The test result may not be authority, but using the same criterion to test every time, it is convenient enough.

WebWait is a tool for testing specified website load time.

If a site loads slowly, user will soon go to other alternative sites. To prevent that from happening, sites need to do accurate check on speed before release.

It is good to use this tool to compare the results from your own site and other sites.

Further more, you can set multiple tests interval. e.g. test 5 times every 60 seconds, and it will calculate the average load time automatically (to avoid accidental test result).

To make a comfortable site, it is a good idea to make use of this tool.

I think this really simple task management tool would be good for Agile development.
Scrumy does not require member login, and supports simply drag & drop tasks.
It's very easy to access, just add the project name after Scrumy's domain name and that's it.
Following that is to add stories and tasks. Drag & drop tasks to move between To Do, In Progress, Verify, and Done.
It is clear to anybody what the tasks are and where they are. Different owners have different colors on their task sheets. It's amazing.
Since there's no member login requirement, security is quite loose. But it is pretty convenient for quick projects within a team.

Dead-Links is a simple tool that helps you to check whether the links to the page under the URL you specified are broken.

If some links on your website are broken, it may not only embarrass you, but also lose some users or customers.

There are similar tools already, but this one has an explicit domain and simple interface, it's convenient to use.

Although it takes some time to check, it's not bad to do periodic check on your own blog or site.

This is a good concept. Improvements on the other screen capture tools I used.

Bug Shooting is basically screen capture software. The selling point is that it can add comments and markings onto the screenshot, and send to the bug tracking system immediately.

It is true that when reporting a bug, attaching a commented screenshot is helpful, but sometimes the process is troublesome. So this tool manages the whole process and makes bug submitting easier.

Here's a short tutorial for the tool.

UI test tools:

     QuickTest Pro (QTP)

     IE7 Readiness Toolkit -- for IE7 compatibility test

     Sprajax -- assesses the security of AJAX-enabled web applications

Installation test tools:

     InCtrl5 (windows) -- monitors the changes made to the system

     SciTe for AutoIt (windows) -- auto-installation

Resource leak test tools:

     Valgrind (linux) -- memory leak, etc.

     Rational Purify (windows) -- memory leak

Stress test tools:

    Canned HEAT (CH3) (windows)

    stress-0.18.9 (linux) -- stress on cpu, memory, disk space, etc. 

Test Coverage tools:

     Bullseye (windows / linux)

     Cobertura -- based on jcoverage. Used for java program.

     Rational PureCoverage (windows)

Performance test tools:

     Jmeter (windows / linux) -- open source.

     LoadRunner (windows)

System monitors:

     CurrPorts (windows) -- list of opened ports and the processes.

     Informer (windows) -- reports system status.

     TCPView (windows) -- list of running processes and more details.

Data capturers:

     HttpWatch

     Sniffer pro

Test cases optimizing tools:

     allpairs -- constructs a reasonably small set of test cases that include all pairings of each value of each of a set of parameters. Supports diagnostic output.

     pict -- similar to allpairs. Supports sophisticated options.

Remote control:

     PsTools (windows) -- PsExec: execute programs on remote systems; PsFile: shows / closes a list of files on a system that are opened remotely; etc.

     Remote Administrator (windows)

     Putty (linux), Pietty (linux, cn / jp locale) 

Test Automation Framework:

     STAF

Installshield:

     PackageForTheWeb -- e.g. pack a hotfix

     IExpress

Project management:

     WBS + PERT + MS Project

     WBS -- for constructing plan and schedule

     PERT -- for estimating most possible ending date

     Project -- for making project plan, tracing and controling progress

From "High Performance Web Sites", Steve Souders.

1. Make fewer HTTP requests
2. Use a CDN
3. Add an Expires header
4. Gzip components
5. Put CSS at the top
6. Move JS to the bottom
7. Avoid CSS expressions
8. Make JS & CSS external
9. Reduce DNS lookups
10. Minify JS
11. Avoid redirects
12. Remove duplicate scripts
13. Turn off ETags
14. Make Ajax cachable and small

1. How to migrate your codes to support Unicode:

1) Add: #include 〈tchar.h〉

2) char -> TCHAR

3) "text string" -> TEXT("text string")

4) Use CharNext & CharPrev instead of ++ & --

2. In MS Excel, how to freeze the row/column header, or split the views of a sheet:

1) Window -> Split

2) Window -> Freeze Panes

3. In MS Excel, how to add a filter button next to the row header:

1) Highlight the whole header row.

