And it feels soooo goooood!

What’s good? When we people get to do their things their own way. Where there are no strings or repetitive procedure to tie down the curiosity of the human mind. The fact where you do not have to ask the same questions over and over again, or drive to the same location every weekday  or even ordering the same cheese pizza with no toppings. You are you, and switching everything up makes life feel refreshing again. This principle isn’t just in one’s daily life, but can also be applied to the average software tester.

When you start as a software tester, you are probably very excited of the day ahead eager to begin your new chapter in life. That’s great! Keep that spirit up, because when you start out testing, you are mostly like going to be given the same test cases over and over again hence the mighty potential to drain your energy for the love of testing. But don’t let that get to you at all, it doesn’t have to be that way! Even though in the end orders are orders, its worth taking a leap of faith and dumping all of those repetitive test case procedures, and start making you own documentation!

Yes, you may be new so you may not have enough experience to derive your own test cases. But that does not mean that you are not skilled! Many reasons why one would want to make new test case documentation from scratch could either range from new testing environments, new or modified code, and more importantly, its a lot more fun!

The next time you use old repetitive test cases, make sure you do whatever you can in your power to use newly developed ones by yourself instead. After all, being a software tester includes doing whatever it takes to make stuff work right. Nothing hurts when it comes to a slight bit of change.

(Source : http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/03/start-from-scratch-vs-old-test.html)

From the blog CS@Worcester – Dan's Tech Rant by danbarbara and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

It is your duty to protect the world from devastation.. the world of the software you are working on that is!

Fret not, it is not a difficult task. Previously, it has been mentioned the tactics of organization has led to perfect control and containment of peace amongst the living entity known as the source code.  However, it is not until one is in the moment where they realize it was easier said than done. They may have had a basic plan to tackle infestation of software bugs letting the tranquility of software compile happily, but one can not be too prepared when about to face what they are looking for. One must know how to REACT.

You are not just a software tester. You are a pokemon trainer, Indiana Jones, and Sherlock Holmes. You are just about everything that you need to be before you become the terminator itself!

You may have spotted a bug, but it wasn’t a satisfying as the bug when away forcing you to reproduce what ever you did to bring it back. This is where you put your pokemon hat on and grab those pokeballs, as you go retracing your steps finding the creature you wanted to catch before.

Once you have captured your bug, its not over. There could be more bugs located around the area where the bug you found and reported was. You must scan the surrounding of the code itself and use your discoveries to find the treasure (the other bugs). It doesn’t hurt to pretend wearing a cowboy hat while you do that too.

After scoping out the area, the magnifying glass will help you analyze the data other findings you may have encountered in which you can estimate a rough idea of how far certain problems can spread or how severe they can be when the software is launched.

Lastly, all information must be reported to the headquarters. Once everyone is aware, the process of termination can begin. After shining the spotlight on the possible trouble that may negatively effect the sweet result of the creation, the evil pesticides may be overridden and the world may be saved once again.

Just remember to REACT properly, and as a QA tester you should feel proud of yourself. Your actions have you been deemed as a super hero… cape may or may not be included. Your identity may be anonymous to the public, but rest assured no good deed goes unpunished. As long as you stay by the morals of Reproducing, Exploring, Analyzing, Communicating, and Triage, you may be one step closer on ending the epidemic of a bug-riddling source code.

(source: http://www.brendanconnolly.net/react-to-bugs/)

From the blog CS@Worcester – Dan's Tech Rant by danbarbara and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Have you ever been to one of those batting cages where there is a machine that shoots a baseball straight at you to hit it? Usually it shoots the ball going off based on a timed interval or its continually controlled using some kind of remote control. Imagine this machine in particular is processing based on a timed interval, but the machine secretly had sophisticated AI installed and starts acting on its own pumping out dozens of balls at a fast speed per second. The large amount of balls whip right to you at a certain speed and the only thought you have in your mind is how in the world do you get out of there before getting injured. Usually one would get hit before they manage to move out of the way completely (at least in this scenario), but there is a much more deliberate response to such a situation: focus on hitting the balls that are aiming toward your body with your ninja skills/reflexes and exclude the balls that you know will be far enough to miss hitting you, until the machine runs out of balls that is.

