September 2009
Holding the cat by the tail →
I thought Jack Margo’s interview by UTest was very interesting. What caught my eye was the following statement: The days of specialists are mostly killed from the recession…you have to be…
Is the message getting through? →
Sat on a bus this weekend on the way to Stockholm airport. Approaching the airport the driver announced that the bus would stop at all terminals. He did this in both Swedish and English. Straight…
TWST5 – Archetypes →
Pending approval per the IP Agreement we all bound ourselves to, my detailed notes will be showing up later in the week, but I’m giving myself permission to publish my own stuff.
My contribution…
"Skilled" tester - do you know what it is? →
Gil Bloom posted the following question on linkedin: “Skilled” tester - do you know what it is? Is there a definition or a way to define it? Apparently it is not that obvious. I was challenged…
Saving the game in enterprise software →
The most important take-away idea from CITCON Europe this year for me was probably building ’save game’ functionality as an integral feature in software systems.
Antony Marcano talked about…
Ping your blog and see the stats →
At Pingdom Tools you can submit your web-page address and almost instantly get stats reported.
What it does?
The Full Page Test loads a complete HTML page including all objects (images, CSS,…
Best Practise ?! →
Please share best practises for testing team?, testing centralised team?, knowledge sharing for testers?, etc – how many times have we all heard about this or have seen this as a discussion topic…
StickyMinds on Bridging the Communication Gap:... →
Sticky Minds published a review of Bridging the Communication Gap today.
As a tester, this book has been quite useful to me. It explains where the roles of other people, besides developers, fit…
The Trouble With UAT – Part 1 →
On Friday, I joined a free teleclass, Helping Users Find Time for User Acceptance Testing, presented by Robin F. Goldsmith, JD. Mr. Goldsmith, author of Discovering REAL Business…
My favorite cheat sheets for Software Testing →
I’m a big fan of dzone which is more than a great digg-like for the developers community. It’s another great tool to be used as part of your technical-watch toolbox whether you’re a…
Reportage: An iPhone Twitter Client with Focus →
I follow < 200 people on Twitter, which is paltry compared to many. But even with that relatively low number I can lose track of a few contacts. Days will go by without one of their posts making it…
So...what tester are you? The Magician →
So…what tester are you?
The Magician Observed Behaviour : Instant bug finding, being in the right place at the right time, magic baby Favourite Phrase : I don’t go looking for…
iMeta Agility > Scrum Management Tool →
It’s fantastic news to announce that iMeta have just released iMeta Agility for public beta. So what is iMeta Agility? It’s a scrum management tool that all teams here have been using…
Exploratory Testing ... in print and at STAR →
By James A. Whittaker Well my book survived a recession haunted publishing house and my own change of employer and is now available in print. The subtitle even changed as the techniques,…
Car 2.0 →
How radically different do cars need to become in order to have a significant impact on the cost of fuel and emissions? Hybrid’s are great, but Shai Agassi is all in on electric cars. His company,…
Your Customer's Wants →
There are many many people in this world who care about what we do as testers and as software engineers, in one way or another. A significant subset of these are people we would consider customers….
Automation and performance logging →
This past weekend we held the September 2009 IWST workshop on the topic of “Automation and performance logging.” The workshop participants were:
Sameer Adibhatla
Randy Fisher
Mike Goempel
…
Questions to help clarify test status →
Stealing from a post I did on SearchSoftwareQuality.com, here are some questions I use to clarify testing status when doing debriefs:
What was your mission for this session?
What did you test…
So...what tester are you? The Chuck Norris →
So…what tester are you? The Chuck Norris Observed Behaviour : Desk smacking, shouting, swearing, punching, ranting, stomping, kicking and general aggression Favourite Phrase : I’m…
Should We Call Test-Driven Development Something... →
In the first post in this series, I proposed “that those things that we usually call ‘unit tests’ be called ‘unit checks’.” I stand by the proposal, but I should clarify something important…
“Create your testing portfolio” presentation →
Some colleagues do voluntary work at Tech Career, helping immigrants learn matters related to technology and score a job in the Israeli Hi-Tech industry either as programmer or testers. It is a…
Approaches for interviewing in software testing -... →
On September 1st, 2009, I decided to move away from my paying job to write this book - Approaches for interviewing in software testing. Before my bank sends an SMS “Lost your job?”, I am…
Episode 23 Port-a-Test a portable test bed →
In this episode, Federico and Matthew talk about the benefits of having an automated test bed that can be easily transferred and run from any machine. They discuss some of the differences between a…
How to write non-functional requirements from bits... →
Lately I’ve been assigned to write the non-functional requirements for my project. This is a subject that’s not extensively discussed in any project. It’s just something that has to be there; it’s…
Test Post →
Test ABC A test
Finding the magic in your magic numbers →
Today’s tip comes from a post I read by Scott Berkun:
The simplest, sanest step in the world, a step few people do, is when a project ends go back and review your estimates and compare against the…
W3C mobileOK Checker →
Found a cool W3C website for checking if your website is mobile friendly. Just enter the website and go.
