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!!