Tech Bytes moved to Venkat's Blog

I have started this blog with the objective of sharing the current trends in software development way back in 2005 and been updating with some interesting tools, topics that i have come across. I have been blogging on Software Testing here. I have been off from blogging for quite some time. I am in the process of coming back to mainstream blogging. All my blogs will be consolidated into one blog here Venkat's Blog with the objective of exploring the craft of Software Testing & Development.

Testuff - The Test Management Tool for small & medium projects

Almost an year ago, I have evaluated some low cost and open source Test Management Tools. Managing the Test Efforts & Test documentation is always an issue for small and medium companies.

The following were my requirements for Test Management Tool

• Capture the Requirements
• Design & Prepare Test Cases
• Map Test Cases with Requirements
• Link Bug reports with Test Case ID after the test execution
• Test Execution Reports
• Version Management for the Test Cases
• Search Feature

Testuff comes with all the above features and some additional capabilities to record the test execution and link them with the issue tracker. It comes free for single user.

Testuff Features

Test video recording

Really good testers don't follow the pre-written testing scenarios to the letter. They explore the program using their intuition, their experience and their common sense. They look under the rug, between the cracks and behind the closet. They find more bugs. But those bugs are much harder to reproduce. Or at least they were, until now.

Video recording meets software testing

• Everything you see on the screen is recorded.
• Every test is completely documented.
• Every bug is reproducible.

And best of all, the communication between testers and developers no longer depend on their (sometimes limited) communication skills!

On-demand test management

You don't have to struggle with the shortcomings of Excel or spend thousands of dollars on an "Enterprise Test Management Solution".

Pay less

On-demand services usually cost much less than the equivalent software products. Testuff is no exception. Even better, for the duration of the beta trials Testuff is completely free of charge

Get more

Most modern software services create web-based user interfaces and try to make them look as close to desktop applications as possible. We've taken this trend a step further and created a real desktop application with a web backend. This way you get both a great user experience and the ability to work with people on the other side of the globe accessing the same test data.

Start right away

You have enough on your hands without going through complex install and maintenance procedures for the tools your use. Just download our desktop client and start improving your software right now.

Bug tracker integration

You are using a bug tracker, right? We have no intention of convincing you to change the way you manage your bugs as long as it isn't a simple text file or scraps of paper scattered on your desk. We can connect to anything else. Almost.

Testuff comes with built-in support for many bug trackers (in alphabetic order):

• Bugzilla
  
• Elementool
  
• FogBugz
  
• Jira
  
• Lighthouse
  
• Mantis
  
• Trac

We are working to include support for even more bug trackers. Your favorite isn't listed? Let us know!

Privacy and Security
We know the confidentiality, integrity and availability of your data are extremely important to you. We have gone to great lengths to give you peace of mind.

• All client-server communication is encrypted with SSL to protect your information. The credentials are verified upon each request made by the client to prevent impersonation and information theft.
• Passwords are not stored in the database; instead, only secure hashes are used. Even the company DBA's have no way of knowing your password. That is why when you forget your password, we generate a new one for you - we simply don't know what the old one was.
• All the data on our servers is encrypted to provide an extra layer of security on top of all the other measures.
• Each company's data is stored separately from the rest to ensure that other users of Testuff can't access your information.

We also realize that losing your tests and bugs means losing money and are doing all we can to make sure your bits are safe with us.

• We continuously backup the servers to prevent any data loss. We store copies of the backups off-site and are able to get the service back online quickly in case of a disaster.
• We monitor our servers 24 hours a day and promptly respond to any failures.
• You can export your data any time you like and save a copy under your bed.

Software Quality and Testing Podcasts

These are free mp3 files you can download and listen to at your convenience. It contains various topics on Software Quality, Testing, Development.

Some of the important Podcasts :

• Podcasts from Stickyminds
  
• Randy Rice's Podcasts
  
• Testing & QA Podcasts from SD Times
  

Explore the Testability aspect for Java Code

The Testability Explorer is an open source project that lets you measure the testability of Java code. This is an interesting idea: a metric not of direct quality, or of testing, or of test coverage, but of ease of testing. Presumably code that is easy to test will get tested, and will therefore be of higher quality, other things being equal.

