Tag Archives: tester

Software Testing is not a commodity!

Stick in software testing long enough, and you will see enough ideas come and go to be able to sort out the ones that look promising to work, and the ones that you just hope will go away soon enough so that no manager will pay any of her attention to it. There have been quite a few in the history of software testing, and from my experience the worst things started to happen every time when someone tried to replace a skilled tester with some piece of automation – whether that particular automation was a tool-based approach or some sort of scripted testing approach.

Why do we test software?

If we were able to write software right the first time, there would be clearly no need to test it. Unfortunately we humans are way from perfect. Take for example the book I wrote mostly through 2011. 200 pages, lots of reviewing, production planning, and stuff happening in the end. And still, while reviewing the German translation, I spotted a problem in the book – clearly visible at face value. I had spend at least 2 weeks after work to go through the book once more, and get everything right. Yet, I failed to see this obvious problem.

The problem lies in our second-order ignorance: the things we don’t know that we don’t know them. These are the things of good hope, and prayers that it will work. Murphy’s Law also has a role to play here.

The very act of software testing then becomes to find out as much information about our unawareness as possible. This includes not only exercising the product, but also finding out new things about the product. Skilled testers learn more about the product and the product domain and the development team over the course of the whole product lifecycle.

Why do we repeat tests?

But how come we focus on regressions to often in our industry? It has to do with first-order ignorance. A regression problem is a bug that gets introduced a second time, although it already had been fixed in the meantime. Since we were already fully aware of the problem, the bug is no longer something that we don’t that we don’t know it. It has become something that we know now, but we don’t know whether we will know it still tomorrow. That’s why we introduce a regression check for tomorrow, so that it will remind us about the problem that we tried to avoid at this time.

Read that sentence again. Yes, it’s speculation. We speculate that we might break the software tomorrow again. With this speculation comes a whole lot of costs. We have opportunity costs for doing the test, for automating it, and with every run, we have the opportunity cost of analyzing the result (if we have to).

We wouldn’t need this if we were able to realize that a regression bug introduced in our software is an opportunity to learn what is not working in our current process that caused that bug to re-occur. Every regression bug discovered should be an invitation to start a root cause analysis and fix the underlying problem rather than deal with the symptoms.

Source: http://www.shino.de/2013/02/04/software-testing-is-not-a-commodity/

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Three Software Testing Books I’d like to read Tweet12

have trimmed out a lot of my Software Testing books. And by trimmed, I mean, dumped or traded in on Amazon. I still have a few left, some because I see real value in them, and others because my hoarding instinct overrides my Zen de-cluttering zeal.

Here are 3 books I’d like to read. But they haven’t been written yet.

Apologies to the author’s and artists associated with the books I’ve based these new books on, but my desire for humorous pastiche overrode any concern that the original creative forces might feel insulted.  I picked on you because of your mythic stature in the Software Testing book world, because of the value that I took from you in my early years, and you met my needs.  

So my first 3 are:

  • The Art of Software Jesting by Ben Fold Wired
  • The Complete Guide to Software Besting by Phil Betzels
  • “I Object!”, Re-oriented Software Testing: A heretical Approach by Bell Diesel

 

The Art of Software Jesting

I think we take software testing too seriously. Or rather, we take ourselves too seriously. The danger being that Software Testing becomes a subject pumped up full of its own self importance, filled with pompous pontification.

e.g. "Exploratory testing must not be used as your main process. You must only use it after you have a stable system and have achieved coverage from your scripted tests."
blah de blah de blah, yeah yeah yeah

I don’t see enough evidence that we take ourselves seriously enough to mock ourselves.

Kings and Queens of olden days of yore took themselves pretty seriously, as did everyone else because their life depended on it. And yet they had a Court Jester to keep them balanced and reduce their hyper inflated sense of self importance.

Humour can help effect change, by laughing at yourself for beliefs with small amounts of evidence.

Lighten up.

Projects are a ridiculous place to shouting matches.

