2 day testing vacation at Hyderabad

I left Bangalore on 1st Feb on a 2-day trip to Hyderabad. The purpose of the visit was to interact with my Hyderabadi tester friends and also take a break. Anurag Raghuvanshi received me at the Kacheguda station. The train was delayed by half an hour. We took the MMTC train to Hi-Tech city.

Anurag & myself discussed about various testing challenges including

• building awareness about testing 
• continuous learning 
• relationship with programmers especially when they are not in the same time zone
• counting bugs

Then we freshened up, had our breakfast and started with a testing session. Anurag wanted us to test Junglee. Last time, we had tested Flipkart. So, we set a charter to test just the Search bar on Junglee.

Junglee Search Bar

The session was restricted to 15 minutes. I created a mindmap and screen recorded my session.

Test Ideas

Then we had a pretty long de-brief. It was a two hour long de-brief where we discussed the following:

• Why did I record the session
• How to use Comparable Products heuristic
• What was the test idea behind using script tag attack
• Special cases discovered in the session
• Persistent XSS Attack
• Http codes
• Difference between SupportDetails.com and .net

We went for lunch - Hot butter rotis and lots of paneer. Later we sat down for another testing session. I was happy with the Wi-fi speed and checked the speed on SpeedTest. It was more than 2Mbps.

He downloaded the application PNotes and I asked him to highlight his test strategy.

Then, we created a map for Project Planning template.

Plan for a new project

After reviewing Anurag's work, I gave him the next task to discover what the files .aff and .dic stood for.

I showed him the power of search terms to gather more information about the files. It was time for a break.

We enjoyed few hot Jalebis, parathas and then headed for Skype Coaching session from 10pm IST.

I had asked folks to create a mindmap and get used to the tool. 

Day 2, we had guests to the room. Sudhamshu, Abhinav and Balaji.

We discussed the Web Testing Heuristics mindmap. We got to know of the following:

• Xenu link checker
• Spoon.net
• Firefox addon - Extended Status bar
• Charles
• Article on Cookies

We stopped and then had Hyderabad Biryani for lunch. Balaji came after Abhinav and Sudhamshu left for the day. We went through my article on New Year Resolutions for a tester.

Balaji highlighted his experiences of RST workshop with James Bach. He tried 1-2 exercises on us and also told why he was so impressed by Rahul Verma's words. We discussed about why reputation and credibility is so important for a software tester.

Then, it was time for Weekend Testing session. The report can be read here.

When I thought that it was leave Hyderabad, I met Bikash who turned out to be a passionate mobile apps tester. We had a good discussion on the tools we use and the challenges we face.

All in all, it was a great two day trip to Hyderabad. My special thanks to Anurag for hosting me.

If you want me to coach you personally or conduct a session in your city, feel free to drop me an email at AJAY184F AT GMAIL DOT COM

Leia Mais…

August batch of online course on "Software Testing Skills"

Its time for the third batch to start. Third batch of my course - "Software Testing Skills".


What this course is about:
The rough outline would be

1. Building a Feature Map

3. Information gathering through Application 

Tours

4. Effective bug hunting, investigation and reporting

5. Preparing a Test Report

I am open to changes based on the testers' skills and experience.

Is there any mailing list where I can see artifacts by students of previous classes?

https://groups.google.com/group/ajsoftwaretestingskills

Schedule:

Every monday, wednesday and friday starting from August 06th till August 31st

Time: 

10 pm IST to 11.15 pm IST (4.30 pm GMT to  5.45 pm GMT)

For other time zones, http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/gmt-converter/

Cost:

It costs only your time. There is NO FEES.

The sessions are over Skype chat only. No calls.

Interested?

Email me (ajay184f@gmail.com) with the subject: "AjAug2012" and provide your Skype ID in the body of the email. I would appreciate if you would add me on Skype too.

What will I learn? Can you tell me more about how will the experience be?

I will let the students who attended comment on this post.