Now in the software testing world, this machine is the software that has been developed for you to test. And the balls that the software is shooting at you, are the bugs. These bugs are within the software are annoying, and most importantly get you in trouble if not reported or dealt with. Bugs can range from software-breaking bugs (the baseballs aiming for your body), or small minor bugs (the baseballs that are no where close to you) that can be over looked. It is up to you (yes you are the only QA guy in the company again), to make sure bugs that are discovered are taken care of in a way where the most important ones are set as high priority and the not so threatening ones to be set in the  “we will get to it whenever we get to it” category. Of course, everything depends on the time you have before the software launches or puts an update out. Getting the best product within the constraints giving to you all depends on you, QA.

It’s not that bad really, with a little bit of organizing you can create simple and understanding charts detailing the bugs you found along with given them a label based on threat level and priority. Where you tag a minor bug as level 0 for “eh, whatever” or tagging a more severe as level 5 for “WE GOT A 23-19! WE GOT A 23-19!” Some great ways of prioritizing bugs can be found on Software Testing Stuff’s how to prioritize bugs numerically blog. It’s always a good practice to sort out bugs, let alone will be easier to communicate with the rest of the developer team with easy-to-use charts.

I hope you are good at playing find and seek and know gold from bronze, it shall help you on your quest to prioritize the little insects that need to be squashed.

Source: http://www.softwaretestingstuff.com/2011/09/how-to-prioritize-bugs-numerically.html

From the blog CS@Worcester – Dan's Tech Rant by danbarbara and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

WIP

Source: http://www.softwaretestingtricks.com/2014/08/tips-for-becoming-expert-video-game-tester.html

From the blog CS@Worcester – Dan's Tech Rant by danbarbara and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Ever had the chance to work in QA before? Sitting in a cramped space repeated test cases over and over again on different builds for 8 hours plus overtime a day for 5 days a week? Its not that bad, not at all. You are just doing your job which completely relies on patience (you know that thing many people don’t really have now-a-days) with the occasional trip to the vending machine once every couple hours. Oh and more thing, the entire project you are working on relies solely on your shoulders, if something breaks at launch and you never found it, or if you found an issue that was never fixed, the fingers all point to you (or the other QA lab rats you work with, but since you’re reading the blog, you’re the only one working in QA).

Kind of funny how its the guy that barely resembles anything in the SCRUM chart that tries their very best so the people receive the greater good of the product they are working on,  and in some cases they end up proud for what they did. Infused in their minds the reason, “well, we have to start somewhere to move up”, they had to keep track of SO many actions by jotting down a load of test cases, and using different platforms/devices to do the same thing over and over again, but if QA is happy with the product then the customers will be too. But will they care? It’s not like they will be SO happy with the product they search hard enough to find who worked on it or tested it so they can thank them properly. When its the complete opposite though, then people care enough to rant to the company that made the product and then all that hate gracefully trickles down to you, the guy that is suppose to expose the broken to be un-broken.

Want an example of the type of  bugs that could’ve been missed or not fixed before launch? Unexpected behaviors. A really great demonstration of that is a fun test using hot key conditions conducted by QA Hates You. When testing Mozilla Thunderbird, (an e-mail hub app kind of like Outlook),  QA Hates you manages to trigger unexpected behaviors in the app by doing two actions at the same time that the users would never do. Will QA testers ever test the irregular activities of human beings or just what they always do instead? Whatever you choose to do whether instructed or not instructed to do as being the QA guy, just remember: if it breaks, it’s your fault.

Source: http://qahatesyou.com/wordpress/2016/08/fun-test-hot-key-race-conditions/

From the blog CS@Worcester – Dan's Tech Rant by danbarbara and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Software Seller: Hello, would you like any anti-virus software for your new computer?