The following information over Testability Explorer is useful

• Demo
• Project Home
  
• Read Me
• What is Good
• How it works

Customers are Not Crash Test Dummies

An interesting Webinar on Security & Software Testing

Lack of comprehensive software testing makes consumers nothing more than crash test dummies. A majority of cyber security issues today are created by flaws that can be largely tested away in the software development life-cycle but are not. Every flaw that escapes quality assurance practices has a high likelihood of causing significant costs to the end user.


Security today is part of quality assurance practices, or at least it should be. But in quality assurance, everything should be measurable before it is meaningful. One of the arguments author David Rice makes in his book "Geekonomics" is the importance of making security visible in the market place; that is, buyers can price their risk through some easy to comprehend metric. But before that, at least the manufacturers of software have to understand the required metrics. Today, David's talk touches on security metrics, their importance, and their use in software purchasing practices.


Fuzzing is about crash-testing your software, instead of using consumers as crash test dummies. Fuzzing is a compelling solution to eliminating cyber security problems. Fuzzing is not new, it has been used actively by the security community since 1990s. What is new is how fuzzing is used in a business context: fuzzing is being employed as part of procurement criteria to compare the security and quality of software and thus influence purchasing decisions. Metrics in this field are still immature, but Ari Takanen will give a brief look at where we are today.

Register for the Webinar

Application lifecycle management online conference

Application lifecycle management online conference May 20, 2008 - Home

For a 4th year, CM Crossroads, Agile Journal and CMC Media bring you the Internet's premiere conference and exposition for Application Lifecycle Management -ALM EXPO 2008.

ALM Expo is a completely online event that provides true Global participation by enabling visitors with the option to choose which sessions they wish to attend and even choose when they are to watch sessions that they missed.

Last year, the conference opened the virtual doors to over 4000 online attendees from over 90 countries worldwide. And since the live conference, thousands more have viewed conference sessions and toured the expo floor from the comfort of their desktop computer.

This year features 5 more hours of presenations and discussions by ALM and CM thought leaders kicked off by a Keynote Roundtable discussion on the topic of the need or usefulness of process in the application lifecycle. The Keynote will be led by CM Journal Editor in Chief, Bob Aiello.

It's all happening on May 20th 2008 right on your desktop. All you need is Internet access and your regular Web browser. No special software.

Register for the Conference here

Requirements Are Required Reading

Interesting article on Requirements from DDJ.

Dr. Dobb's | Requirements Are Required Reading | May 7, 2008

AppPerfect DevTest4J

The AppPerfect DevTest4J is a suite of products designed to help you

build and test high-performance applications during the development phase of the product life-cycle. The AppPerfect

DevTest4J consists of the following modules:

AppPerfect DevTest4J : Code Analysis, Unit Testing and Profiling for Java/J2EE Applications

ENERGY for better java code

ENERGY is a static analysis tool to measure code quality & heath. The tool tries to identify the symptoms via static analysis and then publish a rating. How it works is an interesting insight.

Check the following video to learn more about the tool.

Technorati Tags: Code Quality Metrics, Java, Static Analysis, Code Quality.

Communicating the Value of Testing Throughout the Organization

Webinar: Communicating the Value of Testing Throughout the Organization

Test managers constantly lament that few outside their group understand or care much about the value they provide and consistently deliver. Unfortunately, they are often correct. The lack of visibility and understanding of the test team's contribution can lead to restricted budgets, fewer resources, tighter timelines, and ultimately, lower group productivity. Join Theresa Lanowitz and Dan Koloski as they highlights ways to move from simply being a tester of software to an advocate for your organization's customers. Learn how to effectively and concisely communicate with key stakeholders in your organization to ensure that they understand the value and role of the testing group. With effective and concise communication, the testing group will be perceived as more strategically important and integral to the success of every project.

Click Below to register for this complimentary Webinar Now!

http://www.bz-direct.com/loszsszz_ydqqffmwp.html

Test 2008 - Software Testing Conference

Test 2008 is the first conference being organized by PureConferences in India. Our conference will provide a platform for international and national test professionals to interact and participate. Speakers from around 10 countries, such as USA, UK, France, Sweden, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, including India will deliver keynotes, tutorials, and papers during the conference. We intend to involve academia and institutions of learning with our conference. We also intend to make Test2008 a ‘green’ conference as far as possible. Additionally, we will institute two test scholarships for educating promising students unable to finance their studies.

