It's traveling season for me. London, Amsterdam, New Zealand, Australia, and so forth. That means I'm killing time in a lot of airports and hotel lobbies. And THAT means I'm testing software on kiosks … [Read more...] about Amateur Penetration Testing
Satisfice Blog
To Repeat Tests or Not to Repeat
One of the serious social diseases of the testing craft is the obsession with repetition. Is that test repeatable? Is that test process repeatable? Have we repeated those tests? These questions are … [Read more...] about To Repeat Tests or Not to Repeat
Test Messy with Microbehaviors
James Lyndsay sent me a little Flash app once that was written to be a testing brainteaser. He challenged me to test it and I had great fun. I found a few bugs, and have since used it in my testing … [Read more...] about Test Messy with Microbehaviors
Counterstrings: Self-Describing Test Data
I was at a conference some months ago when Danny Faught showed me a Perl package for manipulating the Windows clipboard. I turned it into a little tool for helping me test text fields. It's called … [Read more...] about Counterstrings: Self-Describing Test Data
Software Quality Lessons From Borders Bookstore
The in-store lookup system at Borders bookstore is pretty clean; relatively free of UI glitches. Still, I try to make it fail every time I go book browsing. It's provided some interesting food for … [Read more...] about Software Quality Lessons From Borders Bookstore
Career Advice
I was recently asked "What are the best career advancement steps for someone who is a junior to intermediate QA professional?" Answer: If you want your career to move into programming, study … [Read more...] about Career Advice
Fighting Bad Test Documentation
A lot of people I teach seem to be under pressure to create more documents to describe their test process. But documenting is not testing. It is one of the chief distractions to testing. "James Bach … [Read more...] about Fighting Bad Test Documentation
Lack of Will
A core problem with quality in our industry is lack of will. Lack of "will work", that is. This is because it's much easier to tell that a product can work than that it will work. And too often it … [Read more...] about Lack of Will
Tools Come at a Cost
One of the experiences I share with a lot of people in this modern world is that I forget phone numbers. I never used to. The problem is that my mobile phone remembers them for me. So, phone numbers … [Read more...] about Tools Come at a Cost
Bug Report: Weird Charges and Customer Service
Two months ago, I had a $732 charge on my Sprint phone bill for "telephone equipment." I had not purchased any telephone equipment, so I called customer service to dispute the bill. The service agent … [Read more...] about Bug Report: Weird Charges and Customer Service