If you gave up testing for Lent, you can start again now
From Evening Standard
Huge sections of London’s transport system will shut down over the four day Easter break.
Six of the 11 Tube lines will be part suspended. Sections of the Docklands Light Railway and London Overground will also be shut.
Line closures follow a week of mayhem on the Tube with hundreds of thousands of passengers suffering major disruption.
Testing like a user
From Star Bulletin
Finally, one of the junior members of the testing team was able to re-create the bug. After some observation, it was determined that the problem was caused by double-clicking an icon more than once. It turned out that the testers, being more experienced, never double-clicked multiple times. Obviously, some in the user community were also prone to double-click multiple times, in an impatient bid to get the software running.
The lesson: Test your software in ways that actual users will work with it. This is often accomplished by enlisting actual members of the user community to test the software
Technology companies top ten mistakes – no 4
From Micronanotronics.com
4. Using overly broad or subjective acceptance testing
It is not uncommon or unreasonable for customers to want to kick the tyres of your technology before they pay for it. Problems arise when the customer has an unreasonable expectation of what the technology is supposed to achieve, and either want to withhold payment, or force you to provide extra services to meet that unreasonable expectation.
This especially manifests itself when a customer includes user acceptance testing language in a contract which is not tied to objective and realistic standards. Although it can be a laborious effort, taking the time to objectify these standards with the customer in the contract can save you significant time down the road, and get you paid faster.
Seagate Testing Solutions for ‘Bricked’ Drives
From PC Mag
Seagate has posted updated firmware for many of its high-end drives that may be affected by faulty firmware, causing them to “brick,” or lock up.
Seagate has provided three different methods for determining whether a particular drive is affected: download the company’s “Drive Detect” tool, use Device Manager to identify the drive, or use the older SeaTools for Windows tool. The goal, according to Seagate, is to be able to identify the drive model, the serial number, and the firmware revision.
The problem is that many of the firmware revisions were themselves pulled earlier this week for additional testing and validation.
Skype technical issue and testing
From Cloud Computing
Last February on a business trip to London, I decided to use my Skype account to make calls to the US and India. However, on this particular day when I attempted to log into Skype I experienced some technical issues that would not allow me to access my account. Skype’s response was this message:
“Some of you may be having problems logging into Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours” – Skype web site on Feb. 18, 2008
Twelve-24 hours to fix the problem! Now that has to be the definition of every IT professional’s worst nightmare. To have something as simple as a software bug, or perhaps a poorly handled connection, or even a database setting that was set improperly, that then causes over 300 million people to go without their communication service for a whole day just doesn’t seem possible in this day and age.
It also meant that Skype had been treating its users as virtual “Test Crash Dummies.” Maintaining the performance of today’s web applications is a breathtaking responsibility for all IT professionals.
Titanic software testing mistakes
From Java World
Not only did the nefarious upgrade whack the company’s market capitalization, but they spent about $3 million in the just-completed quarter to fix the problem. Clearly, there is an expensive lesson to be learned — that is, quality assurance is a lot more than verifying applications work– it’s about making sure the entire copasetic process works.
Not to be outdone, though, by J Crew, the article goes on to profile a financial services firm that mistakingly sent private financial statements to incorrect addresses resulting in a loss of nearly $450 million in managed assets.
Given these two noteworthy gaffs, what’s the big lesson? Simple– quality assurance is more than finding defects in code– it’s about ensuring the process of taking concepts and turning them into cash works. Don’t get me wrong, a large part of that process is making sure a code base contains as few defects as possible– but that focus can often neglect other issues that present risks; for example, deployments.
Software testing and hiccups
Software hiccups from The Indy Star
Some problems that could have been avoided with proper software testing:
- June 10: HBO’s Web site crashes after “Sopranos” fans log on to register complaints about the show’s abrupt ending.
- May 16: Indianapolis Public Schools discovers a security glitch in its software that allows the Social Security numbers of as many as 75,00 students and 3,000 teachers to be accessible via Google.
- April 17: The BlackBerry wireless e-mail service suffers outages across North America that delay the sending and receiving of messages.
- Jan. 17: TJX Cos., which runs T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s stores, reports an intrusion into its computer systems that expose 45.7 million credit- and debit- card account numbers.
- Jan. 3: A hacker breaks into the Indiana.gov Web site and accesses personal information for 71,000 health-care workers certified by the state, as well as 5,600 credit-card numbers from Indiana residents.
Error During Testing Grounds Airline
From PC World
An operational error during routine system testing of United Air Lines Inc.’s computer system was the preliminary root cause of a computer failure that forced the airline to cancel and delay U.S. flights yesterday, a United spokeswoman said. The failure was in the computers used to dispatch flights.
Urbanski, a spokeswoman for United, said the airline wouldn’t have a final count of affected flights until the close of business Thursday. She added that United plans to run a close-to-on-time schedule Thursday. However, there may be unrelated delays in the Chicago area this afternoon because of potential thunderstorms, she said.
United said it canceled 24 domestic flights Wednesday because of the computer glitch.
This is the second time this month that a computer malfunction caused significant delays in the U.S. On June 8, one of the two systems used by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to manage flight plans failed, causing flight delays and cancellations across the country.
NHS records risk over computer error that eluded testing
From Channel 4
Hundreds of inaccurate patient records have been created every day due to a fault on the controversial new NHS computer system, it has been claimed. NHS Connecting for Health, which is overseeing the £12.4 billion upgrade of the patient records system, stressed the fault would have no impact on patient care.
An article in Computer Weekly magazine revealed the problem arose after computer experts installed a software upgrade. A spokesman for NHS Connecting for Health said the problem was expected to be fixed in the next few weeks.
He said: “Although comprehensive testing is undertaken prior to the upgrades taking place, it is not unusual for these kinds of upgrades to identify teething problems in the early stages following implementation.
“We estimate that around 400 duplicate patient records might have been created each day. However, the system is being continually monitored throughout each day and where a duplicate is identified data is being merged to form one single record for each patient.”
Why did that system crash?
From The Register-Guard
Scheduled testing for thousands of Oregon schoolchildren screeched to a halt this week after the state’s highly touted computerized testing system repeatedly crashed. After intermittent problems all week, the state Department of Education announced Thursday that the Technology Enhanced Statewide Assessment system – TESA – was down “until further notice.”
The crash prompted collective hand-wringing among teachers and administrators, many of whom had spent considerable time building tight schedules for computer labs and preparing students for the exams.
“This has been a nightmare,” said Sara Ticer, principal at Prairie Mountain School, which had back-to-back testing scheduled all week.
“I guess our caution is you just don’t know if it’s going to work until you get on there and try it,” Evans said, noting that the vendor that runs the state’s program – Pennsylvania-based Vantage Learning, which recently lost out to another bidder for next year’s contract – has yet to offer an explanation for the problem, other than to say it was related to a software upgrade.
The crashes came during what was expected to be one of the busiest testing weeks of the year. Evans estimated that between 17,000 and 18,000 students probably were planning to take one or more Oregon Statewide Assessment tests this week.
London software testing news UK 