Agility in Testing is the theme of Test2008--Test Excellence through Speed and Technology. It's being held at Delhi in India during 13-16 October 2008

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Tester Center from MSDN

The Microsoft Tester Center showcases the test discipline as an integral part of the application life cycle, describes test roles and responsibilities, and promotes the test investments required to deliver high-quality software.

Some cool stuff here are the videos & articles

At the Tester Center, our goal is to provide a community where software testers can share knowledge and learn from each other about testing, our day-to-day job functions, processes, the tools we use, and the various roles we play. As you look around the site, you’ll see videos, articles, blogs, and other information. With your participation this site could be the start of many a conversation in our Software Testing Discussion Forum, where you can join other test professionals to exchange experiences and knowledge. Additionally, questions you ask at the Software Testing Discussion Forum will help guide the type of content we look to create over time. I hope you participate in this community and share your unique insights into the profession of software testing.

Surviving a Corporate Merger - QA Processes in Times of Change

We live in an era of constant change; new companies, processes, environments, reorganizations, restructuring, mergers, acquisitions, buyouts, outsourcing etc. The only true certainty is that our environment will continue to change. In the face of these dynamics, ensuring that product quality does not get lost is a challenge.Come learn how one QA organization successful navigated the sea of changes while still maintaining their quality focus. Stuart Charter will suggest QA techniques to assist you in coping with this change when it affects your organization.

To learn more, sign up today for the webinar

Web Seminar: Surviving a Corporate Merger - QA Processes in Times of Change

WEDNESDAY, October 17, 2007 2:00 p.m. Eastern | 11:00 a.m. Pacific


MODERATOR
Edward J. Correia, Editor, Software Test & Performance Magazine

SPEAKERS
Dan Koloski, CTO and Director of Strategy, Empirix Inc.
Stuart H. Charter, Director of Quality Assurance MortgageIT Inc. a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank

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Misleading Metrics

Come across this interesting article over the Gantthead

The software development industry has a poor track record for developing and employing effective software metrics. This is because most of the metrics selected are tangential to the true goal of software development--delivering business value--and instead focus on software attributes and accounting measures.

Metrics such as lines-of-code per developer week, function points created, hours worked or budget consumed appear to be important measures, but they have dangerous and counterproductive implications. The use of these metrics reward the wrong behavior; the phrase "you get what you measure" highlights the problem. By tracking lines of code written, visible and unconscious incentives to generate lots of code are established. On the surface, this may seem attractive. As a manger of a project, it is gratifying to see lots of code being written. But what is really required is functionality completed, business value generated and customers satisfied.

The more code generated, the harder a system is to maintain and extend. With incentives like lines-of-code written, how do value-adding activities like refactoring simplifications appear? Reducing 20,000 lines of code to 15,000 is a good thing, but from the lines-of-code perspective, it looks like the project is going backward.

Explore more here

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Implementing Agile at a Team Level

There are many benefits for the Organizations and team in the agile approach. Attend the following webinar on Implementing agile at a team level.

Organizations eager to take advantage of the benefits touted by Agilists may inappropriately attempt an all or nothing-at-all, top-down approach to Agile adoption. However, experience has shown that successful Agile adoptions must always begin at the team level and must be guided by a clear, step-wise approach. In this view of both Agile maturity and scaling, Jean borrows from the Lean Thinking principles of attaining total value delivery: perfect your ability to maintain Flow of value, learn to use the principle of Pull in order to deliver even more value, and embrace an organizational imperative to Innovate so that value is forever redefined and re-emerging.

Register for the Web Seminar

Article - Seven Habits of Effective programmers

Software Projects need effective & skilled programmers to deliver on time without compromising on the assured quality. Philip Chu share his experiences with Software Releases and the comes up with a list of seven habits that makes normal programmers effective.