Leia Mais…

Free Online Course on "Software Testing Skills"

                                   

Course (Five sections): *

1. Building a Feature Map

3. Information gathering through Application Tours

4. Effective bug hunting, investigation and reporting

5. Preparing a Test Report

Schedule:

Every monday, wednesday and friday starting from April 30th till May 30th

Cost:

It costs only your time. There is NO FEES.

Time: 

10 pm IST to 11.15 pm IST (4.30 pm GMT to  5.45 pm GMT)

For other time zones, http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/gmt-converter/

The sessions are over Skype chat only. No calls.

Interested?

Email me (ajay184f@gmail.com) with the subject: "AjApr2012" and provide your Skype ID in the body of the email.

Please hurry as I don't want the class strength to be a big number.

More details once you confirm your interest.

Image Credits: http://www.sabrfc.com/coaches-corner.php?FREE-Introductory-Coaching-Course-for-Women-2

Leia Mais…

Thanks Arul...

Unedited Skype chat transcript of a conversation between two testers.
******************************************************************************

[11:41:54 AM] arulprasath: k
[11:42:21 AM] arulprasath: and then tell me or send me any article which explains
[11:42:30 AM] arulprasath: clearly abot
[11:42:39 AM] arulprasath: web application testing
[11:42:42 AM] arulprasath: for fresher
[11:42:47 AM] arulprasath: in software testing
[11:43:33 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: Have you googled?
[11:43:37 AM] arulprasath: yes
[11:43:43 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: and then?
[11:43:56 AM] arulprasath: but they  are not up to standards
[11:44:00 AM] arulprasath: ?
[11:44:17 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: what do you mean by 'they are not up to standards'
[11:44:37 AM] arulprasath: since you are have exp any article which helps freshers
[11:44:43 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: hmmm
[11:44:46 AM] arulprasath: thats why
[11:45:09 AM] arulprasath: i am asking
[11:45:26 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: Agreed. Give me few mins plz
[11:45:39 AM] arulprasath: k
[11:46:51 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: Arul, let me be frank with you
[11:46:59 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: To help you, you must help me
[11:47:04 AM] arulprasath: k
[11:47:19 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: 1. Please understand that what you are asking is a very vast subject
[11:47:55 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: 2. People will respect you more and you will gain more credibility when you show them what efforts you have put
[11:48:07 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: If you don't understand anything, Ask that.
[11:48:11 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: Google that
[11:48:16 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: Read books
[11:48:20 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: Read articles
[11:48:23 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: Blog about it
[11:48:32 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: meet people who know or talk about it
[11:48:49 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: and ask if your assumptions or understanding is right or wrong
[11:48:57 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: Now tell me what should I do?
[11:49:21 AM] arulprasath: k i will do  that
[11:49:25 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: Good!
[11:49:27 AM] arulprasath: :)
[11:49:37 AM | Edited 11:49:42 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: I will wait for your results of your efforts
[11:50:04 AM] arulprasath: yes surely
[11:50:22 AM] arulprasath: monday i will send article regarding this
[11:50:29 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: Very good!
[11:50:30 AM] arulprasath: thanks
[11:50:36 AM] arulprasath: :)
[11:50:36 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: Can I publish this on my blog?
[11:50:56 AM] arulprasath: yes
[11:50:59 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: :)
[11:51:03 AM] arulprasath: it your decision
[11:51:14 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: its involving you
[11:51:15 AM] arulprasath: if you feel it is good u can do
[11:51:21 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: so, I am asking you
[11:51:31 AM] arulprasath: :)
[11:51:45 AM] Ajay Balamurugadas: I will just copy paste the above conversation into a blog post
[11:52:07 AM] arulprasath: k np

******************************************************************************
I am confident that Arul will keep his promise...

Leia Mais…

Skype - Paired Investigation for list of commands issue.

Last night was amazing. We had a testers chat on skype.

I sent out this tweet    and Phil Kirkham was the first one to ping me on Skype. Later we had Mohinder Khosla, Tony Bruce, Shrini Kulkarni, Albert Gareev, Michel Kraaij and Bala Sista joining us.

