that brings up the most popularly visited sites. As a result, what you get is a bevy of images that may or may not really relate to your search. That said, I suppose Flickr is mainly a resource to share images as opposed to a search engine to locate images. As far as UGC (user generated content) is concerned, my problem is that most users don't have anything particularly interesting to say... and some are downright vile. With all the information out there it seems like it would be difficult for a VHS Flickr page to be found among the vast sea of information and, if found, to get a critical mass of loyal users to stay committed. Given the fact that any images (of events for instance) that the VHS wants to promote could be promoted on our website makes Flickr probably less useful for our applications. I'll have to think on this for a bit though...

I did enjoy using the Flikr spelling tool and loved my Flikr chia-pet...

A.H. Talkov
Brigadier-General, Commanding

General Orders No. 1

Richmond, Va., October 7, 2008.

Let us understand each other. I have come to you from the South (of the James) where we have always seen the backs of our enemies; from an army whose business it has been to seek the adversary and to beat him where he is found; whose policy has been the attack and not defense... Let us look before us and not behind. Success and glory are in the advance, disaster and shame lurk in the rear.

A. H. Talkov,
Brigadier-General, Commanding.