2) Data -> Filter -> AutoFilter

4. In Exchange server, how to forward mail to another mail server:

1) Open Exchange System Manager.

2) Administrator Groups -> First Administrator Group -> Routing Groups -> First Routing Group -> Connectors -> New -> Routing Group Connector

5. How to encrypt a folder in Windows system:

The folder Properties -> General -> Advanced -> Encrypt contents to ...

6. How to use FTP proxy while browsing in IE:

1) Internet Options -> Advanced: Disable folder view for FTP.

2) Set FTP proxy in Internet Options -> Connection.

7. In Outlook, how to insert a mark before every comment you make:

Tools -> Options -> E-mail Options -> Mark my comments with

8. In Outlook, how to add voting buttons to your mail:

New a message. Open Options. Find Use voting buttons.

9. How to create a new LAN with VM:

1) VM settings -> Hardware -> Ethernet: select Host-only or NAT for Network Connection.

2) Set VM Default Gateway to the host VM NAC IP.

10. How to install perl module in Windows:

>  If the downloaded file is .tar.gz. For example, you can get these types of files from http://search.cpan.org/

   1) Extract the archive.

   2) Read the Readme file for how to install the module. Usually it includes the following steps:

    perl MakeFile.pl

    nmake

    nmake test

    nmake install

Note: Download and install nmake first.

>  If the downloaded file is .ppd / .tgz. For example, you can get these types of files from http://ppm.activestate.com/PPMPackages/zips 

   1) Open command window, and run:

    ppm install C:＼pathtomodule.ppd

11. In C/S environment, how does client renew server ip - hostname info:

Run command: nbtstat -R

Example, server has changed IP. After running this command, client can successfully ping server hostname again. 

12. How to enable/disable UAC in VISTA:

1. Launch Local Security Policy. (Tips: type "sec" in Run editbox, it will automatically list the program names.)

2. Open Security Settings -> Local Policies -> Security Options -> UAC.

13. How to reboot system by command:

shutdown -r -t 0

14. How to install Active Directory on Windows Server:

Run command: dcpromo

15. How to configure SQL 2005 to accept SQL Authentication:

1) Right-click on the server node and select 'Properties'.
2) Select 'Security' from the left menu under 'Select a page'.  
3) Under 'Server Authentication', select the 'SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode option'.
4) Click 'OK' to close the dialog.
5) Right click on the server node and choose 'Restart' for the changes to take affect.
Enable SQL Server login

1) In the server node expand 'Security' and 'Logins'.
2) Right click on the login name and select 'Properties'.
3) Enter a password and confirm the password for the login. 
4) Select 'Status' from the left menu under 'Select a page'.  
5) Set the 'Login' option to 'Enabled'.
6) Click 'OK' to close the dialog.

Cited from http://kbase.gfi.com/showarticle.asp?id=KBID002804

16. How to hide partition:

1) Run Regedit.

2) Under [HKEY_CURRENT_USER]-->[Software]-->[Microsoft]-->[Windows]-->[CurrentVersion]-->[Policies]-->[Explorer], add a DWORD value [NoDrives], and set the decimal value as follows: set [1] to hide partition A, set [2] (A double) to hide partition B, set [4] (B double) to hide partition C, etc. Set [67108863] to hide all.

3) Under [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE]-->[Software]-->[Microsoft]-->[Windows]-->[CurrentVersion]-->[Policies]-->[Explorer], add a DWORD value [NoDrives], and set the decimal value as follows: set [1] to hide partition A, set [2] (A double) to hide partition B, set [4] (B double) to hide partition C, etc. Set [67108863] to hide all.

Sites and services put more and more attention on usability.
When a real user is trying the site, she talks about what she feels about it. This information gives great inspiration on how to improve the site or service.
That is what Silverback is for. Although it's for Mac OS only and sells about $50,
I think this kind of software is necessary.
The software is able to record tester's operation, facial expression, and talk, and makes a Quicktime video.
I think the tool is simple but amazing for usability test.

However I have not tried it yet, since I don't have Mac OS.

FITNESSE and NOSE are both test automation framework. FITNESSE is usually described as a functional and integration test tool. NOSE is usually said to be a unit test tool.

I evaluated both of the tools before we select one for our project testing. 

FITNESSE has a wiki UI, and uses tables to manage test cases and results.

NOSE does not have web UI, but all cases execution summary is displayed in command console.

