October 2008
Migrating SSL certs from IIS to Apache →
If you ever find yourself facing this task, use this guide — worked perfectly for me.
OFFAL-SHORING →
Tough Times for Testers Well, the economy is definitely having an impact in my region; we have two major employers laying people off. I wish I was hiring FTEs (Full Time Employees) right now –…
I work for this guy →
Best Halloween costume I’ve ever seen. You rock Nate!!!
Happy Halloween! →
We don’t think software testing should ever be scary, but on Halloween things can get a little spooky. Here’s a little Halloween Treat from all of us here at uTest (click to see full size):
How do you measure and appraise testers? →
- Do you use a tool to measure testers? - Do you measure them based on the number of bugs they find? - Do you measure them by the number of valid (acknowledged by development/product/ team) bugs they…
A Post-Agilist Concept: End Methodology Wars →
One of the Post-Agile ideals I have witnessed and encourage is the breaking down of walls between methodology camps. When teams apply practices, processes, rituals and tools from Agile methodologies…
Exploratory Testing - the state of the art,... →
I am delivering a talk on “Exploratory Testing - The State of the art” at STeP-IN forum. This talk is happening at Intuit Campus at Bangalore on Nov 6th. Find the announcement for this evening talk
Pylot and WebInject - Chosen as "Top web... →
Pylot (my web performance test tool) and WebInject (my web functional test tool) were both just named on the “List of top web application load and stress test tools” from WarePrise.
I am…
TotT: Contain Your Environment →
Many modules must access elements of their environment that are too heavyweight for use in tests, for example, the file system or network. To keep tests lightweight, we mock out these elements. But…
[ANN] A Public Offering of my Agile Testing Class →
And now for a blatant commercial announcement: I’m hosting a public offering of my Agile Testing class with Dale Emery on December 10 and 11 in Pleasanton, CA.
I predict that this is going to be…
How To Make Your Product Update Look Suspicious,... →
Step 1: Have an unnamed Product Update screen display by the system tray on product startup:
Given how long the newer version I have (Paint Shop Pro Photo X2) takes to load, I often…
Python - Job Paradox →
Paul Graham has some great essays online that made up the content of his book: Hackers & Painters. One of my favorite posts is The Python Paradox, which presents something rather…
Great Example of Exploratory Testing Session notes →
Exploratory Testing (ET) can be done well or it can be done poorly. How do you know how well you’re doing ET? I believe you need 2 things: (1) you need to keep notes as you perform your testing,…
Good Things From Bad Bugs →
A recent posting on the Software Testing Club about memorable bugs you had found got me thinking… I posted to the discussion about how it was a tester missing a bug that led to me becoming a…
When should a test run unattended? - III →
First off, I’ve revised the title of of the series. I’m all for automating work that can be described and /precisely/ evaluated. For example, let’s say you have a PowerOf function. To test it, you…
Agile Development Practices teaser podcast →
I’ll be giving a keynote at Agile Development Practices. Joey McAllister of SQE interviewed me about it. The focus is on what’s missing from the Agile Manifesto. I think of the Manifesto as a…
How to test e-mail notifications properly →
I frequently get this question about unit or acceptance testing: If sending e-mail or some other sort of notifications is required by the business process, do we test this and how? This arrived…
Develop, Test and Deploy on SunxVM using VMLogix →
Sun has a powerful suite of virtualization product offerings - from the xVM server (for the data center) to VDI software (offering a secure virtual desktop). The also offer Ops Center…
What am I checking? How will I check it? →
I chose to attend Hans Buwalda’s full day tutorial, “Delivering Test Automation Success Through People, Methods and Tools” at STPCon. Hans credits himself as the inventor of “Action Based Testing”,…
manual v. automated testing again →
In my Future series I was accused of supporting both sides of the manual v. automated debate and flip-flopping like an American politician who can’t decide whether to kiss the babies or their…
Testing Reality →
A few years ago I began questioning everything I thought I knew: what I did, why I did it, how I did it. Central to my progress through these questions and the learnings they have precipitated and…
More Win7 Previews →
Previews of some specific parts of Windows 7 which are of interest to me:
Audio
Media Center
For Want Of A Conditional →
This is the sort of defect I really hate. Not that it’s broken, not that it’s a simple fix, but this is the sort of defect that you spend more time arguing about than it would take fixing.
The…
Testuff 1.1 Aftermath →
Yes, it has been two weeks since my last post. During this time we worked very hard on fixing and releasing Testuff 1.1 for the general QA public.
