QA&TEST Blog

Seven deadly sins in SW Testing

admin — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:14:35 +0000

Testers with Asperger’s Syndrome

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:52:31 +0000

There are more and more companies in Europe that hire testers with Asperger’s Syndrom or autism. This practice has advantages and inconvenients, and the best way to discover them is talking to a person affected by this syndrome. Tirsh Khoo, tester in Sydney for a known management platform of email campaigns, has arranged an interview with Michael Drejer, who has Asperger syndrome and works as a tester in a company in Denmark.

Click here to read the whole interview.

Hearing no

admin — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 11:13:39 +0000

You’ve been working with a group of stakeholders to forge consensus on a project issue. Some want exactly what others don’t want, some refuse to reveal their private agendas, and some seem to change their goals almost at random. At times, you’ve felt that the group was close to agreement, only to be disrupted when someone on high changed the external constraints.

It’s been a little frustrating.

Work life sometimes delivers disappointments, often in the form of No. Some of us have difficulty hearing No or dealing with it once we do hear it. And, sometimes, No arrives so frequently that we exhaust our ability to cope with it.

Click here to continue reading this article at Sticky Minds.

Smart grid: What’s here, what’s needed, and what you should know now

admin — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:32:18 +0000

Let’s define the smart grid as the infrastructure and technologies that enable integration of the consumer and distributed resources (generation, renewables, storage, demand response, load control) with the operation of the entire grid and electricity markets, while also improving the reliability and Security of the overall electric service. The biggest gap is the lack of inexpensive, standardized, and ubiquitous communications that deliver bandwidth, extreme reliability, and security for both control and management applications as well as basic information management and sharing applications. This broadband communications infrastructure does not need to be one technology, but it needs to extend all the way from central control systems to end-user devices.

Click here to read this whole article at Embedded Computing Design.

The golden rules of managing software projects

admin — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:32:44 +0000

We asked what looks to have been a pretty contentious question – what’s the role of managers in software development? – and we got some pretty contentious answers, which are well worth a look in their entirety. The conclusion: a lot of managers are crap. But – and it’s a big but – they don’t have to be, if they get certain basics in place.
Here are your very own top five golden rules, compiled from your comments, which managers can employ to build trust and get the best out of developers. These rules may seem like common sense, but we know from the feedback that they are as frequent as a night bus.
1. Protect the team from unnecessary distractions: A manager’s job is to help the developers to work as productively as possible towards logical and achievable project goals by protecting the team. He must also earn the team’s respect by fighting heroically for them against the boneheaded stupidity to be found in swampy stagnant meeting rooms across Britain.

Click here to continue reading this article at The Register

Embedding an IPMI platform management subsystem to monitor server system health

admin — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:04:36 +0000

Primarily utilized in enterprise systems, platform management provides the ability to monitor and report on the health of the system hardware via isolated hardware/software that does not rely on the operational state of the system’s hardware or software.
The platform management hardware typically resides on the same board as the system hardware; however, because it is isolated it can remain functional even if the system hardware is non-operational. The platform management hardware is usually powered by a separate power supply.
Servers make up the vast majority of these enterprise systems and they are the backbone of the Internet. There are thousands upon thousands of these servers in server farms all over the world. When a server fails or is about to fail, it is important for the technical caretakers to find, fix, or replace the system quickly.

Click here to continue reading this article at EE Times

The Impact of Automation on Development

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:50:18 +0000

It seems obvious that automation will affect the test organization. Less obvious—but no less real—is that it will also affect the development organization. In fact, when you choose to automate the testing for an application, your relationship with development changes completely.

Think about it. Manual testers only have to be able to interact with the application using the screen, keyboard, and mouse or other device. Automated test tools, on the other hand, have to interact with the software at a deeper level, thus exposing the inner workings of the code and perhaps uncovering problems that prevent or complicate automation. If you’re not careful, developers might think you have suddenly transformed into an interfering busybody who is sticking your nose into their business.

This shift in your relationship with development can be handled in a bad way or a good way.

Click here to read this article at Sticky Minds.

Protect and control software stored in flash memory

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:43:45 +0000

It’s been said for every measure, there’s a countermeasure, and that’s also true for securing code in embedded systems. Sometimes a small device can be just the countermeasure needed to thwart cloning of flash contents.

Many systems use external standard flash memory chip(s) to store the operating program for processors that do not include embedded nonvolatile program storage. This is great because it allows easy flash memory expansion and software modification, perhaps in the manufacturing line as a customer download or during a maintenance operation. The downside is that the OEM loses control over the contents of the flash, potentially allowing unauthorized copies or modification.

Click here to continue reading this article at Embedded Computing Design.

The 8 commandments for choosing a unit testing solution

admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:24:53 +0000

Teams who perform unit testing on a regular basis are perceived to be more reliable, professional and advanced. But what do you need to consider before choosing a unit testing solution?

We have developed the ‘8 commandments’ below as a guide for ensuring you select a unit testing solution that is right for your development.

1. Thou shalt not waste time on the learning curve
When choosing a unit testing solution, you will want one that will require minimal time for implementation. It may be worthwhile to time a new developer within your team with the framework to get an accurate idea of how long it takes to get started. For example – how long will it take them to write the first three tests for some class in your system? Is the API clear and simple? Is there a single point of entry in the API? Is there clear guidance on what to do at each step of the way? How often, if at all, do you need to check the docs and tutorials? How easy is it to look for the next step when you’re not sure what to do? Some tools offer guidance within the IDE, while some provide extensive help. Some don’t do either.

Click here to continue reading this article at EE Times Embedded.

Playing at work

admin — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:59:17 +0000

Playing a game gives people an opportunity to actively participate in unleashing creativity and generating new ideas. Think about it: You do your best work when you’re in a creative environment and in “flow.” Moreover, we often learn best when we do, observe, discuss, and reflect on the outcomes of the experience.

By any definition, an agile game is simple, adaptable, and quick to play. In the agile software development community, an agile game is also collaborative and provides value—it has a serious purpose. It can teach a specific agile concept leading to improved performance, as in 99 Test Balloons, or it can enable collaboratively exploring business needs, such as identifying new product concepts or prioritizing a project portfolio.

Put simply, teaching games help make your learning stick, and doing-work games help you accomplish business goals.

Click here to read this article at Sticky Minds.