Here are some more comparisons:

                                  |     FITNESSE    |    NOSE
1. Checkpoint/assert   | in the table         |   in the codes
2. File/Function          |                           |
   naming convention   |   camel               |    test_XXX
3. Case executed       |                           |
   sequence                 | as in the table     |  prioritized by case name
4. Result storage        |  in the table         |  in command console/has API

Conclusion:
FITNESSE is fit for data driven test cases, which need a table of data for similar case.
NOSE is fit for module test, with no UI, and flexible to use its APIs.

In some meetings, I found most of the team members were absentminded. I summarize the common ground of these meetings.

1. The meeting request is not sent in advance.
If meeting request is not sent at least 1 day before the meeting, attendances may have their own schedule for the day, and may not be comfortable to adjust it because of the sudden meeting, nor have time to get prepared for it.

2. The meeting does not begin on time.
If the meeting environment is not well prepared in advance, or the meeting is not started on time, attendances may be discouraged and have impact on focus during meeting.

3. The meeting host is the presenter.
Hence nobody control the presentation time and the content may be unconstrained.

4. The meeting does not end on time.
If the meeting time is out of control, attendances will probably feel loathing and start thinking about their own stuff.

5. The meeting background light is too dim.
If only the screen in front of the meeting room is flashing during the whole meeting, attendances may feel sleepy. So proper background light is very necessary.

We held a workshop to determine the 1st stage feature list (SFL). Since our product manager is not at the same site as the development team, we decided to work out the SFL within the development team first, then send out to product manager for review.

What we did in the SFL workshop is like this:

The attendees of the workshop include developers, QAs, development manager, QA manager, project manager, and UI engineers.

First of all, we filter the categories of features in the full feature list (FFL) that would not be implemented in the 1st stage.

For the remaining categories, all of the attendees have to score each single feature by its implement priority - score 3 for high, 2 for medium, and 1 for low. At the same time anyone can give an explanation for why he scored that point. Each role stands from his point of view to decide the priority. And as a QA, we tried to figure out the simplest story that an end user can try out our service at once.

After going through all the features in FFL, we got a total priority score for each feature. Then we sorted them descendingly, and review the top 20 highest priority features to check whether they make sense.

Then we sent the list of features with priority order decided by development team to our product manager. To our surprise, his feedback was totally different from our feature list. The product manager focused more on the infrastructure and high availability stuff. So we combined his feedback and adjusted our SFL for the 1st stage. We focused on a more scalable structure and high availability, and only kept the simplest feature that user could use.

After decided the SFL, we kicked off the 1st iteration by starting estimating the 1st stage schedule. Here is how we did this:

The attendees are the same as SFL workshop except UI engineers because they were shared resources and would not be in critical path.

First of all, we separated 3 phases for each feature implementation - design / test environment preparation, coding and unit test / automation test coding, bug fixing / testing. You can see that each phase involves task for developer and QA. So we estimated the working hours for each phase of each feature in the SFL respectively by developer and QA. And we found the critical path. The sizing and time estimation was mainly based on experience, kind of intuitive and conservative though.
After that, we also assigned owners to each task, trying to balance all engineers' effort.
Of course, finally we added buffer time (about 20%) and the time for other stuffs such as full cycle test and regression test. 

And that's how we planned our 1st iteration.

Thanks for Michael's comment. And now we've worked out a draft of working model for our agile development. We will try it out, and refine it during practice.

In the graph above, FFL is for Full Feature List, SFL is for Stage Feature List, and TDD is for Test Driven Design.

Two inputs for FFL: new feature requirements from product owner, and user feedbacks.

For each iteration of development select a set of stage feature list.

Each iteration adopts TDD mentality.

After an iteration, it may or may not deliver a beta release. But no matter deliver it or not, the program is shippable after each iteration.

Currently we are entering the first iteration, meaning we will decide a stage feature list for the first stage shortly. We believe the first stage, or say iteration, would cost longer time, because we have to consider the whole architecture and scalability.

I may write another blog about how we prioritize and decide the first stage feature list.

For the job:

1. Learn to analyse the essential of a problem, or the root cause of an issue.

2. Do things with a plan. Evaluate the value of effort before doing it. (eg. automation)

3. Communicate to get clear about counterpart's expectation. Avoid over effort.

4. Work with the team, as a team. Take care about the gray areas where task owner is not clear.

Can I become more senior this year?

To avoid becoming more and more conservative in releasing our product, the executives ordered that we introduced Agile mentality, and made our software development AGILE!

Well, before that, we do not have any clue about what Agile is, neither we have a successful agile pilot team. So we, the development group, started whitehanded.

