So with more and more people moving to the clouds, to virtualization, to social networking and social media, to anything and everything online, does the printed paper hold much value anymore?
I’ve been talking to a couple people who have been involved in marketing for 20-30 years, and while they are now also utilizing the online world, they still feel the printed paper has a place in society, and especially in the corporate world. The average CEO or owner of a large firm has hundreds of emails and messages coming his way each day. But how much real paper mail are they receiving every day, besides the ads and the type of spam that arrives in a paper envelope? A large percentage of company owners and CEO’s are older, and have done business before communication moved to the clouds. “Snail mail” was the norm, and what was trusted. And many still see this as a valid way to communicate.
Invoices, bills, and money are still traditionally sent via the US Postal system. But will a letter, on paper, in an envelope, still make an impact if sent through “snail mail”? Or will the almighty email, the blog, the website, the Google Wave, take precedent and hold more weight?
One of the dilemmas often faced by quality assurance professionals and testers is the setup, maintenance, and dependability of virtual computer environments. I have usedvpc and VMware extensively. While I prefer VMware over vpc, the large footprint of VMware makes it very slow on a machine with a host system of Vista and even slower if you’re using a Vista VMware image.
So now I am wanting to explore some new ideas for a virtual environment. One of the first options I looked into was Skytap. Impressively extensive, with a huge variety of options and flexibility, this seems to be a tester’s dream come true.
What appealed to me the most is that it is a cloud computing service. I love services that will go with me, wherever I go, whatever computer I may be on. I don’t have to worry about messing up the configuration on my host computer, or my hard drive failing and loosing all my data, etc. For a solid quality assurance management and testing platform, Skytap offers a lot, without the hassle and drawbacks of hosting an extensive virtual environment physically on your host computer. It operates in the clouds, so no more huge footprint and custom built host machines. According to their website, it offers three main components:
Virtualized cloud infrastructure, including hardware, storage and networking resources
A ‘Software-as-a-Service’ lab manager application
The Skytap Library
With an impressive Virtual Lab Management Application where you can manage up to a complete system of images, a pre-built library of operating systems, databases, applications, test tools such as JMeter and Selenium, public content and a great list of Premium ISV Partner content, this is the tester’s one stop for testing needs. You can also upload existing virtual images to the clouds.
With the ability to custom manage a network of images and configure the network any way you wish, including specifying IP address, subnet settings, memory allocations, CPU usage, AND the ability to run multiple images side by side, this makes a great virtual lab. (Huge plus for me!) You can also share links byIM or email to a image that is up and running, so collaboration is a breeze. I see Skytap as a great tool to do integration, system, performance and localization testing.
So what type of computer system requirements are there to run this? It’s simple:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Firefox 2+
Java Virtual Machine (JVM) 1.5+
You can download a trial and also receive a virtual training session. The price tag? A low cost model starts at $500/month. If you are looking for a high quality virtual lab environment or a extensiveQA and testing platform that lives in the clouds and goes where you go, Skytap might just be the solution for you!
Awhile back I discovered Outright, a free bookkeeping, tax record keeping service that is designed for people involved in self employment and freelance work. I signed up for it and have been quite pleased with the over all style of it. It has a great way to keep track of your income, your yearly profit, your expenses, and your estimated taxes, including self employment taxes. It generates a lot of nice reports and easily breaks down your expenses and income for you. I see this as being a great tool for any self employed person to keep an eye on their financial side of their business and help them calculate their income, expenses and taxes in an easy to understand format.
The only disappointed aspect is that, as far as I can tell, you can’t invoice with it. If there was an invoice feature, it would be a perfect, all-in-one accounting service. But as it is, there is no invoice service. It also won’t accept any files from QuickBooks–instead it only allows you to import files from FreshBooks. It will allow you to sync with PayPal though. So you plan on using QuickBooks, you must enter data in both places in order to utilize the services of Outright. This is rather disappointing but might be worth the hassle in the end.
