GTAC Videos and Slides Available

 

 

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GTAC Videos and Slides Available

via Google Testing Blog by Patrick Copeland on 12/12/08

Posted by Lydia Ash, GTAC Conference Chair

The Google Test Automation Conference 2008 was a smashing success, and in no small part due to all of our presenters and participants. A wonderful thank you from all of us at Google to everyone that participated! The tone of the conference really struck me as I watched how everyone came together around various topics. I don't think we would have had trouble keeping the conversations going if there was an entire day dedicated to the moderated discussions.

We were able to get the slide decks from our presenters. These are listed below with their video link.
We will be evaluating what location the next GTAC should be held, and your comments will help shape the next conference. Building on the successes in the past, next year should be even better! Stay tuned for a Save the Date notice sometime in the spring.

Opening Remarks - Lydia Ash
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5QmHXcNk4g

The Future of Testing - James A. Whittaker
Video coming soon...

Advances in Automated Software Testing Technologies - Elfriede Dustin and Marcus Borch
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEpSdSyU03I

Boosting Your Testing Productivity with Groovy - Andres Almiray
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvWTfVCWKJY
Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/aalmiray/gtac-boosting-your-testing-productivity-with-groovy/

Taming the Beast: How to Test an AJAX Application - Markus Clermont and John Thomas
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jjrTBFZWgk
Slides: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dczwht9g_62gccsc9gg

The New Genomics: Software Development at Petabyte Scale - Matt Wood
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A64WKH9gNI8
Slides part 1: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dczwht9g_3318qqfb6f5
Slides part 2: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dczwht9g_393d7zg4xcm

Using Cloud Computing to Automate Full-Scale System Tests - Marc-Elian Bégin and Charles Loomis
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atyq-41Gnjc
Slides: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dczwht9g_251gcv8cbfv

Practicing Testability in the Real World - Vishal Chowdhary
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL829wNaF78
Slides: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dczwht9g_0hgd2w5rz

Context-Driven Test Automation: How to Build the System you Really Need - Pete Schneider
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9sm_zcpUEw
Slides: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dczwht9g_236ccxj32fd

Automated Model-Based Testing of Web Applications - Atif M. Memon and Oluwaseun Akinmade
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LdsIVvxISU
Slides: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~atif/GTAC08/

The Value of Small Tests - Christopher Semturs
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpG2i_6nkUg
Slides: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dckk962d_332cxtcsmhg

JInjector: A Coverage and End-To-End Testing Framework for J2ME and RIM - Julian Harty, Olivier Gaillard, and Michele Sama
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2v5jQ9NLVg
Slides: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dczwht9g_82d7w8bqd9

Atom Publishing Protocol: Testing your Server Implementation - David Calavera
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRmWTfT91uQ
Slides: http://thinkincode.net/gtac_atomPub_testing_your_server_implementation.pdf

Simple Tools to Fight the Bigger Quality Battle: Continuous Integration Using Batch Files
and Task Scheduler - Komal Joshi and Patrick Martin
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgP7ejMBCCU
Slides: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dczwht9g_141czcvc7md

 

 

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Gearing Up Windows (to make it usable)

At my workplace I am using Windows Box. I have been using windows since Windows 3.1.x when we use to boot with DOS and then run it to get the GUI. Windows was never this difficult to adjust :( for me.

I have never use windows for my work, I mean I start my career on a Linux box and I just loved it. Customize it the way you like, you always have alternatives for every thing, the community is absolutely wonderful and all of it is open source, Linux is just great specially when you really like to play with software ohh forgot this blog is not about Linux ;).

Due to some environmental constraint I have to use windows, (I have FC 8 as the other booting OS and CentOS in a VM) I was having real hard time on adjusting to windows so I start gearing it up.

I am just listing tools I have install to make windows usable (For me of course):

yod'm 3d: Just can't work without multiple desktop, unfortunately its no longer free-ware, 1.4 is the last free version and its hosted by KLT. My personal experience with Yod'm have been very good, it's a portable application i.e. you don't need to install it and it works straight away.


TrayIt!: Yeah I don't like many application at my Taskbar, I have seen people using 3 even 4 rows taskbar :-0, come on guys use multiple desktop with Tray IT! .
Application which are likely to be accessed from multiple desktops (Your development IDE for instance) should be in system tray, application which just runs in the background (Like real player) should never appear in the taskbar. Tray IT! can do all this (and much more) for you and It is absolutely free.


clipX: Clipboard, yes that's it I just need a good clipboard application and clipX is just great, just press the hotkey and select what to pate.

