Here’s the third one in a row of AntiViews. Just when you thought that AO members are interesting, I give you an AO admin!

Mnstrgrl’s profile on AO

Name: Heidi

Place and date of Birth (or age): age 30, born in Denver, CO

Current place of residence: Boston, MA

Marital status: divorced






AO: How did you get into computers?

Mnstgrl: My first computer was a Commodore 64. I played a lot of Jumpman :-) I tended to be the only person in my family who could make a computer do much of anything, so I had a limited sort of "local guru" status pretty early.

AO: What is your area of specialty?

Mnstrgrl: Web programming and webserver administration.

AO: What do you do for a living?

Mnstrgrl: Sysadmin/web dev for Jupm.

AO: How did you get into your career?

Mnstrgrl: I got offered my first job by a freelancer friend. He said, "Here's a book about HTML. Figure it out and build this site by tomorrow and I'll pay you." I freelanced for a while, and then got my first professional job doing web development for Lexmark.

AO: Describe your education and/or training?

Mnstrgrl: I'm almost entirely self-taught. I've had training at work for Vignette Storyserver and am certified in MySQL.

AO: Do you plan on staying where you are (career-wise) or are you still in school / working on certs to get into another area?

Mnstrgrl: I'm working my way into the sysadmin world, mostly through on-the-job training. I'd like to take a *NIX class. Sysadmin is the career I want though.

AO: What one piece of advice would you offer to others who may be interested in following a career path or educational path similar to yours?

Mnstrgrl: You can learn anything from the net. Certs are important to some employers, but really knowing your stuff is the most important thing.

AO: What skill do you think is invaluable in your area of specialty?

Mnstrgrl: Understanding all the ins and outs of web servers (apache, in my case).

AO: Describe one of your best / most effective security practices.

Mnstrgrl: Only provide services on a necessary basis -- close ports and disable services that aren't needed, only give users the level of access as they need to do their job.

AO: Do you have a little-known fact about yourself (personal, hobbies, tech-related) that you would be willing to share?

Mnstrgrl: My college degree is a BFA in lighting design for theater.

AO: How did you find Antionline?

Mnstrgrl: My boss dumped it on my desk

AO: Thanks! I dumped an AntiView request on your boss's desk!