I appreciate many people on projects don’t appear to have a sense of humour, and don’t take it kindly when you try and inject one into the project. But as a weapon to disarm and defuse a situation, it helps.

It helps me not take my approach too seriously. It helps me work with people rather than roles.

Evil Tester was born from a requirement to have a sense of humour and expose the ridiculousness in many of the approaches and attitudes that I had adopted in the past, and other people on projects had adopted.

So if you are really serious about testing – take it seriously enough to laugh at it. And start with yourself, and your processes, don’t start with other peoples.

Have you mocked your testing today?

Complete Guide To Software Besting

I think we all know that “Testing is not Besting the Software produced” but if you want a persona to adopt as you test then periodically adopt the “Bester”.

This thinking hat will let you approach testing in a different way than the other hats you wear.

You have to decide your own limits in your software testing approach, so make sure your limits allow you to exceed the the requirements for ‘goodness’, you want to be better than that.

“I Object!”, Re-oriented Software Testing: A Heretical Approach

I think that we have to think heretically. We have to pursue the path that we consider true, treating all dogma as valid grounds for testing and evaluating alternatives.

Testers need to think and act differently, otherwise why would other Software Professionals want you on their project?

We need to make decisions contextually and based on knowledge, not from dogma.

You need to take responsibility for your test approach – and if that choice requires that you fly in the face of fashion and the masses, then I hope you do it.

The more heretics we have, the more we will advance in unexpected ways.

Other Reading Material?


This is based on the Test Bash talk I gave in March 2012. You can read Marcus Gartner’s summary of it here

Perhaps I’d like you to read “Selenium Simplified”, but maybe I’d rather you just bought it… and a few copies for your friends.

But what about you? What testing books would you like to read, that haven’t been written yet?

Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailShare on printMore Sharing Services

source: http://www.eviltester.com/

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Demand for software testers a boon to economy

The rising demand for software testing engineers can help position Malaysia as one of the leading niche players in the growing software testing business running into billions of dollars annually, says the President of the Malaysia Software Testing Board (MSTB), Mastura Abu Samah.

A software testing engineer is normally responsible for testing new computer software or programs before the product is delivered to ensure that they work properly, perform the desired functions, and are free from defects.

Mastura said the current trend in "our highly automated world is for software testing engineers to become the ‘third eye’ to identify ‘bugs’ or problems in computer systems before the procurer or purchaser takes possession of the system from the vendor for use or deployment."

"Against such a scenario, the potential of software testing engineering is tremendous with the business able to soar to a RM20 billion industry by 2020," she told Bernama in an interview.

Mastura said as European and other Western countries increasingly outsource their software testing business to the Asia Pacific, Malaysia could take advantage of the opportunities being offered to specialise in this sector and in the process enhance the national income.

Starting with only 20 software testing engineers in Malaysia more than 15 years ago, MSTB has helped to increase the number to 1,600 engineers and the board is targeting 10,000 software testing engineers in the country by 2015, she said.

MSTB is the national body representing industry interests in promoting Software Quality Assurance (SQA) and software testing as core competencies in the development of IT-dependent quality products and services.

As a member of the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB), MSTB regulates the accreditation and certification processes for Malaysia.

"The board has set up a platform to promote the industry and we need to ensure that the applications being tested are tested well and at the same time ensure that there are multi-skilled people undertaking the tasks," said Mastura, who is regarded as a pioneer in this specialised field.

She said companies usually clamour for multi-tasking engineers who can design, test and deploy software rather than being confined to "doing just one thing."

Mastura said MSTB initiated the Malaysia Software Testing Hub (MSTH) programme, a strategic public-private partnership with the government to "pilot" an eco-system that would also identify new opportunities in the global economy against the backdrop of an innovative economic model for high-income growth.

"In other words, MSTB is undertaking one of the niche areas which our former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had envisioned in the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) initiative in 1996 towards creating a multimedia hub of knowledge workers," said Mastura.