MoRUN.net Sticker Lite: Instead of using notepad and multiple files to log or temporarily hold things I use sticky notes, again they don't take your taskbar space, you can access them with hotkeys and you don't save as they get saved automatically, MoRUN.net Sticker Lite will do all this fro free.

launchy: Do I really need to say anything? What people still click on start button, click on there desktop icons and use default file manager, with Launchy you just use Hotkeys.

ExplorerXP: I need a tabbed interface File Manager, Its absolutely mandatory I just can't work without a Multi Tab file manager. ExplorerXP Is one such good freeware (for non - commercial use) file manger.

QTTabBar: Multi Tab file manager is so mandatory for me that I have installed two of them, Even if by chance the default file manager is open I can get tabs with QTTabBar. Its an Add-In that gives Tab Browsing Feature to your Explorer. Folder grouping, histories, etc and I love it :). There is just one prerequisite for windowsXP which is Net Framework 2.0 or later should be installed on your system.
My email client is Thunderbird with quite a few addons (reminderfox, Provider for Google Calendar, Lightning, MinimizeToTray, Minimize To Tray Enhancer, Display Mail User Agent to name a few ).

If you are wondering why don't I have screen shoots and all that, I am writing this on Ubuntu 8.10 and I am @ home.

P@SHA ICT 2008 Awards: I am so happy

We just had P@SHA ICT Awards 2008, I am extremely happy with the outcomes. That was a one cool event, The event was covered by CIO Pakistan, @DrAwab And @Selfexile were twitting the event as it happens and a Live Blog was hosted at Ideas Hut website (futher details ). I am so happy with the event :-).

Why I am this }---||---{ Happy?


Well there are two reasons
1. The company which I have just started working for, got the award for "Best of Digital Media & Entertainment Applications" (WINNER - Converged Media Solutions – PixSense ). But this ain't the primary reason of my happiness (They are an excellent company and were bound to win this :) ), so the the primary reason is reason no 2. which is:
2. The award for Best of Startup Applications. I am a software Testing professional and award was won by "Kraysis" which is to the best of my knowledge the only company in Pakistan, specialized in all kind of Software Testing solution and yes they are the partner of Zephyr in Pakistan.

I posted a Blog about Testing market in Pakistan on 14th august 2007 . As a software tester I know this is what we really miss in Pakistan, companies providing Testing Solutions.

There are bazillion companies around the globe which provide software testing solutions but there aren't many in Pakistan. I am extremely happy atleast there is a company now (actually I am following them for more then a year see my blink ) providing software testing solutions and they are doing great.

They were named in the STARTUP Watch-List by UK based Technomics International, they have partnership with Coverity Inc and Zephyr and yes they have won the award of Best Startup (source: http://www.kraysis.com/Deatilednews%20.php ). As a Software Tester from Pakistan I am so happy to see them grow.

But.. They still miss one thing the really need to mobilize the local Software Testing community. I mean they should arrange workshops, conferences, meetups and all those cool things. I would love to see conferences like GTAC or AST Conferences happing in Pakistan and I would love to play my role in them.

With startup like Kraysis and there growth over the year or so, I am very hopeful about the Software Testing community of Pakistan.

Update: Even more happier :-), both of the above mentioned have won awards at APICTA in Jakarta. PixSense has won the Asia Pacific ICT Award and Kraysis has won the APICTA Award for the Best Startup in the Asia/Pacific region.
Further details.

Sauce Labs Inc - accelerate Selenium and web application functional testing

Sauce Labs Inc - accelerate Selenium and web application functional testing

Posted using ShareThis

Changing Subversion credentials in Hudson

I was in a need of changing the Credentials of subversion for a project, unfortunately i was not able to find any straight forward link in manage panel. So the Quick hack to achieve this is:

1. go to http://[Hudson_Home]/hudson/scm/SubversionSCM/enterCredential
2. Enter the URL of subversion repository
   
3. Click on Username/password authentication
4. Enter User name and password for the repository
5. press OK

thats it.

So in my experience there is an inverse relationship between certification and testing talent -J Whittaker

"So in my experience there is an inverse relationship between certification and testing talent." -J Whittaker
http://blogs.msdn.com/james_whittaker/archive/2008/09/11/on-certificiation.aspx
Such an important Statement by Such a Great Tester, got to post a following link :-)
Regards,
----------------------------------
Ahmed Mubbashir Khan
"I do not make Softwares, I make them better"

Evaluating Continuous Integration: Itself

I am not writing about how to evaluate a CI Server, if one needs to evaluate them the best resource I can suggest is CI Feature Matrix just list out your requirements before going to this page, and see which one is the best fit for you. Just for the idea of current state of CIS see What Continuous Integration Server are you using in 2008?.