Unfortunately, it took us longer to release…
Testing Interview Questions →
Couple of month’s back I was invited for an interview at one of the big, reputed Indian service based company in Bangalore. This interview turned out to be an eye-opener for me at the state of…
Win7 Previews Starting To Appear →
Windows 7 is being unveiled for the first time at PDC and the initial previews are starting to hit the net. Here is a sampling:
Gizmodo (covers Device Stage with lots of pictures)
…
Testing the number of years of software testing... →
I am a software testing coach. I am not the kind of software testing coach who runs through hundred of slides about how to drive a car for those aspiring to drive a car or for those who aspire to…
Webinar Reminder: Boost Your Testing Process →
Just a reminder about tomorrow’s free webinar: Boost Your Testing Process. We’ve got some good stuff lined up for the presentation! Learn about how to improve your software testing and get…
A while back, I wrote a post on breaking code, in... →
A while back, I wrote a post on breaking code, in which I suggested that testers don’t add value to a project; they merely defend the value that’s there. This isn’t a general systems law, but any…
NotAtPDC - A Conference for the Rest of Us →
If you’re like me, you’re sitting at your desk working today instead of attending PDC ‘08. Luckily, sessions are available from Channel9 24 hours after each event (tags: PDC 2008, PDC08),…
GUI Testing: Don't Sleep Without... →
Posted by Patrick Zembrod, Software Engineer in Test, Sweden So you’re working on TheFinalApp - the ultimate end-user application, with lots of good features and a really neat GUI. You have a team…
Artists on Software Development →
I heard two wonderful things on the CBC today, both of which relate to this business of software development. One was on the radio, on an arts magazine called Q, hosted by the urbane Jian…
My diabolical problem becomes simply a wicked one →
I spent ages recently googling for references to ‘Diabolical Problems’, about which I thought I had read. Thanks to Matt Heusser’s latest post, I now know I should have instead been googling for
This is depressing: Ken Thompson is also a googler →
Just found out that Ken Thompson, one of the creators of Unix, works at Google. You can see his answers to various questions addressed to Google engineers by following the link with his name on …
Testability Explorer: Measuring Testability →
Testability Explorer: Using Byte-Code Analysis to Engineer Lasting Social Changes in an Organization’s Software Development Process. (Or How to Get Developers to Write Testable Code) Presented at…
Programming Parables →
There are certain stories that should simply be a part of every technologist’s background - they explain a kind of thinking about the world. Most of them, like the story of Mel or Winston Royce’s…
That’s What Friendlies Are For →
If you’re working at an interactive agency that does e-mail campaigns or even if you’re working on an application that sends e-mails, you’d better make sure you get to look at those e-mails before…
CSI Testing →
Finding the first defect on a program can be a bittersweet moment. Finding one means that you have some evidence to show that it’s worth having a tester on your team, thats one less defect a customer…
GTAC 2008 - Day 2 →
Day 2 of GTAC 2008 has been quite interesting. The talks that have interested me were the talk on Context Driven Testing, Automated Model Based Testing and the value of small tests. This talk, by…
Working with Permuations and Combinations →
Something tests end up doing a lot of is working with permutations and combinations. For those of you who didn’t have the benefit of a good statistics class in college (or some gambling experience…
SAForums - 3000th Post →
I just made my 3000th comment/post over at SQAForums. I’ve been a member and have enjoyed being part of that community since 2001. 8 years and 3000 posts.. wow. I spend a lot of time posting in…
GTAC 2008 - Day 1 →
Day one of GTAC has been really cool. There have been a number of really good talks. I will put links to the YouTube videos when I know them.. James Whittaker’s opening talk was a really good…
Grammar Heuristic →
One of my recent blog posts was picked up by QA Hates You who made a comment about quality Additionally, this would include an interface that lacks grammar and spelling issues; any time I see…
Thoughts on leadership →
Last week I was at the Test2008 conference in India. The organizers from PureTesting planned a grand event with workshops in Hyderabad, Delhi, Bangalore, and Pune. Then the main conference was…
QA Didn’t Even Have To Physically Convince Deziner →
Deziner Folio says, “Do some IE homework!”
He then proceeds to provide a list of handy tools you developers and designers can use as you create sites that should work with the dominant Web…
Software trials and evaluations - How can they be... →
Software Trials and Evaluations are Generally a Laborious Effort for ISVs & their Prospects
If you are an ISV, there is generally a lot of friction in getting your prospects a copy of your…
Dependency injection with Castle Windsor: Source... →
It was really great to talk about Castle Windsor today in front of the a room. Thanks very much to all of you who showed up and especially thanks to Mike Hadlow for participating in this event….
tools that can make HTTP connections to a... →
Looking for recommendations about available command line tools that can make HTTP connections to a PHP-based
application that’s on top of a WAMP stack.
Can anyone share past experiences with this?
Red Gate and I @ PDC 2008 →
PDC is fast approaching with some amazing technology due to be announced. You can’t help but get excited by Windows 7, VS10 and who knows what else? Don’t forget technologies such as the Pfx,…
Adam Smith on Scripted Testing →
While reading Tim Harford’s excellent book on economics, The Logic of Life, I found this quote from Adam Smith: “The man whose whole life is spent on performing a few simple operations … has…
