Last Friday, someone in the office came back from San Francisco with an IPAD!

Commotion followed!

The prized little gadget passed several hands in less than 2 minutes. But once it landed into the lap of a fellow QA, the testing fun begins!  Yousee we have an iPhone application in the middle of development, and what a cool way to see if the same iPhone apps will work with its big brother closely named iPad.  And no, I won’t tell you the results of of that test.

But one I thing I can tell you is this — holding an iPad for the first time is simply magical! Everything you touched moved so fast, even watching a simple YouTube video was never the same.  Surfing the web becomes a lot faster and much better!

So how does an iPad affect our job as software tester?

Here are my random buggy thoughts :

• The iPad is not a “FAD”. It is the best technological advancement in recent years, it is here to stay as it opens a new era in computing.  Technology will now be available to the average user, gone would be the days when only the geeks know how to save a file. With this in mind, we need to seriously consider usability testing.
• Accelerometer App testing. We will be testing from every angle ( portraits and landscapes) every rotation response time, without a mouse and keyboard !  It will be fun at first, but not sure how physically tiring this may be
• Memory usage and memory leaks. More apps and web pages compatible with iPad will be developed and tested. These will come in the form of digital books, games, digital newspapers, magazines, websites, email, videos, gadgets and every imaginable application that caters to every age group, gender or nationality. There are close to 200,000 apps in the Apple Store that will continue to grow exponentially with the global release of  iPad.
• Connectivity, performance, scalability and load testing would be crucial. Its portability means we can now be connected anytime, anywhere. This means faster loading web pages and apps. But how does your application scale up when the connectivity is slow or low.
• Compatibility testing. I am sure software companies would like to see their application working well with  regular desktop, laptop, netbook, other android phones, iPhone, iPod, Ipod Touch and iPad ! By the way, if you wanted to see how your website will look within iPad, you can go to this website http://ipadpeek.com/
• Security testing. We can purchase anything, anywhere as long as there is a connection. We can login into any secured site at our convenience.  Do banking,  trade stocks, pay bills etc while riding in the bus.  Securing these sites would be of great concern.

By the time you read this part, I am now convinced that testing an iPad application will really be not much different from any other product. There may be some new skills or tool sets needed, but the most important tool is always the mindset and attitude of the tester to accept challenges with enthusiasm. Almost anything can be learned if you are willing to give it a try.

Cheers!

Tess Rupprecht

Some links which you might want to check :

http://www.testiphone.com/
http://iphonetester.com/
http://furbo.org/2008/08/06/beta-testing-on-iphone-20/
http://code.google.com/p/google-toolbox-for-mac/wiki/iPhoneUnitTesting
http://www.devworld.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/Xcode/Conceptual/iphone_development/135-Unit_Testing_Applications/unit_testing_applications.html

If you think QA is your passion, then I have some really good news for you!

QAFastestGrowingsalary

Source : http://msn.careerbuilder.com

There is bright future for anyone who wants to pursue software testing as a career. But contrary to what some people may think, being a software tester is not as simple, and definitely not as easy. If  it is, then why are we having a global shortage of excellent QAs at this time of writing?

Do you have what it takes to be a QA and be in one of the hottest growing careers in IT?  I will leave this question for you to answer …

Testing is a skill. While this may come as a surprise to some people it is a simple fact.(Fewster, Graham: “Software Test Automation”)

Have a good one ahead!
Tess

In one of our project automation strategy sessions with our Lead Developer, I asked “How are we going to build security into our code?“. Thou the question came from me, it also made me think “How am I going to test security on these features on a project level?”.

To assist me in this type of testing, I sought the advice of our most experienced QA in the team. He led me to the top site that is dedicated to software security that would give me the most reliable and up to date information.

The site is Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) .

I would advice any QA to go over this site, but if you are in a hurry be sure to check first the link on Top Ten.