As you can see from the image, QuickTestingTips didn’t do so well. Apparently our…
Weekend Testing Session No. 9 →
Friends, Weekend is nearing and so is our testing session. Please confirm your participation for the “BWT Session No.9” Date: Saturday 26th September 2009 Time: 3pm – 5pm IST Please be online…
Pybots success stories and a call for help →
Any report of the death of the Pybots project is an exaggeration. But not by much. First, some history. Some history The idea behind the Pybots project is to allow people to run automated tests…
7 Influential Books →
Phil Kirkham recently posted a list of 7 Influential Books and encouraged some of his fellow bloggers to follow suit. Of course, Phil’s list overlaps mine, so instead, I’d like to present:
Requesting QA Manager Interviews For My Blog →
As I peruse the Web for ideas on good topics for QA Management, I find a lot of interesting content. Rather than rehashing content that is already available, though, I’d like to meet some…
Changesets →
I know not all testers do this, but at least where I am, testers write code and check it in. (Yes, I recognize that this is completely normal for some shops, including ours.) Now, when we check in…
Use your 0908 card →
Today’s tip was submitted by Zach Fisher.
Even business owners are subject to inattentional blindness. Their vast experience allows them to perceive certain scenarios as impossible, improbable,…
Live Music Friday: The National, Jesus Lizard,... →
The National: Jesus Lizard 1991: Fugazi: Tiny Vipers:
Clean System Testing Using Sandboxie →
Sandboxie is one of those unique utilities that varies in description depending on how you intend to use it. To some people, it’s a security tool because it isolates your local drive from any…
EVOLUTIONAL TESTING →
It’s time to move on…. Lies, crap, and software testing. I’m Totally Over the drama queen paranoia and finger-pointing. Then again, it’s been a while since we’ve wallowed in this kind of engineered…
Some Testing and QA Blogs You Should Read →
Blogs are a great way to quickly read what others in the Testing and QA field have to say about our profession.
Here are some good ones. I read them often. Perhaps you should…
SIGIST - Done →
That’s another SIGIST complete. This one took place in London on 22/09/2009. The theme was ‘developing testers’. There seemed to be a fairly good turn out too. First up was Isabel Evans…
Visual Test Challenge →
First, the video:
Seriously, please, watch the video. It’s only a minute. Then, and only then, scroll down.
(This space intentionally left blank.)
(This one too.)
(More intentional…
Fitnesse and Fitnium Fun →
Some things I have learned when using Fitnium and Fitnesse. SuiteSetUp and SuiteTearDown are not for actions, those need to go into regular tables, the SetUp and TearDown are not for Action…
Fitnesse and Selenium as Services →
Because I am working with Fitnesse and Selenium, I wanted a way to be able to remotely access tests on a central server, right now I am setting up the services on my own machine. These are the…
free random name generator →
Today I needed to generate random names for test data. I found this free random name generator. See: http://www.neoprogrammics.com/randomisers/random_names_generator/
Test Tools for Covert Operations →
I have one of my clients to thank for this tip.
I was performing some software testing recently on a product that had both a software and hardware element to it. The unique setup of the laptop,…
Quick Usability Hints →
Here are some things to complain about if your Web site under test doesn’t conform: 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines.
(Via the Twitterverse.)
So...what tester are you? The Comedian →
So…what tester are you?
The Comedian Observed Behaviour : Laughing, joking, playing practical jokes, having fun Favourite Phrase : You know what would be funny? Nemesis : Test Leads …
The Fog Of Test →
Test Manager: Remember, we’re Software Testers, not some sorry-ass QA Analysts. We’re elite. Let’s act like it out there. Hoo-ah? Testers: Hoo-ah! You arm yourself with TestA and prepare…
Feedback Junkie →
I was reminded again this morning that I am a “feedback junkie”. My team is on a new project and the backlog items are starting to appear as small working pieces of code. In addition, we’re…
Top 10 Software Testing and QA Groups On LinkedIn →
LinkedIn is a great networking resource, especially if you join Groups. And there are a lot of software testing and QA groups on LinkedIn. I’ve found these groups helpful when I’ve been looking…
Jeff Roberts on a scalable DNS scheme for EC2 →
My ex-colleague from OpenX, Jeff Roberts, has another great blog post on ‘A Scalable DNS Scheme for Amazon’s EC2 Cloud’. If you need to deploy an internal DNS infrastructure in EC2, you have to…
My first talk at a College →
Couple of weeks back, I was invited to provide a career talk on software testing at Don Bosco Institute of technology engineering college in Bangalore. I was sceptical initially since I had never…
