Posted on February 10th, 2010 in
Software Testing Trends by Mike Brown
When we think of successful software projects, we tend to envision an 80’s-style montage of the “can-do” spirit in action – testers, developers and management working together to overcome insurmountable odds. High-fives galore! Queue the inspirational music…
Not exactly. In the real world, there’s a real chance that your software project will fail. And it’s up to people within these organizations (usually testers) to let someone know of the impending failure. They will be called pessimists – and they are vilified in the movies – but they are a vital component of every software organization.
Over at StickyMinds, Fiona Charles dealt with this subject in her latest column, “Negative Positive.” In it she mentions several books that also deal with the dangers of positive thinking. Among them are Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich, and Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects by Tom Demarco and Timothy Lister. Here’s the takeaway:
Read more…
Posted on February 9th, 2010 in
This Week In Testing,
uTest by Jennifer Moebius
With our testing community currently hammering away in the “Bug Battle of the TV Networks” this week, it’s time to take a moment to reflect on our February bug-iversary.
On February 11, 2007, during its very first overseas deployment to Okinawa, Japan, six F-22 Raptors flying from Hawaii experienced multiple computer crashes, including navigation, communication and fuel system crashes, when crossing the International Date Line.
Read more…
Update: We’re roughly 72 hours into our latest Bug Battle, which is comparing and evaluating the top TV networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX.
With just under four days remaining in the week-long competition, we’ve already had more than 400 testers participate and well over 500 bugs reported. This is shaping up to be the most exciting Bug Battle ever, both in terms of the quantity of bugs submitted and the quality of the reports themselves.
Remember, the Bug Battle ends Friday, February 12th at noon ET, and there is nearly $4,000 in prize money at stake. It’s not too late to win the top prize so get started today (remember, it’s the highest quality bugs that matter, not the quantity)!
To join or catch up on Bug Battle discussions, be sure to check out our testers-only forums.
There’s no shame in being a couch potato (every now and again). After all,the competition between the major TV networks has been extremely entertaining. But now is the time to get up off the couch and onto your desktops, laptops and smartphones – it’s time for the very first Bug Battle of 2010!
That’s right, we’re pitting the four major TV networks against each other in this quarter’s bug-hunting competition. And while there are multiple sources to find out which network has the highest rated shows, we’re going to compare their web and mobile apps to see who distributes that content best. Here are the networks, in alphabetical order: ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC.
As an added twist, we’re introducing a mobile testing component to the Bug Battle. For more details on this – as well as info on rules and prizes – check out our Battle of the TV Networks page.
It’s now time to pull back the curtain to determine which network sites have the most bugs, the most critical bugs, and the best usability and feature set. And so uTesters, best of luck to you all as you begin another exciting bug hunting mission. May the best network win and may the top testers prevail. Good luck!
Special note: This competition is available only to members of the uTest community. uTesters can get complete details and discuss the Bug Battle with their peers in the uTest Forums.
Posted on February 4th, 2010 in
Testing - Mobile Apps by Matt Johnston
Imagine it’s February 2012 and you want to buy movie tickets, research a new restaurant, or check out the weekend weather forecast. Ignoring that the 2012 version of the iPad will probably be free, able to read your mind and enable you transcend time and space, how will you access the mobile web in this not-too-distant future?
Given the explosive growth of mobile apps for iPhone (100,000+), Android (20,000+) and others, it’s easy to assume that no matter what you want to do in the future, there will indeed be “an app for that”.
Not so fast says Richard MacManus (@rrw) over at ReadWriteWeb. MacManus references a recent study by mobile search company, Taptu, which predicts that browser-based mobile sites will win out over mobile apps built specifically for mobile platforms like iPhone and Blackberry. And why does Taptu believe this and what are the implications of this prediction?
Read more…
Posted on February 3rd, 2010 in
Software Testing Trends,
Testing - Web Apps by Stanton Champion
PHP is one of the web’s most widely used and successful programming languages. It’s easy to learn, easy to use, and extremely powerful. Tools like Drupal and Wordpress power millions of sites on Internet, and both were built using PHP.