MTSB, she said, is now working with several local universities to ensure that software engineers performing such tasks would be able to "skill-up" and adapt to the different domains in the market such as banking, telecommunications or human resource management.

Mastura said MSTB hopes to help produce software testing engineers who can prove their worth anywhere in the world with their skills, adding studies have shown that these highly-skilled specialists can easily earn between RM15,000 and RM18,000 a month.

To help Malaysian software testing engineers keep abreast of the latest developments, MTSB has invited 14 renowned international experts in the field to speak at Softec, a three-day conference and workshop beginning here on Tuesday.

This year’s event, themed "The Art of Testing", focuses on the finer points of software testing, particularly on testing techniques and their effective application.

Source:
http://www.thesundaily.my/news/427696

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How to test Flex application using Selenium RC?

Testing Flex applications was difficult because the logic or behavior is encapsulated from the browser. Selenium RC uses JavaScript to communicate with the browser. Flex External Interface provides a mechanism for which you can use JavaScript to call an ActionScript function in a SWF file embedded in an HTML page. Therefore, we use FlexSelenium, a Selenium RC client extension that uses JavaScript as the medium between Selenium RC and the Flex application.

You can also test flex application by having a flex monkium plugin in selenium IDE. You need to compile your client application with sfapi.swc and automation_monkey.swc and the flex libs. This becomes your application to test. You can record your test and convert that into any format which you are comfortable in.

Recently I just got the chance to test one Flex application using selenium. To provide flex support to selenium, you just have to add few JAR files. But for this you need to rebuild your application with provided library file (SeleniumFlexAPI.swc) by selenium flex.

Below are the steps to test flex application using Selenium RC.

Rebuild your flex application with SeleniumFlexAPI.swc

Download the “Selenium-Flex API” zip file and extract the zip file. In FlexBuilder, add this SeleniumFlexAPI.swc in the /src folder, then build your application with -include-libraries SeleniumFlexAPI.swc as the additional compiler argument.

Click Here to Download SeleniumFlexAPI

Add JAR files in the project

Download “Flash Selenium Java client extension” and “Flex UI Selenium” jar files. Now Right click on Project name in Eclipse and Select “Build Path >> Configure Build Path >> Library Tab”. Add these jar files by selecting “Add External Jar files” button.

Click Here to Download Flash Selenium Java client extension

Click Here to Download Flash UI Selenium

Write Selenium Script

Before we write the script in Selenium RC we need to identify the elements of the flex application. So for this use FlashFirebug (extension of the firebug add-on) Firefox add-on to identify the elements.

Source:
http://www.softwaretestingdiary.com/2012/07/how-to-test-flex-application-using.html

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Avoiding consumer testing: Why mobile performance testing is critical

Mixing mobile device users’ high expectations for application performance with widespread enterprise adoption of mobile networks increases the risks of high-profile failures. In addition, today’s growing demand for rapid, precise mobile application distribution across many devices, operating systems and networks raises the stakes for mobile application development and quality assurance managers. This high-risk scenario requires mastering new and time-tested approaches to pre-deployment performance testing now more than ever.

“You don’t want your end users to be your testers. This is a terrible idea. Before mobile and social media, this might have been okay because the negative feedback would be more muted and not be ‘viral’ in the sense of infecting your brand before you had a chance to administer the cure,” says Dave Berg, senior director of product management for Shunra.

Theresa Lanowitz, founder of voke, inc., agrees that software performance directly links to a company’s overall reputation and it is best to avoid consumer testing. “The software that runs your company is now inextricably linked to your brand. So your brand is reflected through the software you are putting out there; your brand is reflected through the software that your customers are using,” she explains.

Recent research findings

Even smaller issues can negatively impact the brand. For example, according to research cited by Aberdeen Senior Research Analyst Jim Rapoza, 7% of users abandon applications after just one second of delay in performance. 11% abandon at two seconds, 18% at three, 25% at four and 50% at five seconds.

