Software Testing Blog

To usher in the much-anticipated weekend, here’s a fun Friday post containing the wittiest testing tweets of the week from the top testing minds around. Enjoy!

@michaelbolton — “Like exploratory testing, Agile isn’t a thing you do; it’s a way to think and work. A means to an end, not an end in itself.” 

@lanettecream — “I’ve noticed that the longer I practice agile, the less tolerance I have for my own hoarding. Agile: not keeping sh*t in case.”

@zspencer — “OH: Definately not. If they run, they might fail. We don’t want to fail.” Context: asked to run the tests .”

@sbarber — “Advancements” in software testing often degenerate into “tired cage matches” between old- and older-school? When do we get a *new* school?”

@qahatesyou — “Actually, I’m not in a particular school of testing. I got expelled from them all.”

@FionaCCharles — “Softwaretesting isn’t a service. Software development is a service. Testing is integral to the collaborative process of sw development.”

Read more…

Back in 2008, when uTest was just getting its feet wet in the testing waters, most people were either intrigued or skeptical (or both) when it came to our crowdsourced testing services.

As a matter of fact, the idea of using a community of professional testers to test outside the firewall was so new and disruptive to the status quo that we made it part of our mission to educate the market though webinars, whitepapers and various other mediums, including the blog that you’re currently reading.

Anyway, as time passed, we discovered that most people quickly understood the value of real-world testing, mainly because they’d already been wrestling with that very problem:  how to get accurate test results outside of the sterile confines of the QA lab. Although some tech leaders have taken these lessons to heart, many are still discovering the concept of real-world testing for the first time, so…

Today at TechCrunch Disrupt, we launched our latest information campaign: www.InTheWildTesting.com. The web site – and associated social media channels, including a Twitter profile – are intended to educate forward-thinking technology leaders about the necessity, benefits and real use cases of in-the-wild testing.

Why here? Why now? One reason is that it coincides nicely with TechCrunch Disrupt, which is happening in San Francisco as we speak. More on that in a second. The other reason is that adoption of in-the-wild testing continues to grow exponentially due to market factors that include:

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Quick – what’s a URL? Most of you would point to that string of text at the top of your browser that defines the location for this page. But URLs represent a lot of things: references to pages, pointers to content, and the foundations of links. They’re the fiber of the web, and the entire notion of HTTP is about pages pointing to pages using URLs.

However, a new approach to building websites is threatening to turn this notion of URLs on its head. Two simple characters – #!  (called either a hashbang or a shebang) – are creating more trouble than anything seen in years. Adding those to a URL makes it something else entirely, but to understand why we need to first go over a couple of web fundamentals.

Read more…

We can’t believe it but we are weeks away from 2011, and to kick off the new year in proper style, we’re going to have one last amazing contest this year. Here’s your final chance this year to win a Wii, an iPad, Cash and more!

In light of the holidays, we’ve made this contest easy! All you have to do is follow uTest on all 3 social networks and let us know with a simple tweet.

RULES:
1. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and become a fan on Facebook
2. Tweet to @uTest with hash tag #FollowedAll3
3. Include your top three prizes (from grab bag below) in your tweet. That’s it!

(e.g. @uTest I want to win the iPad, Xbox 360 or Cash! #FollowedAll3)

Each week (for the next four weeks!), we will draw two names from all tweets containing the hash tag, #FollowedAll3. You can tweet once a day (to increase your chances). All winners then have the opportunity to choose one prize from our grab bag below (first come, first serve). And because we’re so excited to start the new year, the eight prizes add up to $2011! Here’s the grab bag:

• iPad ($400) – Winner: @atulangra, 12/15/10
  
• Kindle ($139) – Winner: @scottaleavitt, 12/28/10
• Xbox w/Kinect ($379) - Winner: @fcapucci, 12/17/10
• Wii ($200) – Winner: @enofal, 12/30/10
  
• PlayStation 3 ($300) – Winner: @sreenurajvarma, 12/21/10
• iPod Touch ($229) – Winner: @eat7herich, 12/23/10
  
• Boxee Box ($199) – Winner: @rriky92, 1/06/11
  
• Cash ($165) – Winner: @nandagopalr, 1/04/11

Happy 2011 everyone! The contest will run from Mon, December 13 — Fri, January 7 @ 5pm ET. As the prizes are chosen, we will list the winners and cross out the prizes right in this post (e.g. iPad ($400) Winner: @jennymoebius). Make sure to check back in to the blog to see if YOU are the lucky winner! We will also contact winners by DM on Twitter.

Congratulations to all the winners!!!

Official terms and conditions

I recently attended a marketing conference that discussed emerging technology trends.  When the panel was asked what was the single-word topic of 2010 they almost all said, “mobile”.  I didn’t think of it at the time but I’d argue that the word of the year is “privacy”.  That thought, coupled with a current email-based discussion I’m having with a luddite friend (he’s not on Facebook or LinkedIn), got me thinking about some of the privacy issues that we — as a global population of netizens — will face in 2011 and beyond.

Concern about privacy is hardly a new topic.  Back in 1999 Scott McNealy, then the CEO of Sun Microsystems notoriously said, “you have zero privacy.  Get over it.”  I love the brevity, Scott, but that is not going to get you on a Hallmark card anytime soon.  Yes, the web brought on a change in the level of privacy that users may expect, but the role of marketing has always been to predict the intent of potential customers by tracking user behavior.  Computers and the internet, however, have yielded a seismic shift in the cost, speed, availability and sheer amount of data – perhaps changing at a rate faster than humans can conceptually deal with, and thus creating debates about how to strike a balance in this brave new world.