But I see Outright as being a great tool that I plan on at least taking on a test drive to see how I like it. If any of you have tried it, let me know what you think!
Just want to take a moment to wish you a Merry Christmas from Sharon Ideas! I hope everyone takes some time to enjoy family and friends and take the time to build and renew relationships and friendships. And to those who are traveling, safe travels!
I just got the HP TouchSmart 300 computer–a 20in monitor and computer built into one. Overall I have to stay I am extremely impressed with it. With 452GB of hard drive space and 4GB of RAM, it is a welcome step up from my previous laptops with Windows XP and Vista. While I have had my mind made up I wanted to stick with laptops, this computer has changed my mind. Only a couple inches thick, the hardware runs behind the HD LCD Brightview screen and is quiet and ends up taking up less space than a laptop. A wireless super thin keyboard and a wireless mouse make up the hardware.
As far as the touchscreen capabilities, I’m still getting used to it. I have trouble typing on the touchscreen keyboard and have so far stuck with the physical keyboard but find myself frequently pushing it under the monitor and just touching the icons to navigate around. If you can use the iPhone, you can definitely get used to this. The HPTouchSmart apps include music, videos and movies, and there is a built in webcam that is actually very clear for a built in webcam and has a lot of cool effects and things it can do.
I’m enjoying Windows 7. Personally, I loved Vista–huge upgrade from XP for me, and i have been using it since the RC1. Windows 7 is like Vista but with a bunch of bug fixes! One cool thing is you can dock frequently used items on thetaskbar easily with the TouchSmart by simply touching and dragging it. What is missing is tooltips for docked items though. But brush your finger or run your mouse over them and it gives you a quick preview of each item.
I also chose a 64bit OS. This is a pet peeve of mine as a tester. Many people test in 32 bit and forget to test in 64 bit, and especially when Vista came out, there was a lot of issues with software working in a 64 bit system. I’m not sure if this is still going to be something I run into with Windows 7 or not, but I am eager to find out!
I am sure the TouchSmart and Windows 7 has a lot of other interesting features I haven’t discovered yet. I will keep you posted on the interesting things I learn!
So first Facebook came out with a new privacy statement, which promoted making all information public. While they did give users a pop up about it when they logged in the first time after the switch, they didn’t make it very clear that they were indexing your Facebook status messages under the Privacy–>Search section, or that unless you specified, your “status” updates were probably becoming public unless you had specifically set them otherwise. While some users might like this, others of us prefer to keep our personal Facebook world separate and only share it with whom we wish to, such as that random post about your sister you didn’t want her to see or those pictures in your photo album that you might not want your boss to see!
Next Facebook came up with a URL shortner. Some of the benefits include better analytics and mobile browsing, and in the future may provide Page owners with analytics so that they can track their Page sharing on the web. And the Facebook was quick to add that this would enable easier sharing with Twitter, the competitive social network they are, do I dare say, trying to imitate? Now they are going to start enabling you to share your status updates with Twitter sometime this week, according to TechCrunch. What do you think of this? Is sending your Facebook status to Twitter going to be something you are interested in or benefit you in some way?
Personally, it concerns me a bit that they are not actively protecting the privacy of their users pages, but instead seeking to make it more public as to interface better with Twitter. Not everyone wants their status’ indexed and shared on Google but many users may not have the technical experience or be proactive enough to manually go through their privacy settings and adjust them until it is too late and they are reaping unwanted results of having their information on the web. Many users are young and inexperienced, some might be older and just use Facebook to connect with old friends and know just the bare basics of navigation. Whatever the case, Facebook is not jibing with my personal policy of keeping personal information secure and private from the public eyes. But then, is that just me, or are their others who share my opinion?
Nothing is as good as free, right? In today’s economy, everyone is looking for low cost or free things. Is free better? Or is it truly a case of “what you pay is what you get”? And to complicate this question, let’s throw out the word “open source”.