Evaluating CI Server is not the important part: Once we have decided that we will have a CI server in-place, personally I don't think evaluating the CI server is the important part , I have played with quite a few continues integration servers (just to name a few: cruise control, continum, luntbuild, Hudson and Bamboo), while playing with them I realize that every single one of them dose the same basic thing really well. All of them will check out source from a Source Control Management system, will build the code in one or another way and will run/publish results of your tests. ITs what you want to do with the CI server.

The Important Part, Evaluating Continuous Integration: Yeah we need to Evaluate Continuous Integration Itself. Continuous Integration is not just an activity or state but a Philosophy, a culture which is foster by agile methodology, to integrate and test the code more frequently to find out bugs when it’s less expensive to fix them. Are you and your team comfortable with it? Have you spend enough time with the team to let them know the importance and advantages of it? have you trained them how will they carry out there work from now onwards? are you keeping an eye on the state of builds? are people writing Unit Tests at the very first place? and so on.. make your self comfortable with Continuous Integration.

Open Source To rescue: Don't invest on any commercial tool straight away just because you think it will be cool, its not a tool you are looking for its the process. Use open source tools to introduce CI, to prepare your team for CI (you might like the open source alternatives so much that you might stick to them) make CI a part of development cycle and "Evaluate CI for your team and your team for CI". This will help you to refine requirements but more importantly you will know who needs the Improvement they way CI is being conducted or your team. This Evaluating CI can be done in two possible ways: 1. By using complete open source solution: (e.g Hudson with code analysis tools like cobertura, PMD and FindBugs) 2. By using Evolutionary copy of a commercial CI Server: (e.g Bamboo with code analysis tools like clover/ cobertura, PMD and FindBugs)

What are your waiting for Start Evaluating...

Need to know about Continuous Integration go to Martin Fowler Continuous Integration or buy Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk (Addison-Wesley Signature Series)

GotConnected Compiz fusion no my 6720s

I have just got a 512 kbs DSL connection thanks to my elder brother Muddassir, I was anxiously waiting for this and Ubuntu 8.04 LTS HardyHeron.
I have just isntalled it on my HP 6720s notebook with compiz-fusion and AWN. Its SWeeeet, I am so very happy with all of this.
Have a look.

Sync reminder Fox toDos and Reminders between thunderbird and firefox

Yeap we all wants to have one todo list, I always put my todos and
reminders in thunderbird but certainly wants to see them in fire fox,
this thing is inbuilt in reminderfox :-)
just change the default file location of firefox's reminder fox with
thunderbirds file.
default file location

Thunderbird's reminder fox file is placed at:
/root/.thunderbird/x6rjxwwf.default/reminderfox/reminderfox.ics

Thunderbird's file location

thats it, now I can add from any of the two and can see them in both apps
this is great!!

Use Time Stamp to Create Files or Folder Using Ant

Every now and then we come across a situation where we are in a need of creating folder with the name of time stamp so that we can keep record of every execution, don't we ;-) ?
Its fairly easy to accomplish this in Ant
use tstamp task.
This is how a set a property "START_TIME" and use it to create that file/folder.
<tstamp>
<format property="START_TIME" pattern="dd_MMM_yy_HH_mm_ss"/>
</tstamp>

Like
<property name="testresults-folder" value="${START_TIME}_TestResults"/>
and create a folder by this property
<mkdir dir="${testresults-folder}"/>

'Testers Are Idiots'

Testers are Idiots
It starts by saing: That’s right: "Testers are idiots. The practice of testing offers no innovation. Testing is boring, manual and repetitive. It’s not a career. Testers aren’t as smart as developers. They’re nit-picky, pencil-pushing quality/process geeks. They’re beside the point and are easily replaced. Testing is not a career; it’s a necessary evil between application users and the brilliance of developers."
These statements are from an audience of testers..

Surprised??
Not really !!

Changing the Default editor for your terminal

You can change the default editor by setting the EDITOR environment variable. In BASH. This default editor is most of the time invoked by -e switch.
To see what is the current EDITOR.

# set | grep EDITOR EDITOR=/bin/nano # which vi (shows the full path of (shell) command vi ) /usr/bin/vi # export EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi verify the current EDITOR # set | grep EDITOR EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi  

--  Regards,  Mubbashir