But mighty Facebook stands above nearly everyone as the king of PHP. With over 400 billion pageviews per month (yes, that’s billion with a ‘b’), Facebook serves up more webpages with PHP than just about anyone else. Facebook’s engineers credit PHP with some of their success because PHP’s simplicity makes it easy to recruit new engineers, quickly train them, and get them started with the site’s code.
But PHP’s ease and simplicity comes with a very real downside for Facebook. Like most scripted languages, PHP is substantially slower than compiled languages like C and C++. Smaller sites running on fast servers may never notice PHP’s performance inadequacies, but Facebook faced the real possibility of spending millions of dollars for additional servers just to support PHP’s overhead.
Read more…
The major networks have been engaged in a decades-long struggle to win the hearts and minds (and eyes) of viewers. Whether it’s news, sports or sitcoms, these battles are now being fought on multiple fronts – including the distribution of their content through their web and mobile applications.
Which brings me to our latest bug-hunting competition. This quarter’s uTest Bug Battle will challenge testers to find bugs on the web AND mobile apps of the four major TV networks: CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX.
The competition gets started this Friday, February 5 at Noon (ET). At that time, testers from our community will be given one week to search these sites for the most compelling bugs, and to report them through our online platform. We’ll be dishing out nearly $4,000 in prize money for categories like Top Tester, Best Bug and Best Survey Feedback. As an added twist, we’re also including prizes for the Best Mobile Bugs.
More details on this Bug Battle – as well the rules, prizes and deadlines – after this commercial break. Just kidding, you can find them in the “Bug Battle” thread in the uTest Forums and we’ll be sharing more details here in the next few days.
So testers, you’ve got a few days to prepare for our most challenging competition to date. Until then, stay tuned.
Posted on February 1st, 2010 in
Media Coverage & Events,
Tester Community,
uTest by Jennifer Moebius
It’s no surprise to our community that social networks have the potential to pose big security threats this year. During the “Battle of the Social Networks,” uTesters found a combined 718 bugs in Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn; and an additional 300+ bugs were discovered in the top five Twitter desktop apps during the Q2 bug battle.
To add more fuel to the fire, today the company Sophos, which surveyed 500+ organizations, came out with a new report stating that in the past year:
- 57% of users report they have been spammed via social networking sites
- 36% of users claim they’ve been sent malware via social networking sites
- 72% of survey respondents think social networks are a danger for their companies (see Mashable article)
What’s the solution? Tina Fey, in her show “30 Rock,” recently spoofed social networks with her creation of “YouFace” (combo of Facebook & MySpace). Terms such as “finger-tagged,” “weirdsie,” and “pho-lo” (for photo and hello) had many ROFL. See video clip after the bump!
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Posted on January 29th, 2010 in
Software Testing Trends by Matt Johnston
You’ve got the next big idea for a killer web, desktop or mobile app. It’s gonna change the world.
So what’s on your to-do list? Well, you need a slick GUI designer to make it look hot, and top-shelf product team to get the features & UX right. Oh, and you need some ace developers to make your app come to life. Good, now you’re done, right? I mean, yeah, you need to test it, but you can do that yourself… or have your developers do it… or maybe the intern… or your beta users.
Think again, says Rex Black over at eWeek. Despite what you might think, there IS a right way (and a wrong way) to build the testing team you’ll need to launch a high-quality app:
Read more…
Posted on January 28th, 2010 in
Software Testing Trends,
uTest by Mike Brown
Joel Spolsky (@spolsky) – known widely as Joel On Software – recently penned a great article on the role of software testers. I’m sure you’re aware that most people tend to regard testers as the bearers of bad news. But as Joel correctly points out, “one of the most valuable features of a tester is providing positive reinforcement.” Many testers understand this, but few are given credit for it.
Anyway, he also provides an excellent summary of the traits that make testers successful. He says they need to be scientific, methodical thinkers who enjoy working with software. Above all, they need to be smart. But do they need to have a background in programming?
A particularly terrible idea is to offer testing jobs to the programmers who apply for jobs at your company and aren’t good enough to be programmers. Testers don’t have to be programmers, but if you spend long enough acting like a tester is just an incompetent programmer, eventually you’re building a team of incompetent programmers, not a team of competent testers. Since testing can be taught on the job, but general intelligence can’t, you really need very smart people as testers, even if they don’t have relevant experience. (Editor’s note: emphasis is mine).
That was Joel’s view. What’s yours?