New voke research explores the factors that are affecting the testing market, such as cloud and mobility.  Lanowitz says, “The testing of software at every stage of the lifecycle with all aspects of the supply chain is a standard and required practice, and continues to grow in importance.”

The growing urgency of application performance testing is reflected in recent Aberdeen research as well, which shows that 18% of businesses are currently performing application testing, while 54% plan to in the next year, according to Rapoza.

Testers now must act “in the strategic role of customer advocate and help deliver higher quality software throughout the enterprise by placing a laser focus on assessing the risk associated with every piece of software,” says Lanowitz. After all, it’s not just about producing quality applications, but also satisfying the expectations of end users and preserving the integrity of the company.

Cost benefit of doing pre-deployment testing

Conducting pre-deployment performance testing is critical, and it’s also much less costly. “It is easier, more cost-effective, and protects your brand to performance test before deployment,” says Berg.

Shunra surveys have pointed to the fact that “60% of the total cost in an application’s lifecycle come from remediating performance related issues after the app has been deployed,” according to Shunra CEO Gary Jackson. “If you cut that number down just a few points, you will see astronomical savings and ROI on the pre-deployment testing you preformed. It is close to 100-to-1 in cost savings.”

The costs can really add up, “because it’s not just a matter of having to bring an app down, or bring a newer version down in order to rebuild it and retest it, it’s also the lost user opportunity; one bad experience will often drive your users away,” adds Rapoza.

Available tools

Fortunately, the market is responding with various tool and service offerings that address each layer of software performance.

Lanowitz discusses the proliferation of mobile test vendors and their willingness to partner with each other. “You have a whole host of mobile testing companies coming out. What they’re doing a really great job of is, they’re building this incredibly complex matrix that will allow you to test your mobile application from anywhere in the world into any geography. So you can do your testing from Bangalore, and say, ‘Okay, I have to make sure this will run perfectly in Chicago, in the United States, on these carriers.’”

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Why Your Business Needs Software Testing Solutions

More and more businesses rely on complex software applications for the efficient and successful running of their organisations. This heavy reliance on software for everything from databases, project management and sales to software applications, which are entirely Internet based with hundreds and sometimes thousands of people using the applications at the same time. This increased reliance on software for most, if not all business functions, means that it is imperative that it is tested thoroughly to ensure that whatever software you rely on is adequate for the demands of your day-to-day operations.

Downtime is not an option as this can lead to the loss of thousands if not millions in terms of lost revenue depending on the size of your business. In addition, the increase in business reliance on IT solutions over time has lead to an increase in malicious hackers trying to break into companies computer systems. The increase in security of these systems has meant that today, many hackers turn to the application layer. According to technology research giant Gartner, the application layer accounts for up to 90 per cent of all vulnerability when it comes to malicious threats to business. Software testing can identify potential threats. Software testing tools such as those made by Veracode, help to identify such threats in the code of your software.

What Is Involved
Software testing involves running the software through a series of tests in order to identify any bugs or system defects. This is called regression testing. Software testing can not only enable you to find bugs in applications, but it can also help you to identify what could go wrong so that you can then implement ways of stopping things from going wrong. Software testing can also ensure the following:

* That the software meets the needs of the users.
* That the software works as it was intended to work.
* That the software can be applied with the same characteristics as it was intended for in the design process.

Example Product
There are a number of software testing products on the market, which claim to help you improve the quality of your software, and enhancing your productivity levels. HP Quicktest Professional or HP QTP provides automated regression testing for software and forms a part of the HP Quality Centre Tool Suite. This software-testing tool is currently the market leader, but there are a few others on the market such as Veracode Tools and there are also some open source software testing tools available.

The HP Quicktest Professional application claims to provide a unique approach to automated testing. The software boats keyword driven tests which simplify the creation of tests and the maintenance of those tests so much so that your IT team can easily integrate it into their functions with minimal training. Clearly, this would allow any quality control team members within IT departments to quickly and easily identify bugs and to simply document and replicate any regressions and communicate them to the developer team. This allows for bugs to be fixed faster and more efficiently. Obviously, this would then allow for optimal functionality across all departments, data sets and business processes, improving efficiency and helping to maintain security.

