Archive for January, 2009

Artificial Stupidity

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

I just tried to use the automated support system at Paypal…
Sarah - PayPal :
Hello, I’m Sarah and I’m here to answer your questions about PayPal. Even though I’d like to be a real person, I’m not. I’m programmed to answer your questions. How can I help you?
You :
How do I change my security questions?
Sarah - [...]

Server Move

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Kevin Rogers of Infotech convinced me that I should migrate my server to a managed service. He handled the whole thing for an amazingly low price, too.
Now, I will be a bit harder to hack. But there may be a few glitches still to work out. For instance, during the move strange characters somehow became [...]

Hack Attacks and Complexity

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

My blog has been down because I’m experiencing a hack attack. I may have to do something radical to secure my server, like rebuild the whole thing from scratch. It just goes to show how important testing is. The system I’m running is so complex that the security experts I’ve consulted all tell me to [...]

Buccaneer-Scholar Site is Up

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

My book “Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar” will be published in September by Simon and Schuster. It’s a book about how I approach self-education, personal branding, and original thinking. It’s the story of how I got started and how I got along all these years without any formal education or certification. It’s not a book about [...]

The Great Implication of Context-Driven Methodology

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

Sometimes I hear people react to context-driven methodology with a shrug. “Yeah, everything depends on context. So what?”
Here’s the so what: If all practice depends upon context, then the competent practitioner must know how to invent, evaluate, criticize, and modify practices. In other words, focus must shift from merely copying and memorizing practices to developing [...]

Context-Driven Testing Clarified

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

Cem Kaner has just posted a clarification of context-driven testing. I contributed to it, and it also represents my point of view.
One reason we’ve come up with this new description is that several people (we don’t really know who) have posted or copied descriptions of context-driven testing that bear little resemblance to the vision of [...]