Does it mean shorter schedule, no documentation, less test...?

After a couple of weeks of study and discussion, we found some difficulties in implementing Agile process (maybe it's not called a process for Agile) from our engineers' point of view. And the top 3 are:

1. Instant face to face communication among all stakeholders are not possible.

Because we are a transnational company, and the stakehoders, i.e. marketing team, development team, sales, tech writers, decision making managers, etc. are locating through out the world in different time zones.

2. Lack of senior, experienced engineers.

All developers and QAs in our team have only 2~5 years software development experiences. And nobody have ever involved in an agile team. 

3. Working model is not decided yet a new cycle of product development is on the road.

We have started our new version of product development, but how to work agile is still in discussion.

I will follow up what happen on our agile development in my coming blogs.

1) Program files and folders.

2) Program related registry entries (regedit).

3) Related processes (task manager).

4) Related services (services.msc).

5) Shortcuts on desktop, Start menu, Quick Launch, and any other places in which may have shortcuts added during installation.

6) Program name in Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel.
7) Items added in OS settings. For example,
(a) Windows firewall exception list, including program name and service name in advanced settings.
(b) Services added in Local Area Connection Properties.

The best thing to do is to ask the developer for a list for What is Done during installation, then check one by one after uninstallation for what has been left.

From "Why Programs Fail".

1. Does the failure no longer occur? (There may be second cause.)

2. Does the fix introduce new problems?

3. Is there same mistake elsewhere? (The same developer, same APIs.)

4. Is the change committed? (Version control, bug track.)

1. How to add a user on Unix platform:

# useradd {user_name}

# more /etc/passwd                   --> Here {user_name} should has been added.

# passwd {user_name}             --> Here set a password for {user_name}

2. How to set DNS in Linux:

Modify file /etc/resolv.conf

3. How to modify locale in Linux:

1) To check current locale, run command: locale

2) localedef -f GB2312 -i zh_CN zh_CN.gb2312

--> /usr/lib/locale should has been added "zh_CN.gb2312"

     /usr/lib/gconv/gconv-modules includes "alias GB2312-1980// EUC-CN//"

3) export LC_ALL=zh_CN.gb2312

4) To verify, run command: date

--> It should display Chinese.

5) To automatically enter Chinese locale in the next boot, add the following two lines in file /root/.bashrc:

export LANG=zh_CN.gb2312

export LC_ALL=zh_CN.gb2312

4. How to change the default booting Operating System:

1) Open /boot/grub/grub.conf (menu.lst)

2) Modify "default #..."

5. How to set IP - hostname list in Linux:

/etc/hosts:

{ip}    {host_name(FQDN/long name)}    [short name]

6. How to change the listening port of Postfix:

1) /etc/postfix/master.cf:

Change

    smtp inet n - n - - smtpd

to

    mysmtp inet n - n - - smtpd

2) /etc/services:

Add

    mysmtp {port_number}/tcp mail

3) Restart postfix:

/etc/init.d/postfix restart

7. How to config IP in Linux:

/etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-eth-...:

Configure IPADDR and BOOTPROTO

8. How to add perl modules:

Precondition: Perl & modules installed.

# /usr/local/ActivePerl-5.8/bin/ppm

rep off 1                     --> To turn of the default modules. Optional.

rep off 1

rep add {module_name} "{module_path}"

search *

install n                    --> n is the No. of the module that you want to install.(eg. install 1, 2, 7) 

9. How to have a quick test on handle leak:

# ps -ef | grep processname                     --> Check the process ID that needs to test handle leak.

# cd /proc/{PID}/fd/

# ll                                              --> Check socket number

Compare with the current connection number to see whether there's handle leak.

10. How to compile and run a C program:

# gcc -o output_filename program_name.c     --> compile

# ./output_filename                                        --> run

11. How to enable core dump:

# ulimit -c unlimited

Note: run "ulimit -c" to check whether it's enabled. If it returns "0", it is disabled; If it returns "unlimited" or some other number (the core dump file size), it is enabled.

12. How to calculate the total number of files under a folder:

# ll | wc -l

13. How to check cpu info:

# cat /proc/cpuinfo

14. How to configure Xdm on Linux for remote Xwindows access?

1) Modify /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config:
  "DisplayManager.requestPort:    0"---> "!DisplayManager.requestPort:    0"
2) Modify Xaccess:
"#*    #any host can get a login window" -->"*    #any host can get a login window"
3) Modify Xservers:
":0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X" -->"#:0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X"
4) run 'xdm'
5) then you can use Xmanager or X-Win32 to connect it.