Source:http://www.tipsblogger.com/2012/06/why-your-business-needs-software-testing-solutions/

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Apple Releases Guide to iOS Security

For years, mobile app security was essentially an afterthought. This was not only true for consumers, but also for development shops. Recently, it’s become quite clear that something had to be done to combat the rising tide of mobile malware, viruses and other threats.

Last week, Apple took a major step in the right direction by releasing A Guide to iOS Security. This 20-page document takes a fairly in-depth look at the iOS system architecture, encryption & data protection, network security, devices access and other areas.

Testers and developers would be wise to read the entire document, but here is a good summary from the guide’s conclusion:

Each component of the iOS security platform, from hardware to encryption to device access, provides organizations with the resources they need to build enterprise-grade security solutions. The sum of these parts gives iOS its industry-leading security features, without making the device difficult or cumbersome to use.

Apple uses this security infrastructure throughout iOS and the iOS apps ecosystem. Hardware-based storage encryption provides instant remote wipe capabilities when a device is lost, and ensures that users can completely remove all corporate and personal information when a device is sold or transferred to another owner. For the collection of diagnostic information, unique identifiers are created to identify a device anonymously.

Safari offers safe browsing with its support for OCSP, EV certificates, and certificate verification warnings. Mail leverages certificates for authenticated and encrypted email by supporting S/MIME. iMessage and FaceTime provide client-to-client encryption as well.

The combination of required code signing, sandboxing, and entitlements in apps provides solid protection against viruses, malware, and other exploits that compromise the security of other platforms. The App Store submission process works to further protect users from these risks by reviewing every app before it’s made available for sale.

Businesses are encouraged to review their IT and security policies to ensure they are taking full advantage of the layers of security technology and features offered by the iOS platform.

Apple maintains a dedicated security team to support all Apple products. The team provides security auditing and testing for products under development as well as released products. The Apple team also provides security tools and training, and actively monitors for reports of new security issues and threats. Apple is a member of the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST). For information about reporting issues to Apple and subscribing to security notifications, go to apple.com/support/security.

Apple is committed to incorporating proven encryption methods and creating modern mobile-centric privacy and security technologies to ensure that iOS devices can be used with confidence in any personal or corporate environment.

Source:

http://www.mobileapptesting.com/apple-releases-guide-to-ios-security/2012/06/

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10 Free Website Speed Test Tools

Website Speed Test Tools

Page Speed Insights

PageSpeed Insights analyzes the content of a web page, then generates suggestions to make that page faster. Reducing page load times can reduce bounce rates and increase conversion rates.

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Website Speed Check

The website speedtester shows the duration of a given website. This value can be used for showing how long a website take to load and if it is better to optimize the website.

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Neustar Web Performance

Test your website performance with this free cutting edge tool. This tool accesses your website from different location and generates a website performance analysis report.

website-speed-testing-3

PingDom

The Full Page Test tool to help you analyze the load speed of your websites and learn how to make them faster. It examines all parts of a web page, shows performance overview and you can also share the results with your friends.

website-speed-testing-4

Load Impact

Load test your website online. We offer load testing and reporting as an online service to e-commerce & B2B sites all over the world.

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Which Loads Faster

Pages compete head-to-head in your browser to see who’s fastest!

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Octagate Site Timer

Web Monitor allows you to monitor how long it takes for a user to download one or more of your web site pages.

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Show Slow

Show Slow is an open source tool that helps monitor various website performance metrics over time. It captures the results of YSlow, Page Speed, WebPageTest and dynaTrace AJAX Edition rankings and graphs them, to help you understand how various changes to your site affect its performance.

website-speed-testing-8

Web Pagetest

Run a free website speed test from multiple locations around the globe using real browsers (IE and Chrome) and at real consumer connection speeds.

