Join Me in Rome for Software Testing Courses in November

Hi everyone,

For those of you in Europe, or anyone interested in visiting Rome and attending a testing class, here's your chance. On November 16 - 20, I'll be presenting two popular courses:

Testing SOA (Nov. 16 - 17, 2009)

Advanced Software Testing (Nov. 18 - 20, 2009)

Just click on the links above for more information and to register go to www.technologytransfer.eu.

I hope to see you there!

Randy

EuroStar 2009 Software Testing Conference Ticket on eBay!

Hi everyone,

Here's a great deal, especially for those of you reading this in Europe. Last year, I won a conference pass to this year's EuroStar Testing Conference to be held in Stockholm, Sweden.

I can't use the pass this year, so I have placed it up for auction on eBay. The starting price is $500 and the auction lasts for 10 days. So, if you are looking for a great deal on a great conference, here's your chance!

http://global.ebay.com/EuroStar_2009_Testing_Conference_-_Stockholm_Sweden/190346246440/item

Thanks,

Randy

Major Apple Snow Leopard Defect...Warning

Hi all,

I'm not one of those Mac users who downplay the problems just to make the Mac look better than a PC! There is a major problem with Snow Leopard that everyone should be aware of. Under Snow Leopard when you log into a guest account, you lose all your data. I think this may have happened to my son. All I know is he lost everything, too. Here is a full account of the problem from Computerworld:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139250/Snow_Leopard_bug_deletes_all_user_data?source=CTWNLE_nlt_pm_2009-10-12

So...if you have upgraded to Snow Leopard, keep making those backups and don't log in to a guest account! Oh, and to Apple...fix it!!! I can see the new Mac vs. PC commercials now (of course, it would need to be a parody since Apple won't make an ad where their guy just disappears!).

StarWest 2009

Hi Friends,

I'm returning home from StarWest 2009 and found some time to blog as we are delayed out of Orange Country airport by about 3 hours.

It was a good conference. I was glad to see a higher attendance than at StarEast this year. In fact, the conference had a good feel for the week attendance-wise. It makes me hopeful that the economy is coming back.

There also seemed to be quite a few international attendees and people from the central and eastern parts of the U.S.

My Monday tutorial on Becoming an Influential Test Team leader went well and the two track sessions (one on Cheap and Free Test Tools and the other on Making Your Defects Pay) seemed to go well also. It's always great to meet new people and hopefully provide some helpful information.

It was also great to connect with friends. I really enjoyed Lloyd Roden's keynote on Top Testing Challenges. He and I approach the challenges from different perspectives, mine from a survey basis and Lloyd's from an observation perspective, but I really have a lot to think about from his session. I have been working a lot with test metrics lately and Lloyd's thoughts on making metrics meaningful and accurate is one that we should all take to heart. Everyone talks about test metrics, but few understand the work it takes to define them for a particular organization. I'll blog more about that later.

I also enjoyed Julie Gardner's session on test environments. Very few people tackle that topic in a conference setting and she did a good job on striking a balance of covering the topic without getting too specific.

I heard several people say they had a hard time deciding which sessions to attend. To me, that's the sign of a good program. It seemed that people were picking up lots of good testing tips and techniques.

The vendor expo was pretty well attended by vendors and attendees. Once again, another hopeful sign of an economic recovery.

So, I give the conference high marks. Kudos to SQE for a great conference.

On my free day, Tuesday, Janet and I went to a taping of the Jay Leno Show, but got there a little late. So, instead being part of the studio audience, we got to watch the outdoor segment where Tim Allen raced a Ford electric car. That was fun. We were just a few feet away from Tim and Jay and we were on camera, too. Last year, Jay waved at us at the stop light as he was one his way home driving his Arial Atom hot-rod.

http://www.thejaylenoshow.com/video/episodes/#vid=1164214/?__source=recent-eps-module

Later,

Randy

Mac Snow Leopard and Parallels 3.0

Hi Folks,

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I've been busy...really, busy.

This past weekend I installed Snow Leopard on my Mac Book and overall, have been happy with it. One problem that I want to warn people about is an incompatibility with Parallels 3.0.

Apple lists incompatibility with Parallels 2.5 and earlier, but when I upgraded and then tried to access Parallels, I got an incompatibility message. Postings at Parallels forum have been ignored on this issue, so before you upgrade to Snow Leopard, you would be wise to upgrade to Parallels 4.0 first.

The good news for me is that I basically abandoned Parallels several months ago due to instability and bugs. I have found VM Ware to be much more stable. That one works just fine under Snow Leopard.

You will likely find other incompatibilities, especially with open source software. So, take those backups.

More to come very soon...

Randy

Where's My Gate?

Hi Folks,

I travel a lot. I have almost 2 million program miles just on American.