In 2010, however, we’ve seen more information about the reconciliation of online and offline data. From cars, to finances, to the recent announcements about the TSA’s new full-body scanners, it’s no longer just our web browsing history that’s available to evil marketers like myself.  Here’s a quick rundown of a few privacy issues, how they can be exploited, and what you should know about protecting yourself:

Read more…

As uTest’s October Tour finally winds down, we wanted to share a few more pics with you from abroad. As you know, uTest exec John Montgomery was selected to attend the invite-only Google Test Automation Conference (GTAC) in Hyderabad this week (uTest’s second year in a row!). A few little Twitter birds (Pradeep Soundararajan and Joel Hynoski) also announced that uTest was mentioned several times from the stage during talks of crowdsourced testing and Mozilla’s crowd strategy. A fantastic event overall! Click here for all Day One and Day Two pics.

Here are a few of our faves (click to expand)…

GTAC begins!

John networks with GTAC attendees

Pradeep Soundararajan presenting

GTAC crew huddles together for a quick pic

Can you find John? Click for hint.

Doc James Whittaker presenting

Check out the spread!

Delicious authentic Indian food

In hot tech news today, Google releases its goo.gl URL shortener (cool!), Facebook upgrades its photos (cooler!), Foursquare 2.0 for Android arrives (nice!), Twitter’s Promoted Trends appear at the top of the trends (meh) AND… the winners of the “Where’s The App For That?” Twitter contest are announced (woooo!!!).

CONGRATS to:

-1st place: @rodydio, the geo-party app, wins an iPod Touch
-2nd place: @Ed_Wing, the thoughtful alarm clock app, wins a Nano
-3rd place: @OrenTodoros, the swear-in-any-language app, wins a Shuffle

Thank you again to everyone who participated, including the incredible voter turn out! 621 people turned up to support their favorite apps. Special thanks to our honorable mentions @linzlovesyou, @statelessSH, @Omeriko21, @the_qa_guy and @eurekalopes.

There were so many good ideas – let’s hope someone out there is listening and creates them for us. We’d be happy to test them!

Well, it’s that time! Last week we kicked off the “Where’s The App For That?” Twitter contest and this week we’re asking YOU, our amazing community, to pick your favorite app from the most creative/entertaining/funniest mobile apps below.

The “inventors” of the top three apps with the most votes will win new iPods! We’ll officially announce the winners this Fri, Oct 1.

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Thank you to all who participated in the contest! We received many great ideas last week. If you would like to connect directly with or follow our top “app inventors,” please check out their Twitter profiles at: @statelessSH, @Omeriko21, @rodydio, @Ed_Wing, @linzlovesyou, @OrenTodoros, @eurekalopes and @the_qa_guy.

Ever visit your app store of choice — whether it be Apple, Android or BlackBerry — and not find the app you really need?

Well, here’s your chance to tell the Twittersphere your best ideas. Be creative, be innovative, be wacky & off the wall; the best ideas will win shiny new iPods.

HOW TO ENTER
1. Follow @uTest on Twitter
2. Be creative! Tweet/Reply to @uTest with your wacky or useful, non-existent mobile app with the contest hash tag #KickAssApps

Example: @uTest a video app that watches where you’re driving so that you can text, email, play doodle jump & drive simultaneously #KickAssApps

CONTEST DURATION
The contest will run for the duration of this entire week — Sept 20 thru Sept 24 (11:59pm ET) — so get your ideas in soon!

JUDGING
The top ten most creative/entertaining/funniest mobile apps will get shortlisted by the uTest team. We’ll then post the top ten best ideas on the uTest blog for three days — Sept 28 thru Sept 30 (11:59pm ET) — and let our readers choose their favorite app through a poll. The “inventors” of the top three apps with the most votes will win a new iPod! We’ll announce the winners on Fri, Oct 1.

PRIZES
–1st Place: iPod Touch
–2nd Place: iPod Nano
–3rd Place: iPod Shuffle

So, next time you’re on the road — working, gaming, social networking, reading, listening to music, taking photos, or just checking the weather — and can’t find the app you’re looking for… Ask yourselves, “Where’s The App For That?” and tweet your best ideas. Good luck!!

For official contest rules and legalese, see our Terms & Conditions.

The Twitter bird has been seen a lot more than the Fail Whale in the past few month — a testament to the company’s investments in infrastructure. But now, a third species has jumped into the Twitter spotlight: the bug.

And while this particular bug has since been squashed by Twitter’s engineers, it’s still an interesting defect. As all of the major new media heavyweights noted, this Twitter bug briefly enabled the brevity-challenged among you to stretch your legs and break free from the shackles of 140 characters. To put it more plainly, let’s bring in Alexia Tsotsis (@alexia) from TechCrunch:

The Twitter bug which has left many befuddled is exploiting a length limit flaw in the new t.co URL shortener, allowing users to tweet out non-URL links of outrageously more than 140 characters

If you’d like to reproduce the effect, and it seems to be catching, you can visit http://twitter.com/share?text=&url=yourtext, add whatever you want in place of “yourtext,” copy and paste your new t.co URL to Twitter and long tweet away.

Update: Looks like the nimble engineers at Twitter have disabled the feature within the hour this post went up, much to everyone’s dismay. Scripting News’ Dave Winer went so far as to create a web app for the Fat Tweets.

For those of you who follow Twitter (sorry, couldn’t resist), check out the entire TechCrunch article, as well as Mashable’s take.