The article Seven Habits of Effective Programmers has been originally published at Technicat

Abstract

As a software engineer, you might want any number of things out of your job - a steady paycheck, the opportunity to work on interesting projects, a springboard to the next better job, or maybe you just like hanging out with other programmers. But by "effective", I mean the ability to complete projects in a timely manner with the expected quality. After working on dozens of software releases, I believe the following practices will bring you there, and while they may involve sticking your neck out, I'd like to think they will also advance your professional reputation, career longevity, and personal satisfaction.

Web Seminar: Future-Proofing Your SOA Applications

Source from SD TIMES

Web Seminar: Model-Driven Development for SOA

WEDNESDAY, April 25, 2007

11:00 am Eastern | 8:00 am Pacific | 4:00 pm London | 5:00 pm Paris

SOA means composite applications - and the best way to design, build, and future-proof your composite SOA applications is through model-driven development.

Join Stephen Hendrick, group vice president of IDC's Application Development and Deployment Research Group, for a fascinating Web seminar that explores standards-based model-driven development.

You'll learn why model-driven development is the only way to properly approach SOA, how to save time and money through reuse, tips for remaining agile, and techniques for system-wide simulation and model-based testing.

Speaker:

Stephen D. Hendrick,

Group Vice President,

IDC's Application Development and Deployment Research Group

Moderator:

Edward J. Correia, Editor, Software Test & Performance

http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=41741&s=1&k=BF34681227A871497CFF3C78B79C168B&partnerref=bzmedia3

Web Seminar: Getting the Right People on the Right Projects

SD TIMES | WEB SEMINAR
`````````````````

Web Seminar: Getting the Right People on the Right Projects
WEDNESDAY, April 18, 2007 2:00 pm Eastern | 11:00 am Pacific


Completing projects isn't enough anymore. The real challenge is building applications that are on target, on deadline, and on budget, to save your company money and provide a competitive edge. Therefore, ensuring you've got the right people on the right projects at the right time is more important than ever. That means effective project management.

Come to this no-cost SD Times Web seminar, sponsored by Serena, to learn how to use Project and Portfolio Management to help improve, shorten and reduce the cost of application development. PPM provides a single source of truth for all projects and resources within IT and across the enterprise.

John Scumniotales, co-creator of the Scrum agile methodology, will teach you how to leverage PPM to optimize your application development process. You'll see how to:

* Capture and assess incoming demand.
* Manage and effectively allocate resources.
* Make informed trade-offs as projects change.
* Measure progress and track project costs.

Also, one lucky attendee of this Web seminar will win his/her choice of a 30GB Apple iPod or the hot new Apple TV! Get on top of your projects on Wednesday, April 18 - register today!

Register here for the Web Seminar

SPEAKER
John Scumniotales, Vice President of Product Management, Serena Software

MODERATOR
David Rubinstein, Editor-in-Chief, SD Times

If you are unable to attend the live event you may still register and will receive an e-mail when the on-demand version becomes available.

Web Seminar: Communicate the Value of Testing

SOFTWARE TEST & PERFORMANCE | WEB SEMINAR

Web Seminar: Communicate the Value of Testing

WEDNESDAY, May 2, 2007

11:00 am Eastern | 8:00 am Pacific

Test managers lament that few outside their group understand or care much about the value they provide and consistently deliver. Unfortunately, they are often correct. The lack of visibility and understanding of the test team's contribution can lead to restricted budgets, fewer resources, tighter timelines, and ultimately, lower group productivity.

What can you do about it? We'll tell you! Join Software Test & Performance for a complimentary Web seminar, sponsored by Empirix. Theresa Lanowitz, Principal Analyst of voke Inc., and Dan Koloski, CTO and Director of Strategy for Empirix, will highlight practical ways that you can move from simply being a tester of software to become an effective advocate for your organization's customers.

You will learn how to effectively and concisely communicate with key stakeholders in your organization to ensure that they understand the value and role of the testing group. With effective and concise communication, the testing group can be perceived as more strategically important and integral to the success of every project.

Sign up for the seminar here

http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=42662&s=1&k=D59D94B4021B3116AE847781C14D9A16&partnerref=bzmedia2

Best Regards,
Venkat Reddy Ch,
Blog : http://venkatreddyc.wordpress.com

Open Source Testing Tools in Java

The boom of Open Source is rocking and here is the list of open source testing tools that are written in Java