Grace Hopper!!

Well, it's Fall again and the time has come for another Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference organized by the Anita Borg Institute. I've only been once before a few years back. The experience is nothing like that of any regular tech conference. It really can be considered as Heaven for any geek guy. Unfortunately, as soon as they see the "Women in Computing" part they automatically disregard it. Just picture this: over 2000 (that's right, two thousand) women all as excited about pretty much any kind of technology as they are about new shoes. It was an absolute blast. Especially since the sponsor night party thrown by GHC organizers is nothing like any other conference reception party I've even attended (to say nothing of the swag ;-D ). There's is always so much going on that you are afraid to miss a minute of it. You learn, network, grow, even can get a great job during GHC.

I've met my now best friend at GHC. That time it was held in Orlando so now we can tell people that we have met in Downtown Disney World. Being a grad student in CSE I am always told that we (women) are a minority in our chosen field. Well.... *This* is the place to go if you want to believe otherwise. GHC is where I was relieved to find out that I am not an anomaly being a geek gal that doesn't fit any of the usual stereotypes. I don't wear glasses of any kind, I do have a closet full of stilettos and clubbing attire, until recently I have been a platinum blond for quite a while, and I was *really* exited about getting a large screen Sony Bravia and the release of Halo Reach. GHC is the place where no one will have the audacity to suggest that I need help turning on my wireless connection on my laptop or ask if I use C or Java for programming. I mean really! If you only know what one or two programming languages are called you aren't a real programmer. I've never met anyone who can say that they make their living by just knowing Java. Any *real* programmer has at least a foot-long list of languages they know and few more feet of those they can start using in a matter of a couple of hours. Anyway, I diverge. Back to GHC - I'm going this year and it being only 5 days away I can barely contain my excitement!

If you're going, I'll probably see you in Atlanta next week! If you are not, you should seriously consider attending next Fall - you'll have the time of your life and stories to tell for the years to come after.

LaTeX quirks - omitting things in TOC

Everyone knows how LaTeX can make your life easier and at the same time drive you insane with a tiny little 'gotcha'. I'm using a LaTeX template to write my thesis and the template sets up the Abstract and the Acknowledgment sections as follows:

\begin{abstract}
... text goes here...
\end{abstract}

\begin{acknowledgment}
blah blah Thank you blah
\end{acknowledgment}

which works just fine, generates the appropriate titles, puts them on separate pages and all that. Then I realize that these sections are not supposed to be included into the table of contents, but, unfortunately, they are. As the wonderful LaTeX magically creates the TOC for you with the inclusion of single command, I start searching how to fix this. Guess what I find - numerous entries on how to add sections to TOC that won't be there by default but nothing on omitting the Abstract from it... Then I stumble on something odd looking:

\chapter*{Abstract}
... text goes here

I try that removing the \end{} commands, followed by double typeset run and Eurika! It works! Granted, the title is no longer centered, but that can be easily fixed as long as my TOC is correct. Thought I'd share in hopes of saving someone the aggravation of trying to do the same.

Happy TeX-ing :)