A press release by Toyota recently stated:
Toyota’s electronic systems have multiple fail-safe mechanisms to shut off or reduce engine power in the event of a system failure. Extensive testing of this system by Toyota has not found any sign of a malfunction that could lead to unintended acceleration.
Here are some notes for [...]

My son turned 16 a couple of weeks ago, and the event prompted me to take a fresh look at him. This is hard to do, in life. You put someone in a category, and it’s all too easy to keep him there. I think my own mother still thinks I’m 14 years-old (the age [...]

Richard drove up to the hangar just as I was checking the oil on the Husky, his prized baby float plane. Nuts. He was right on time. I was late. I’m supposed to have the plane ready to go when he arrives.
“Hey Dad, looks like a good day for flying. I’m just in the middle [...]

I’m on a new project lately, working with a team at QualiTest. We’re testing a class III medical device. This is an exciting project, because for the first time I am aware of, formalized exploratory testing will be used to do such a validation. We will not rely on masses of procedural test scripts. I’ve [...]

My brother and I are experimenting with short podcasts. Here are the first two 15-minute segments:

Testers say the darndest things. One issue in coaching testers is getting them to speak carefully about evidence and about what they can and can’t do. For instance, we talk about how we react when someone tells us that “a [...]

One of the things I like to do is give testing lessons over Skype. I offer this as a service for pay, and I also do it for free under certain conditions.
Here’s how it works:
1. You contact me over Skype. (ID: SATISFICE)
2. If I’m not charging you than it’s on an “as available” basis: How [...]

I recently got back from the Oredev developer’s conference, in Malmö, Sweden. I enjoyed it, though I wish I’d had more time to actually go to the various developer-oriented talks. The closest I got to that was being on this panel:

This is probably the most fun panel I’ve been on. I loved the enthusiasm and [...]

My work is greatly influenced by fellow students of the craft. My friends are critical to my education.They help me focus my attention and they stir up my ideas.
Here are some substantive examples from just the last two days in my life as a student of software testing:

David Gilbert Skyped me with a new version [...]

There’s something important going on in India. It’s called Weekend Testers. It seems to be the beginning of a truly Indian version of the Context-Driven School of Testing. It’s a sapient testing insurgency!
If you are a tester in India (or you aspire to be) and you want to be a GOOD tester, then you should [...]

Michael Bolton, my brother Jon, and I have produced a new version of our Exploratory Testing Dynamics document. We unveiled it last week at STPCON.
This document describes the elements of exploratory testing as we currently understand them. This new version has not yet been reviewed by Cem Kaner or any of our colleagues who normally [...]

An open letter to James Whittaker:
You wrote: “I had an amicable hallway conversation with James Bach. His blogger angst at my use of the title ‘Exploratory Testing’ didn’t spill over to a face-to-face discussion. Frankly, I am not surprised. I’ve never claimed the term as my own, I simply took it and made it work [...]

When Cem Kaner introduced the term “exploratory testing” in the mid-80’s, everyone ignored it. When I picked up the term and ran with it, I was mostly ignored. But slowly, it spread through the little community that would become the Context-Driven School. I began talking about it in 1990, and created the first ET class [...]

I told James Whittaker that I don’t use the term “manual testing” and that I prefer the term “sapient testing” because it’s more to the point. This is evident in the first definition of the word “manual” in the Oxford English Dictionary: ” 1. a. Of work, an action, a skill, etc.: of or relating [...]

Context-driven testing is apparently very difficult to understand. I wouldn’t have thought that it’s a difficult concept, except for the last decade I’ve watched hundreds of people in terrible confusion. Testers outside of the United States have an especially hard time with it, for some reason that escapes me.
I do have some working theory of [...]

When my publisher decided to release my Secrets book for “free” as an ebook, I thought it meant FREE. I just found it meant free-for-a-little-while-and-then-gone. Apparently it has some sort of DRM expiration date on it.
[Update: One of my tester friends found that he could defeat the expiration mechanism by playing with the system date, [...]