January 2010
Testers and Developers at Fog Creek Software →
Joel Spolsky is hiring a Tester. See: http://www.fogcreek.com/Jobs/QA.html
As he often does, he expounds a bit on his ideas behind the role on his terrific “Joel on Software” site…
A Saturday of testing (Part 2/2) →
Even though I didn’t take part in any WT sessions this weekend I still owe a report from the last one.
Here is how the EWT 02 went for me:
The mission was to create little soap operas for…
Hands-on agile acceptance testing with FitNesse,... →
I will run a three day hands-on workshop on agile acceptance testing and specification by example in Berlin, Germany on April 19-21.
This three day workshop immerses the participants into a…
Attitude of the development team to the product →
Back in the old days, most of my Agile consulting was coming into well-performing Agile teams who wanted to talk about improving their testing. So I got to see a lot of seasoned teams. What struck…
Up in the Air →
I saw “Up in the Air” last night. While it’s a well-done movie, albeit entirely predictable, the world it portrays is a lot more disturbing than it seems at first. To explain, I recommend John…
Communication in agile teams →
Agile development does not mean that there is no documentation, but there is often less documentation. A lot of the documentation is replaced by communication in agile development. New stories or…
Developing People →
As a single mother in the 21st Century, there is a lot you want to say and do for your children to help them avoid the pitfalls that this world sets up to snare them and make their life more…
Selenium 2 - Presentation and Demo Ideas →
I have been asked if I would be interested in giving a talk about Selenium 2 at the London Selenium User Group. I am really excited about doing a talk to the group but I am having an ideas block…
Evaluating a Tester’s potential? Invite him to... →
Let’s put aside the subject of Testing for a second and talk about more serious stuff – Playing Games!
I had not played Sudoku until about a month ago when I was stuck in a boring meeting and the…
I test therefore I log bugs (What could be simpler... →
Has anyone who ever works in IT ever successfully explained to a non-IT parent or relative exactly what it is they do? I tried but when it got to the point where I was fantasising about putting fuses…
Selenium discussed in pinoyjug meetup →
Last Friday, a couple of friends and I headed over to the G2IX Techbar to attend a PinoyJUG meetup. It was the second time for my housemate and me, and I think it was a first for Renz. As with the…
The ongoing weekend testing adventure – EWT03 →
I had to skip the previous weekend testing session involving Bing maps (which was a pity – I absolutely adore map applications), but today I was able to participate in EWT03. It was again an…
How to negotiate a price: Return on Indignation →
As an entrepreneur you have to negotiate things: customer contracts, freelance rates, investments, acquisitions and more. These things are really important, but you probably grew up in a western…
EWT03 Experience Report →
Date: 30th January 2010 Time: 15:30 – 18:00 GMT
Website Tested: http://calendar.google.com
Mission: You work in a small-medium company, and your manager has been asked to evaluate switching…
EWT02 Experience Report →
Date: 23rd January 2010 Time: 15:30 – 18:00 GMT
Website Tested: http://www.bing.com/maps
Mission: Test Bing Maps and bring up test scenarios. Create a list of scenarios with…
15 Minute Preview on Reducing Test Case Bloat →
Jon Bach asks me a few questions about my upcoming presentation. Check out http://www.qasig.org/ and come out to see the presentation on March 10th! Not only is the space great, but there was…
Website Address Resolution Problems →
Updates at the bottom (current count: 2)
Update 1
Update 2
I’ve been having issues with my web browsing. I’ve seen twitter redirect to a random/dead blogspot page, Invalid URL errors,…
Large List of RFIs (1000+) →
I started on this project over a year ago, and then I stopped, and then I started it again, and then I stopped again, and finally today, I mostly got it finished (or as far as I’m willing to take it…
Selenium TOTW: CSS Selectors in Selenium... →
Following my previous TOTW about improving your locators, this blog post will show you some advanced CSS rules and pseudo-classes that will help you move your XPATH locators to CSS, a native…
How Difficult is it, Really? →
I’ve been using an easier version of my coding question lately, because candidates have struggled so much. First I moved it from C to C# (or Java, if candidates only have a java background). Then I…
Quick hit: I just don't get it... →
I admit, I’m not super-knowledgeable about security. I know some of the fundamentals, but not a great deal beyond that.
Still, in my early days on the ‘net I got the distinct impression that …
Irrelevant Imperfections →
A developer at work today gave a brown bag lunch talk on a virtualized test environment he’s been working on. Part of his introduction included this:
“This takes the imperfect parts of our…
Joel Spolsky on Testing →
From Joel Spoksky’s latest blog post “Why Testers?”
… You don’t have to be a programmer to be a tester. A lot of companies want testers to be programmers who write automated test suites. It…
On a Boart, Part II →
It’s been hectic week, and I didn’t have a ton of time to write, but I do have a few goodies to share.