We (me, Phil, Mohinder, Tony) started off with an initial deadline of 45 minutes till 11pm IST. Later, as more testers joined, we extended till 12 midnight IST.

The session was very good. I am assuming that each one of them had their share of learning. During the discussion, after I typed a phrase, I got this:


Immediately I typed what I thought I had typed, in a notepad and tried that on Skype. The same list was displayed again. The text was:

/Knowing what skills is/ might help us define 'skills' better

Calling this as the 'Master Text' for the rest of this blog post 

I decided that I will investigate this behavior later. As soon I got up this morning, I pinged Allmas Mullah on Skype with the text '/xyz/ might help' expecting list of commands.
She replied with a standard '?' . Not surprised with the reply, I explained the purpose of my ping and asked her if we can spend ten minutes to investigate this issue? (It was an issue at that time to me)
By this time, even Allmas had reproduced the issue on her side.

Allmas started off with brilliant questions -
What's the plan of action? What's the strategy of investigation?

I opened my  favorite tool for such sessions - Typewith.me (Thanks to Jon Bach for introducing this tool in WT32).

Chat from Typewith.me

 Ajay: Lets copy paste the commands here & google for that. take the solution & search for the problem in skype support page or google. I am suspecting some answer would contain the words - type 'these words' and you will get the list of commands. Then we can compare our test words & the actual words.

Allmas: Even if you just type '/' it gives you a list of commands. So, its the '/' .

Aj: Good, when I type / I don't see anything in Skype chat. not even the / character.

AM: What version of Skype?

Aj: 5.0.0.152

AM: 5.0.0.156

Meanwhile I click on the link http://www.skype.com/go/help.chathelp which is displayed at the end of the complete list of commands and found this:

To see a list of the available commands simply type /help into the chat.

I pasted this on our Typewith.me chat and tried /help on Skype. A short list of commands was displayed.
With few more tests like

• Removing few words from the Master Text
• A / followed by a word. Ex: /word 
• /(space)word 
• word/ word

I was thinking that the second / in the sentence was causing this issue & trying more tests like word/ word
and Allmas was progressing on the right track by pointing to me that even a character followed by / gives the full list of commands.
So we arrived at two points:

• Just '/' does nothing
• '/' brings up a list of all commands supported by Skype.

Then I realized where I was going wrong and started trying further tests like / in between two lines of text.
Ajay
/test
this

Allmas was highlighting that /command looks like a UNIX command and looking at the language in which Skype was written. I was searching for a user guide which would explain the usage of /commands and I was failing miserably in my attempt. Allmas gave the link. It was at Support link > Step by Step guide.

Amazed by the number of user guides provided, I quickly searched for what I wanted in few of them.
Allmas pasted this:

Does Skype for Windows have command line options?

Yes, you can use these options:

I did not ask for the link or the complete information. I replied with 'I am wondering if Skype connect is different from Skype windows as I am not getting much help from the user guides.'
This did not go well with Allmas as we were on two different tracks :)
What followed was interesting:
To read the unedited chat, please click here.
If you do not want to read the chat, just ignore the link and read further.
We clarified our assumptions, we exchanged our learning.

Learning for me:

• My belief in my quote: "When we listen and respect each other, Paired testing ROCKS" increased.
• There is so much information. If you are ready to learn, there is no limit.
• Be aware of what actions you perform. I remembered what I typed - the Master Text. If I had not remembered it, I might have taken more time to come to the conclusion.
• Recognizing that there is a trap and coming out of it before its too late.
• I need more & correct practice.

Special thanks to Allmas who agreed for ten minutes and ended up discussing for ninety minutes.

Useful Links:
Chat Commands: https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA10042/What-are-chat-commands-and-roles
User Guides: http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/support/user-guides/

If you are interested in further investigation, try this:

Why does /getba, /get ba and /getbanlist give three different results.

/getba - list of commands

/get ba - blank

/get banlist - executes the command

I would love to be part of such sessions. 

Feel free to ping me on Skype/Twitter at 'ajay184f' and not /ajay184f :)

Leia Mais…