A couple of weeks ago, I experienced a new one. My wife and I were returning from Orlando and StarEast, connecting through DFW on American. (By the way, we had a great week at StarEast. It was good to see everyone.)

We were stranded in DFW on Friday evening due to the flight being delayed from Orlando so we stayed at the Hyatt in Terminal D. On Saturday morning we cleared security in Terminal D and saw that our gate to OKC was A22. So, we hopped on the SkyTrain and went to Terminal A. As we were walking to the gate, I looked at the monitors and saw to my dismay that the flight to OKC was leaving from gate D28. "Crap", I thought (and said, I think). I looked again just to make sure I wasn't looking at arrivals. Nope, it was D28.

So, we went back to Terminal D. As a sanity check, I looked again at the monitors and the flight was listed at gate A22. The information man must have seem my stunned look and asked if he could help. When I asked "Yes, which gate is the flight to Oklahoma City really leaving from?" He said, "Gate A22, just like it says there." I tried explaining that in Terminal A, the monitors said something different. By then, my wife was threatening to file for divorce.

We verified there was no plane at gate D28 heading to OKC, so BACK we went to A22. Finally, at gate A22 (my critical mistake was not actually going to gate A22 the first time), I told the gate agent that the monitor was showing the wrong gate. Her response? "Oh, those are wrong all the time."

Here's my question. Shouldn't the monitors be getting the data from the same source? Second question. If these are wrong "all the time" should someone be looking in to that? Oh well...at least we made it home. I just won't be quite as trusting in the future.

Now for something completely different....

I keep finding these great videos I intend to share and never get around to it. You really need to check these out.

The "Retroincabulator" - This must have been filmed for the Rockwell Christmas party!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb7OWlVYYRw

If you liked that, check this one out as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o

Watch your grammar. Otherwise, you may be visited by the grammar police!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9_kahA_wQo

Here is amazing one. Three guys playing one guitar!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrpwDvuNWro

Finally...Do you have ping pong ball skills? These guys do!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLByTnNwico

OK...now back to work! Have a great week!

Randy

Project Life

Hi everyone!

I know you may have been wondering if I fell off the face of the earth, got abducted by aliens, or whatever. Well, I have ventured on to a full-time project in San Francisco. This requires that I commute from Oklahoma City each week, which is about 7+ hours each way, including connections. (That is, when I actually make it home without getting stranded someplace!)

Of course, this really constrains my time for blogging and writing. I've also not presented a podcast or webcast for over a month. I hope to get back into that soon.

This has presented some other interesting challenges and changes. For the past 6 or 7 years, I have done about 80% training and 20% consulting. Now, it's 5% training and 80% consulting and 15% travel! I enjoy consulting and getting into the trenches of testing. I'm doing a lot of mentoring, which is gratifying.

I am also experiencing death by meetings. Take today, for example. I had to cancel by participation in one last-minute called four-hour meeting so I could attend attend another more important four-hour meeting (at least they had better food!). I also had to cancel three other meetings because of the two other four-hour meetings. Then, this afternoon, I had back to back meetings from 1 until 6 PM. That's almost 10 hours straight! I look forward to the meetings tomorrow may bring.

OK...enough about that. I'm not bitter, I'm better.

I am posting three pictures I took recently. The first is a rainbow over downtown San Francisco taken from my hotel room on the 30th floor of the Westin.

The next two are also unique. I have found that one of the best places to grab a quick dinner that's really good is in the basement of Macy's across from Union Square. There's a Boudin Bakery (which has some of the best clam chowder and tomato soup I've ever had - and yes, I've been to Boston!), also there's a Wolfgang Puck Express (I love the rosemary chicken there), and other places that are good.




Outside of Macy's nearly every day, you will see people with their cameras and cell phones out taking pictures of this guy. He's got a big dog, a cat that sits on the dog, and a rat that sits on the cat. Now, it's amazing to see them just laying there on each other.

Believe it or not, the other day, I saw him walking his dog, with the cat STANDING balanced on the dog, and the rat resting on the dog. There are many homeless people on the street begging for money. I saw this guy counting his tips the other day and he had a wad of bills. I think that's awesome! He asks for a dollar tip for taking a picture. The way I see it, he's in the entertainment business. I was happy to contribute to a friendly guy with quite a little show going on.


I ought to title this picture, "Can't We All Just Get Along?"












I am also working on two books - Testing Dirty Systems and also one on UAT. I do get some time to write a little in the evenings.

I'm really looking forward to presenting a tutorial, track session and keynote at StarEast in a couple of weeks. Then, I conduct two days of training on use cases and root cause analysis in Kansas City on May 13 and 14. (We still have some seats available - go to www.kcqaa.org for details.)

I also have some other blog posts cued up, so I should have another posting soon.

Thanks for checking in!

Randy