Archive for December, 2010


TestRail 2.2 Released

Filed Under: Software Quality Assurance by Asha A. — 6,889 Comments
December 30, 2010

Gurock Software announced the release of TestRail 2.2, a new version of their web-based test management software. TestRail helps software development teams and QA departments to efficiently manage, track, and organize their software testing efforts. TestRail 2.2 introduces improved issue tracker integration and comes with full support for Jira, FogBugz, Bugzilla and other tools.

While TestRail can already be integrated with most web-based bug tracking and project management solution, the new defect plugins improve the workflow of testers considerably as they don’t need to leave the application to accomplish common tasks. TestRail 2.2 ships with ready-to-use defect plugins for Jira, FogBugz, Bugzilla, Trac, YouTrack and Gemini.

The improved integration support allows testers to push bug reports from TestRail to third-party issue tracking tools while reusing the entered test results and test case details. Testers can now also look up bug reports, issue details and defect statuses in TestRail without having to access the bug tracking tool.

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Cloud Computing

Filed Under: Recent Software Developments by Asha A. — 5,252 Comments
December 8, 2010

Cloud Computing – “Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, as with the electricity grid. Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, Service-oriented architecture and utility computing.” – Wikipedia. Sounds totally confusing!!!

Here’s how I understand it –

Cloud computing is a technology that uses the internet and central remote servers to maintain data and applications. Cloud computing allows consumers and businesses to use applications without installation and access their personal files at any computer with internet access. This technology allows for much more efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, processing and bandwidth.

A simple example of cloud computing is Yahoo email or Gmail etc. You dont need a software or a server to use them. All a consumer would need is just an internet connection and you can start sending emails. The server and email management software is all on the cloud ( internet) and is totally managed by the cloud service provider Yahoo , Google etc. The consumer gets to use the software alone and enjoy the benefits. The famous analogy is , ‘If you only need milk , would you buy a cow ?’ All the users or consumers need is to get the benefits of using the software or hardware of the computer like sending emails etc. Just to get this benefit (milk) why should a consumer buy a (cow) software /hardware ?

Cloud computing is broken down into three segments: “applications,” “platforms,” and “infrastructure.” Each segment serves a different purpose and offers different products for businesses and individuals around the world.

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AutomatedQA TestComplete 8 (SmartBear Software)

Filed Under: Software Quality Assurance by Asha A. — 6,263 Comments
December 8, 2010

TestComplete 8, is the winner of this year’s Jolt Product Excellence Award in the Testing and Debugging category.

It is an easy, script-free point-and-click test harness assembly toolkit that can be promoted to a sophisticated, flexible script-driven system capable of running a range of application technologies through their paces, SmartBear Software’s merger with AutomatedQA’s TestComplete 8 is good news, and the tool should be at the top of any Windows developer’s list.

In addition to TestComplete’s full support of Windows frameworks and libraries spanning the .NET family of languages along with Silverlight and Windows Mobile emulator support, it also can be used to test Adobe AIR, Flex, and Flash as well as Java and JavaFX applications.

All the major test types can be executed, from functional, unit, and load testing to regression, data-driven, and distributed test configurations — along with several other types. Check out the nearly 30 screencasts of TestComplete 8 in action at http://www.automatedqa.com/products/testcomplete/screencasts/ and see for yourself why TestComplete 8 deserved the top spot in this year’s Jolt Award test tools category.

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Checksum

Filed Under: Software Quality Assurance by Asha A. — 6,045 Comments
December 3, 2010

I’ve been recently looking into some checksum tools and here are the ones that I found to be very useful –

  • jdigest, a Java GUI tool that generates and checks MD5 and SHA sums
  • Jacksum, a Java API, usable both through a GUI and a CLI, which incorporates many checksum implementations and allows to extend with as many as you need.
  • jcksum, a Java library, that can be used by developers in Java applications to calculate checksums using different algorithms.

Ofcourse, you can use the following tools in Unix to generate 32-bit CRC or MD5.

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Performance testing for the Agile community

Filed Under: Software Quality Assurance by Asha A. — 6,236 Comments
December 1, 2010

Prior to the launch of StressTester v7.2, performance testing would typically be executed at the end of the Agile development process. Traditional performance testing tools are not suited for execution during Agile project iterations due to their complex scripting requirements that can add weeks to the project timescale.

According to Reflective Solutions, the latest release of its performance testing software, StressTester v7.2, has become the first purpose-designed tool to enable correct and realistic performance testing during every iteration of an Agile project. The result is that application software performance issues can be quickly and easily identified and resolved as they are implemented, rather than at the end of the development process, enabling the Agile development community to benefit from greater efficiencies in project management, costs and timescales.

Reflective says the new release’s zero-scripting approach and rapid configuration make it quick and easy to learn and deploy. By reducing traditional testing timescales from weeks to days, it allows developers to finally treat performance testing with the same importance as unit and acceptance testing and gives them the means to execute a correct performance test at the end of every iteration. Becoming proficient with StressTester typically only requires a couple of hours of watching the tool’s in-built tutorial videos. This means that any member of the Agile team can quickly learn to execute performance tests compared with other tools that require scripting experts.

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