First of all, my colleague Donna Reed write an article on project management trends in 2010,…
How Web Designers Did It In 1985 →
Ever wonder what Web designers did before the Web existed?
This article gives us some insight.
Five Signs You Might Not Be a Good Fit for a Work... →
You are an extrovert.
You consider drugs, alcohol, porn, food, or video games an adequate substitute for human beings.
You value a clear distinction between work and life.
You already have…
Episode 32 Last Minute Changes →
In this episode Matthew and Federico again take from there experience of working on the MVC project and this time talk about last minute changes.
Why last minute changes happen? High priority…
Advancing Testing Using Axioms →
Last week I presented a talk called “Advancing Testing Using Axioms” at the First IIR Testing Forum in Helsinki, Finland.
Test Axioms have been formulated as a context-neutral set of rules for…
Bugs I choose not to report YET. →
In my recent blog I mentioned an extreme test reporting case - bugs hidden from some stakeholders. I want to continue this topic. Because my blog motto this year is writing what guru testers don’t…
Five Free, Online and Cute Project Management... →
What to do to provide high project quality at the startup? What to do to rapidly create a development environment with project and knowledge management ? In my opinion, the fastest ways, if we do not…
7 Habits of a Highly Ineffective Conversationalist →
1. Be a terrible listener. To you active listening means mumbling “uh huh,” on a good day. 2. Have it always be all about you. If ever it isn’t, change the topic back to you stat. If they try to…
Craigslist Backlash Targets Single Company →
In Springfield, Missouri, the Craigslist designers are ganging up on one local company.
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Taking the pulse of the Carnival of Testers →
A short overview of the last 6 carnivals. For all those fans of metrics out there, sorry, there are none - just a smattering of stats with little assessment! There have been 6 carnivals so far. The…
Bug in tornado-0.2 →
If you’re using the latest packaged tornado distribution, tornado-0.2.tar.gz, then you might hit on the following bug when using AsyncHTTPClient: ERROR:root:Exception in callback > Traceback (most…
Micro PHP LFI Backdoor →
I’ve been playing around a lot more with LFI attacks, because I think they’re more prevalent than I originally had expected. Last night I had cigars with one of the OWASP guys and I got to thinking…
I Hate Agile Article →
For those of you who have been following my rants on A…, take a look at the cover article I wrote recently that has been published in T.E.S.T. magazine. Here’s the link… …
QA Jobs: The Coverletter →
Interviewing and resume review is in full swing now. This is the first time I’ve been on this side of the table. It is hard to review the applications and remember how much care and hope I put in…
Black Viper Testing Technique →
Image credits
The following conversation is a copy paste from LinkedIn’s Software Testing & Quality Assurance group in which I write a lot. Quality Leader at org_1 asks…
Testing Clichés Part II – Testing should be... →
This is an idea you see and hear now and then. It comes in different shapes, ranging from testers needing to have an independent manager, to testers being best if physically separated from…
UKTMF Annual Summit →
I had an absolutely fantastic day yesterday at the UKTMF annual summit hosted at The Institute of Directors. Let’s start by thanking Paul Gerrard, Susan Windsor, Julia Garrard and all the others…
Testing conference in Ryga - call for papers →
Baltic testers invited to conference “Theory and Practice of Software Testing”, 11th International Conference ‘Discover the Tester in You’ - July 6, 2010 in Ryga (Latvia).Call for papers announced:…
Listening to feedback →
I have half a dozen different blog posts started but I thought I’d write this one instead. When you listen to customer feedback, you need to treat the good and the bad equally. If some customers…
BIG BUGS →
There are countless documents, articles, presentations, whitepapers that use the graph where the cost of identifying and fixing a bug increases exponentially over time. Last year I read…
Finally..... →
It looks like in spite of the attempts of “A” purists to force a strict adherance to their idea of what “A” should be, most companies are following the true spirit of “A” valuing “cherry picking” of…
Interesting thought about Peer Guardian →
“Install 4 or 5 additional list to the ones that pre-install on the PG2 and set the log function to just log the blocks that PG2 is making…. Surf the web for a few hours and I assure you it will…
Information Technology, Quality Assurance Manager →
Exploratory Testing IS Accountable →
In this blog post, my colleague James Bach talks about logging and its importance in support of exploratory testing. Logging takes care of one part of the accountability angle, and in an…
Expect to Find →
Creating test cases is really easy. I can do that all day long, and wind up with dozens or hundreds of ‘em if I’m on a roll. For example, I’m currently thinking about how to tests a process that…
Logging: Exploratory Tester’s Friend →
I’m on a new project lately, working with a team at QualiTest. We’re testing a class III medical device. This is an exciting project, because for the first time I am aware of, formalized…
Carnival of Testers #6 →
Three weeks since the last carnival, and there has been lots of activity - maybe people are refreshed after the holiday break or the retrospectives are out of the way and it’s full steam ahead with…