Here are some small, free, nifty tools I use now and then: FreeMind – to model and communicate WinMerge – to diff or merge files or folders Process Hacker – to monitor resource usage Process Monitor – to monitor registry and disk activities InCtrl5 – for installation testing (what happended to Install Analyzer??) Fiddler/Wireshark – to see […]
I see humility as a very good virtue. It is something I have failed miserably at, partly because it is easy to think something is bad just because there are many problems. I think it’s a common fallacy for many ambitious testers – you are last in line, maybe with lower status, you want to […]
Status reporting of testing activities is extremely project-dependent. The needs of when and how and what will differ every time. Maybe that’s why there’s so little good writing about status communication; you have to make it up every time. Templates are out of the question, and I believe examples will mislead you as well. You’re […]
Generic test report: DateTime ID Author Time for writing report Time maintaining scripts for generating report Application Under Test Areas tested For each area: Blockers Testers Tester mood Tests planned Tests executed Tests passed Tests failed Tests remaining (untested+fail) Bugs found, per priority Old bugs status (priority, severity, tester, assignee, days active) Bug resolution aggregation […]
– I saw you tested “42”. How come you didn’t try “43”? – That’s obvious. It would be the same. No need to test something that would give the same result. – OK, so I guess you are familiar with equivalence partitioning? – Beg your pardon? It is quite often said that testers don’t know […]
I spent this weekend in nice, dark, foggy Ringsjöstrand for the third Swedish Workshop on Exploratory Testing. Johan Jonasson, Ola Hyltén, Anders Claesson, Oscar Cosmo, Petter Mattsson, Rikard Edgren, Henrik Andersson, Robert Bergqvist, Maria Kedemo, Sigge Birgisson, Simon Morley. The format is LAWST-style, which means a presentation is followed by a facilitated discussion, that goes […]
I spent two days in Malmö attending a developer conference with a fantastic test track (put together by Sigge Birgisson.) I did a presentation on Curing Our Binary Disease (slides, abstract), which was much better received than I hoped for (I thought it was a binary love/hate talk) Good questions and talk about being inside […]
As an exercise, try these generic test ideas on any product, for instance a recent upload to sourceforge.net. Then come up with a better test idea, and write as a comment. Also suggest one to remove; I have decided they must be seventeen (a Tranströmer homage) * Try to do what it is supposed to […]
Storytelling has been rising for quite some years and it will soon boom for software testing. The reason is simple: people like stories. And if it is used as status reporting instead of lame numbers, it is a step in the right direction, to say the least. But when testing this idea theoretically, I find […]
James Bach and Michael Bolton has a classic collection of consistency oracles; HICCUPPS(F): History, Image, Comparable Products, Claims, User Expectations, Product, Purpose, Standards and Statutes, Familiarity It is a very good collection; not only helping you find out if something is a problem or not, but also the other way round: serving as testing inspiration. […]