Translation: Hello potential victim, can we get more money from you based on your *unawareness of technology?

Innocent and unnecessarily worrying customer: Um, i don’t know. It’s a bit expensive.

Translation: There isn’t any.  They are innocent. 

Software Seller:  We highly recommend you get ant-virus software, or your computer *will* most likely get infected.

Translation: We really really REALLY want your money, worry about this because it will help persuade you to give us your money.

Innocent and unnecessarily worrying customer: Oh ok, I’ll take it.

Translation: You know more than me sooo…

Software Seller:  Awesome.

Translation:  

*unawareness: a nicer way to say stupid

In the common world, if there is a villain there is a hero just for the sake of balancing.. this world isn’t common. Nowadays, if there is a villain there is another villain disguised as a hero. That other villain is your average everyday anti-virus.

Take a good look at the picture above. Each one of those is a program in existence that does not need to exist, if it does its solely because of human error.

People feel comfortable seeing a big huge screen pop up whenever you are on your computer or even when you boot it up everyday where there is a big green check mark saying you are secured. But are you?

If you feel comfortable about the fact that the majority of your computer’s power being taken just to scan every file you click on or every program you want open for infectious data that doesn’t even need to be smart enough to sneak through your viruses, then there is a problem.

If you are willingly paying per year for an anti-virus that usually sees threats as temporary cookies that are harmless or for an anti-virus that doesn’t do anything when you know for sure you are infected, you’re not doing something right.

If people want to know why viruses appear on laptops, its simple! It’s because they let it happen!

As of today, computers with Windows 10 and Mac computers do not get viruses out of the blue. The reason why is short and sweet- they do whatever they can to make sure you don’t let it through.

People download stuff. This is how viruses come up. No, it doesn’t appear out of the blue. People torrent illegal content, or they think a fishy site is legit. If they see free they go for it, or if a prompt pops up they click allow to have the program download. The human brain is the best anti-virus you will ever have.

You are the one controlling what goes through and doesn’t and the so called anti-viruses you buy for the store or google to get for free do not operate for that because you gave these viruses permission to access your computer.

For windows 7/8/ and 10, they have a built in security system that does not take a lot of power, don’t need to scan regularly, doesn’t make your computer slow and its called Windows Defender. You don’t need internet for it unless you want to update it, but its already there! If you get an anti-virus it wont activate since the computer senses you have security software. Defender is pretty much common sense for your brain, that is if the prompts and warnings windows give you doesn’t alert your attention you are about to infect your laptop.

For mac, by default 3rd party applications are not allowed to be downloaded, for your safety. On top of that, every-time you need to download something it will ask for your user credentials and also give you pop ups to re-think your choice if need be.

As mentioned previously, the best anti-viruses in the world is your brain. Your common senses knows all. Only you can prevent wildfires, only you can prevent infections on your electrical, button-pushing, folding sandwich box.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Dan's Tech Rant by danbarbara and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Greetings fellow inhabitants of planet earth.

Using your technological purchases, such as this laptop or tablet or phone you are most likely using  right now, you demand extra features such as connection to the world wide web. I know you demanded internet, otherwise you would not be reading this post right now.

I mean, i get it. It’s great. We need internet. But every bit of greatness comes at a price. Now, I don’t know why but I have unwillingly decided to take a few minutes a week (give or take time for procrastination) to highlight the ‘comes at a price’ part.

For now you only need to know three things:

1. Please don’t stop reading to take a selfie, now isn’t the time for that.
2. Your great, great, great, grandparents would be ashamed for succumbing to the laziness of the future.
3. I’m pretty sure that you are an iPhone user, if not then you might be able to escape this trapped illusion society has been dragged into.

Welcome to my tech rant. No button-pushing users allowed.

Dan

From the blog CS@Worcester – Dan's Tech Rant by danbarbara and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.