Posted on February 9th, 2010 in
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.
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Posted on November 23rd, 2009 in
Software Testing Trends by Matt Johnston
The mere thought of air travel during the holidays is annoying enough to send most people running to their nearest bus or train station. The crowds, the lines, the delays, the zip-lock bags and 3 oz bottles of shampoo… but wait, there’s more!
Late last week, a five-hour computer glitch caused flight delays across the U.S. that were still rippling through the transportation system for most of the day. The problem was made worse by the fact that the National Airspace Data Interchange Network failed at both its locations — Atlanta and Salt Lake City. (Ed. note: I’ll try hard to avoid using the word “crash” in this post.)
Bloomberg.com had this to say:
The Federal Aviation Administration blamed a four-hour software failure for causing airline delays and cancellations across the U.S. The shutdown lasted from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET after “a software configuration” malfunction today in Salt Lake City.
And The New York Times chimed in with this little bit of sunny news:
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Posted on September 9th, 2009 in
Software Testing Trends by Matt Johnston
I’m sure many of you are familiar with this story from back in the days 
when a computer took up two parking spaces, but Todd Dailey over at Wired ran a great piece today about this date in 1947. It was on this date 62 years ago that the operators of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator discovered the first computer bug (ok, it was a moth, but I still say that good testing would have found it!).
Wired commemorates this special date by listing a few of the more software slip-ups from years past.
1988 The Morris internet worm, the first widespread worm, shuts down thousands of Internet-connected computers due to a programming error on the part of Robert Morris. Morris was attempting to map the internet, but an error caused the worm to crash the computers it connected to instead.
1993 The Denver Airport’s automatic luggage handling system fails to launch on time, leading to its eventual full shutdown in 2005. The failure of the software led to a lot of deep thought on how software is created.
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Posted on July 16th, 2009 in
uTest by Matt Johnston
More big news from uTest nation today: we were named to the AlwaysOn Global 250 list. 
In fact, uTest was selected as the SaaS & Enterprise category winner. This category had more than 40 other finalists, including proven and prolific innovators such as HubSpot, Jigsaw, Box.net and SlideRocket.
AlwaysOn surveyed hundreds of venture investors, investment bankers, and technology insiders, which yielded more than 1,000 nominees. That list was pared down to the AO Global 250 winners list through company interviews and rigorous research. And from that prestigious list, there were just eight category winners. We’re honored and ecstatic to have been named the category winner on such a coveted list.
The AO Global 250 winners have achieved, “significant market traction and game-changing technology. In addition to being innovators, the AO Global 250 winners all demonstrated leadership among their peers in the following areas: innovation, market opportunity, commercialization, media buzz, and stakeholder value creation.” In AO’s own words, the winners shared a common trait:
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Posted on July 15th, 2009 in
Software Testing Trends by Stanton Champion
Reports are flying around the Internet about people using their VISA debit cards and seeing errors on their billing statements for charges of $23,148,855,308,184,500. That’s 23 QUADRILLION dollars. For perspective, that’s:
Of course, the additional $15 overdraft fee looks puny in comparison.
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Posted on March 18th, 2009 in
Tester Community by Matt Johnston
Apologies for the alliteration, but things have been ultra-busy around the halls of uTest this week. The reason our phones have been ringing off the hook is because we announced the results of our 1st Quarter Bug Battle on Tuesday.
In case you missed it, we’ve received some fantastic media coverage in the past few days. Who knew the world would be so interested in the results of 1,000+ QA professionals from 64 countries simultaneously testing the world’s three most popular networking sites? Ok, well we had a pretty good idea they’d care, but we’re glad it captured their attention. Here are a few of the noteworthy articles:
- TechCrunch: uTest Bug Battle: Which Social Network Is The Buggiest?
- Dr. Dobbs: Bugs In Social Networking Software? You’re Kidding, Right?
- eWeek: Facebook Triumphs LinkedIn, MySpace in uTest’s Bug Battle
Our community’s ability to mobilize quickly and provide real-world testing coverage is making a strong impression on a growing number of companies. These firms are looking for ways to do more with less — and the uTest community is primed to help them meet their QA needs. Keep up the good work!
Posted on February 5th, 2009 in
uTest by Matt Johnston
I wanted to post a quick note to share a milestone in the uTest marketplace — we recently surpassed the 10,000 mark in total bugs reported. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s 55 bugs per release, or one bug every 23 minutes since our August launch. Pretty stunning results in a short period of time, and we’re grateful to our customers and our testing community for their support.
And the next 10,000 bugs will come even faster. As we shared with MSNBC recently, the number of customers, releases and bugs reported doubled from Q3 to Q4. So we’re growing rapidly and we’ll have more and more testing work for our community in the months and quarters ahead. Thanks again.
Posted on December 18th, 2008 in
uTest by Matt Johnston
Hi uTesters – Matt Johnston here. I wanted to quickly introduce myself and let you know that I’ve joined the uTest team as VP of Marketing. Much of my background is in building and marketing marketplaces, so the uTest concept appealed to me immediately. And my first few weeks here have further raised my expectations for what we’re building together.
Anyone who’s been around software or web projects knows that testing is the end of the whip. After the scope finally stops creeping; after the developers have churned out the code; after the schedule has slipped repeatedly; it’s the testing phase that often absorbs the hit. uTest and our community enable companies to do all of the above and still release high-quality web, desktop and mobile apps on time. That’s incredibly powerful.
We’re going to have a lot of exciting stuff coming in 2009 that will attract more great customers and testing projects, as well as continuing to build our community of talented testing professionals. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, I’ll be posting on a regular basis, as well as joining our testers in the forums. If you have any ideas or feedback that you want to share with me – positive or negative – I’d love to hear it. You can drop me a comment here or email me at mattj [at] utest.com.