Note: If on Suse, to configure Xdm for ROOT remote login:

1) Modify /etc/pam.d/login:

  "auth required pam_securetty.so" --> "# auth ..."

2) Modify /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager:

  DISPLAYMANAGER_REMOTE_ACCESS="yes"

  DISPLAYMANAGER_ROOT_LOGIN_REMOTE="yes"

15. How to test code coverage:

Command: gcov

1) When compile with gcc command, add arguments fprofile-arcs and ftest-coverage

eg. #gcc -g -o output_name input.c -fprofile-arcs -ftest-coverage

2) Run output_name

3) #gcov input.c

Now input.c.gcov file is created. Use "less" command to view the gcov file. The lines following ##### were not executed in the step 2) run.

The project I had been doing was suddently announced STOP yesterday. It was a big shock for most of the engineers in our team because it was the first time for many of us to encounter termination of a project during construction phase. Managements comforted us saying that it was a great chance for us to change to something we really wanted to do. Since our team had been working on this project (different versions) for almost 3 years, now it finally gives us a break to get a good think about our path and choice.
I consider this a big chance for me to expand my skills for QA career. So I first of all list my advantages and shortcomings.

Experienced:
Gateway product testing (protocols: FTP/SMTP/POP3, and a little HTTP)
Blackbox testing (execution, case design, and bug reporting)
Functional testing, integration testing, system testing, regression testing
Document review
Manual and automation testing
UI testing, installation testing
Automation tools: QTP, AutoIt, and others (http://www.sqablogs.com/ally/1113/My+tool+kit.html)
Windows and Linux application testing
Network knowledge (CCNA certified)
Globalization testing (internationalization & localization)
Post-sale product sustenance

Little experienced:
Scripts: VB, Perl
Mentoring interns

No clue:
Web application
Database application (SQL, Oracle)
Performance test

Now it's clear for me what skills I need to put on - Web/database application testing, performance testing, more scripting and automation experience, and more project experience. And of course, for long term, I will also learn to write test plans, create strategies and schedules, analyse testing effectiveness from various testing data. I will choose a project that can help me to gain these skills.

Windows:

1. Domain name resolution error while sending a mail.

# ping {domain_name}

-> Return corresponding IP1, correct.

But

# nslookup {domain_name}

-> Return IP2, incorrect.

Troubleshoot:  (>> input ;  << output)

1) >> ipconfig /all

    << Windows IP configuration & Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection

2) >> nslookup

    << Default Server & address

    >> server {DNS_IP}                    -- Here reset the correct DNS server IP.

    << Default Server & address

    >> IP1

    << The corresponding domain_name       -- This step checks whether the DNS is correct.

3) Disable and enable network connection if anything changed.

2. Java Applet load failed.

1) Install MSJav

2) Open Internet Options -> Advanced, uncheck Java (Sun) and check MS VM.

3. HTTP download failed or file not found.

a. Check IIS (http server) privilege. Add everyone if necessary.

b. Add MIME Types:

Open IIS, open Default Web Site Properies -> HTTP Headers -> MIME Types -> New:

.*       application/octet-stream

4. Failed to connect to http server. (Unauthorized.)

a. Open IIS, open Default Web Site -> Properties -> Directory Security -> Authentication and access control. Click Edit. Check Enable anonymous access.

Or b. Type username and password in client.

5. Windows 2003 + IIS 6.0 "Service Unavailable" error.

Open IIS, then open Web Sites -> Properties -> Service. Check "Run WWW service in IIS 5.0 isolation mode". 

6. VMWare failed to launch peer process.

Probably caused by low disk space. Free some space, and stop all vmware related processes, then try again.

7. VMWare Station not able to take snapshot (the menu is grayed).

It's because the VM is created by old version of VMWare.

Select VM->Upgrade Virtual Machine.

Linux:

1. "ifconfig" command does not work in Turbo linux when remote access by PuTTY.

Change the Keyboard setting in PuTTY: select Control-H, rxvt, SCO.

2. Failed to access Suse linux by PuTTY.

Change the SSH authentication type:

Config -> SSH -> Auth: check SSH1. 

3. Postfix only binds to localhost (127.0.0.1).

1) Open /etc/postfix/main.cf

2) Search for: inet_interfaces = localhost 

3) Change it to: inet_interfaces = All

4. Program make/build error: Makefile is older than Makefile.org, Configure or config. (Error code 1)

Probably caused by lagging system time. Just change system time to current and try again.