There is a wealth of free and open source tools and software out there. Look at Open Office. Look at Adobe Air. Look at Google Wave, Google Apps and many of the other Google tools. All of them are free. With all these good free tools out there, what is out there for the person in Quality Assurance and testing?
I started looking and came across a great collection of open source resources for the tester. www.opensourcetesting.com offers a huge collection of open source testing tools. With testing tools (91 of them!), unit testing tools (6 so far), services, news and other resources, it seems to be a great place for any person in QA to stop and take advantage of the tools available. I know I will be checking out and using some of these tools.
So is free better? I don’t think that is an issue anymore. With open source tools, its now all about what tool and service best fits your need. Sometimes it might be something you need to pay for, but with the number of open source tools rapidly growing, I would counter than you can almost always find an open source tool or service to meet your needs.
For the person in Quality Assurance and testing, take a minute to go to www.opensourcetesting.com and see what tools you can find that would make you a better tester!
While reading blogs lately I have been noticing the huge wealth of apps out there. There is an app for just about everything! While we might be laboring away for hours on a project, trying to get a graphic to turn out right or trying to figure out how to manage a project, there is probably an app out there to assist you.
But tonight I came across this blog by Pro Blog Design, 60 Great AIR Apps For Web & Graphic Designers. All I could say was WOW after reading it. While I was familiar with a couple of the tools, there are a lot I had never heard of and will definitely be checking out. If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to look it over real quick!
In this fast changing world of technology, reading blogs and keeping up on what other people are saying is a great way to stay on top of some of the new technology out there. Blogs are becoming my school, and at the same time, giving me tools to use in my every day business life as well, such as those mentioned in Pro Blog Design.
Each day I look at software, web applications and websites. I look at it from a quality assurance perspective–does it meet quality standards? Where is it in the testing process? I look at it from a testers standpoint–what needs testing? Where are the bugs? But I also look at it from a customers perspective–if I were to buy this software to use for my business, would it make sense to me? Would I be happy I bought it?
Now therein lies the rock and the hard place. As a tester, I know where the bugs are. I have an eye for detail–that Cancel button that is aligned too far to the right is going to drive me crazy, and if that drives me crazy, you can only imagine what the broken buttons or links to do to me. But I also have to remember that the average Joe Doe is not going to notice these things–he is going to be looking at how he can apply it to his business. He is also going to be looking at it for the first time ever, and trying to learn how to use it quickly so he can then train his staff on how to use it and quickly implement it.
So just what makes a product usable? Is it all just about being intuitive? Is it all about the look and feel? Is it all about simplicity, lots of Help buttons, tool tips, and tricks? Is it about being completely bug free, 100% solid, running as smooth as possible?
It’s up for debate, but I think it has to do with all of these things. The simplicity, the easy of use, the look and feel, the tool tips, the Help buttons, and having a thoroughly solid product so that users can get done what they need to get done.
In the end, it really is all about the end users experience.
While juggling several projects at hand, many of them with time requirements, I found I needed a time management tool. I wanted something easy to use, something that could do what I needed, including the following:
Handle multiple projects at the same time
Keep a history of projects and the time spent on them
Keep track of how much each project cost
Provide reports
Allow a way to download the report data
Allow a daily, weekly and monthly view
Allow me to enter contact details for each project
Allow color coding of projects for easy management
Was free!
I had high expectations and found just the tool to meet them: Klok.
Klok is easy to download, easy to get started with and super easy to use. I have been able to keep track of all my projects, juggle multiple projects at the same time, and manage my time at just a glance of the Week View. I have my projects color coded so each project can be easily seen and managed, and I can keep track of how many hours I have till I need to have a project completed.
It is easy to stop and start working on a project throughout the day by clicking on the “Start working” link at the top of the app, and then minimize it to your Notification Area on your task bar. It runs quietly, leaving you to focus on working on your project without the hassle of wondering what time you started and how much time you have left to meet a deadline.
This is a tool I recommend to anyone trying to manage time sensitive projects. It is definitely something I have had great success using!