Download the file titled OWASP 10 – 2010 The Ten Most Critical Web Applications Security Risks ( or click here )

In most companies, security testing needs direction from management since the cost involved can be quite high. But this should not prevent us on the project level to think of ways to make our code more secure. Security is considered a non-functional feature but has become so crucial to any application that I seriously think it should be part of every non-functional Acceptance Criteria in every Story. This forces every one in the team to always think about securing the code.

On the QA side, even a simple manual test can lead us to uncover vulnerabilities of our features. This is where the human intuition of a QA can be best used.

This is how I intend to get myself up to speed in Security Testing.

• I would begin planning for my security testing by creating a simple checklist of questions.
• I will Google “security testing checklist“.
• I will gather as many checklists created and being shared by other QAs (why re-invent the wheel?).
• Once I have a good number of items to test, I will use this as a guide during my initial manual testing.
• I would like to believe that my exploratory testing  techniques would serve me very well in finding security issues
• I will add my own to the checklists based on my own testing
• Then I will share my security checklist  to the rest of the QA world to get feedback and give back

One of the best tips I heard from a security officer is this ” To catch a hacker, think like a hacker…”. Easier said than done, but any skill can be develop over time. I say if security testing inspires you then I am sure this will be a very rewarding career move for you!

I found a very good youtube presentation given by Google regarding OWASP 10.

While at a client’s site, I was thrown into a schedule of endless agile meetings! Daily stand-up meetings, sit-down meetings, lunch meetings (Seriously, these meetings do really work!)

Lots of productive meetings. This is a good sign. This is one of the reasons why Agile is becoming  “the way to go“  in software development and implementation. More open communication leads to better understanding of the requirements of the product , fast resolutions of the issues resulting to more energized commitment to work as a team.

But one thing I love with Agile is how every member has embraced the idea of “less documentation in words” but more of “documentation in visuals, graphics and drawings“.  This made the white board, sketch pads, post it, markers the most loved  tools in every meeting.  Since I am very visual person, I prefer the graphical representation of stories, process, methods ( or anything you can translate to drawings).
 

 
So what has camera got to do with this post?

Since I find it hard to listen and write at the same time, I found that bringing a digital camera  in any Agile meeting is also “the way to go..”

Here’s what I do :

• I take snapshots of the whiteboard or story board
• Print the photos for easy viewing
• Upload the photos in the Project Management software

Advantages of using camera:

• Since I started this new meeting habit, I found myself more productive.
• I can participate intently in all the discussions first, then capture the diagrams later.
• There is 100% accuracy in the details compared to copying the same by hand.
• Indeed, a picture is worth a thousand words.
• And need I say, it is also more fun !!!

From that day on, my QA Tool Kit won’t be complete without a small, simple, reliable digital camera.

Don’t take my word for it, just try it !  Cheers!

Tess Rupprecht

Last week, I had a chance to review ( again..) some of the most popular automation testing tools in the market today.

Based on the my own research and reviews, I am no longer surprised that the free open source tools are still leading the popularity over the more expensive proprietary software from big named vendors.

I picked a couple of tools which were favorites mentioned in a a couple of QA forums. Then I came up with my own list, namely – JMeter, Selenium, Watir, C# and Java.

In this post, we will concentrate on one tool called Selenium.

Learning Selenium was a real breeze.

• First of all, there are so many sites dedicated on teaching the ins, outs and whys of Selenium.
• Second,  it is simple to use with an easy to navigate interface that comes as an Add On to the Firefox browser

Even if you are new to QA but if you have some technical knowledge, then within a day you would be creating your first few Selenium test cases.

My verdict : Selenium is really a good tool for testing web applications. It is free, and there is an excellent community of technical and non technical users who are willing to share their knowledge and expertise.

Instead of making this post too long, I would suggest you get started so you can try it for yourself.

From your Google Browser, just type the following words :

• First, “Selenium Tutorial”
• Or “Selenium Installation” to be more specific
• Then “Selenium Sample Test Cases”
• Or you can go to YouTube to watch videos like the one below

We’ll appreciate if you can also share your experiences in using Selenium!

Thanks.