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GTmetrix

GTmetrix uses Google Page Speed and Yahoo! YSlow to grade your site’s performance and provides actionable recommendations to fix these issues.

website-speed-testing-10

Source:

http://www.flashuser.net/resources/website-speed-test-tools.html

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Facebook’s app store being tested on iPhones

Facebook’s recently announced App Center has appeared on a number of iPhones, which the company says are being used as a test group for the store.

“Since we announced the App Center to developers last month, we’ve been testing it with a small percentage of users. We have no further details to share at this time,” said a Facebook spokesperson in an email to VentureBeat.

According to screenshots recently published by TechCrunch, the App Center has a similar look and feel to Facebook’s current iPhone application. There is a black side bar on the left-hand side of the screen, which lists apps you have already downloaded, as well as a link to the Center itself. Those apps with notifications are pushed to the top of the black sidebar. The store itself has two sections: social picks and top apps. In social picks, apps are listed with star ratings and the names of friends who have already downloaded the app.

Facebook, which is bent on the idea of discovering new content through your friends interests, decided app stores needed the Facebook touch earlier in May. App marketplaces are notorious for being dense. Many apps rely on making it to the top 25 categories in order to be seen, and user acquisition continues to be a hot topic of conversation amongst developers. The Facebook App Center, on the other hand, will use your social graph to help you find apps relevant to you, and it won’t confine you to Facebook-oriented apps only.

It will be a collection of apps of all kinds from any genre. Apps listed will be available for iOS, Android, and as web apps, mobile web apps, and desktop apps. The App Center acts more like an aggregator. Developers will create a page for their app in Facebook’s Center, but links to download the app will go back to its listing on either the iOS App Store or Google Play.

Source:http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/07/facebook-app-center-iphone/

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Enterprises get serious about mobile app testing

With mobility now a necessity, the software testing space is now making accommodations to ensure enterprises can extend their applications to run on devices, according to an analyst report being released on Tuesday.

Voke’s Market Mover Array Report on software testing platforms says an explosion of mobile testing companies focusing on enterprise applications is a “clear indicator of the enterprise’s need to deliver quality software to a plethora of mobile devices.” Mobile testing vendors, the report states, will ultimately be acquired by traditional testing vendors. But for now, innovation “must be allowed to flourish.” Keynote Systems’ acquisition of DeviceAnywhere last fall represents this shift in the market; meanwhile, innovation in mobile testing also is occurring from companies including Experitest, Parasoft, Perfecto Mobile, and Soasta, according to the report.

“What we’re seeing [with mobile applications] is every organization now has to have some sort of mobile strategy, and that mobile strategy has to already fit in with what they’re doing with their existing apps,” said analyst Theresa Lanowitz, a co-author of the report and founder of Voke. “There’s very little tolerance for a mobile application that does not work from a functional perspective as well as from a performance perspective.” Software testers, she said, really need to look for commercially available tools to manage “that complex grid of what they’re going to test.”

Mobile application testing is becoming more commonplace and has been moving to the cloud, she said. Keynote DeviceAnywhere’s Test Center Developer, for example, provides online access to any mobile device, network, and operating system worldwide. Perfecto Mobile has a similar SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform with its MobileCloud platform.

Overall, software testing has to be done earlier in the application development lifecycle, to make sure defects do not leave the development phase, Lanowitz said. Companies like Electric Cloud and Microsoft are offering capabilities to apprise developers of what exactly is going on with their software builds.

Voke’s report found the software testing market “currently in a renaissance,” in terms of testing professionals and vendor innovation. Market leaders could face challenges from innovators tackling emerging technology like the cloud, mobile, device software, and infrastructure as well from innovations delivering simple solutions to classic and age-old problems by leveraging virtualization. Vendors solving problems of entrenched testing tools also could pose a challenge.

Source:http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227751/Enterprises_

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+computerworld%2Fs%2Ffeed%2Ftopic%2F11+%28Computerworld+App+

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