1. First, I can go for days, weeks, and months without having to reboot which saves lots of time.

   Second, one of the things that bugs me is the need to learn different tools on different platforms because certain vendors don't provide the tools I need on various platforms. A number of the things I need on a day-to-day basis are available in OS/2 as well as other platforms I need to use.

   Third, I can use my favorite text editor, KEDIT, for which I have a gigantic set of macros that run in DOS, Windows, and OS/2 as well as UNIX (TM) and in XEDIT on CMS. I especially like the ability to look at practically anything to find what I'm looking for in hex or alphameric strings.

   Fourth, I especially like not having to deal with a split address space when I'm writing programs that tend to have rather gigantic address spaces.

2. I first used OS/2 in 1988 on an IBM AT-GX, then on a PS/2-50.

3. I first used OS/2 because it was there <*_*> Seriously, at the time, it was the first opportunity I had to do some serious REXX programming without being involved with a mainframe or with the limited address space of DOS.

4. My favorite soda is without sugar or caffiene. According to the nurses at the City of Hope, my most favorite flavors are Diet Mandarin Orange Slice and Diet Sprite. From my pre-diabetic days, I still have an affinity for Cokes which I satisfy with Caffiene-free Diet Coke.

5. The first computer I worked on was a CDC-6400 at the University of Washington. The first one I ever actually touched was an IBM 1130 at the University of Washington. The first one I personally owned was an IBM PC Portable (that's the suitcase-sized job that weighs 20+ pounds and is still calculating fractal images to this day).

6. My most favorite and most-used OS/2 application is KEDIT from the Mansfield Software Group.

7. What do I do for a living? For the last nine years, I've been at UCLA. First, I managed the Supercomputing Services Group, then I moved to The Institute of Archæology. My principal interests in computing are technology futures and multimedia. My techical skills are fairly broadbased, ranging from ATM through TCP/IP to Novell in networking, from Fortran to most web language tools in languages, from Paradox through DB/2 to Jasmine in databases, and from drawing programs to medical and satellite image processing in graphics, and practically anything dealing with multimedia objects.

Biography

Virginia left one Washington (State) where she grew up for another Washington (D.C.) when she went to university. While she was an undergraduate, she worked at the Library of Congress and, after graduation, moved over to work at her Senator's office while she was completing her MA. She moved back to the first Washington to take a Ph.D at the University of Washington before moving to the University of Florida where she was on the faculty for ten years. She moved to the computing center at UF to head a joint study project with IBM on digital image processing of satellite imagery. After three years on that project, she became the visualization and numerically intensive computing coordinator. Nine years ago, UCLA made her an offer she couldn't refuse and she moved to Los Angeles to manage UCLA's Supercomputing Services Group.

Dr. Virginia R. Hetrick has designed more than 60 Web sites since 1992, among them first Web site for The Institute of Archaeology at UCLA (http://www.ioa.ucla.edu) and a site for high-dose chemotherapy patients named You Are Not Alone (http://www.yana.org). She has been a Technologist and Scientific Computing Manager at The Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, Manager of the Supercomputing Services Group at UCLA. Before coming to UCLA, she worked at the University of Florida's NorthEast Regional Data Center following ten years on the faculty at UF. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington. Outside of work, she has been active in SHARE Inc. and served on its Board of Directors as Director of Volunteer Resources. She's also a member of ACM-Siggraph, POSSI, and, of course, SCOUG. Over the past six years, she has developed a number of practical approaches to the organization and design of Web sites and presented more than 100 talks on issues related to these topics.

Her own sites are:

Virginia, Women's Health Volunteer, and

Virginia's Information Technology Interests

She also regularly presents classes on design, management, and use of the Internet to SHARE as well as to national and international organizations.

From April to late October, when she's not doing something related to a computer or to women's health, she can usually be found watching a baseball game, mostly the Dodgers, but occasionally the Gators, Bruins, or Huskies.

• Representing Special Characters on the Web
  (2/1/1998)