There are tons of presentations and video guides on the Web.
But sometimes what you really need is a printable cheat sheet to hang on the wall.

For XML and XSL/XPath related information we can use free reference cards by Mulberry Technologies.

Stephen Covey's Time Management Quadrants mindmapped by Chance Brown

Image courtesy: xkcd.com

See how simple it can be? Now try other examples on your application under test

Today I want to present a non-technical advice: unlearning.

The traditional definition* of unlearning stands for giving up present habits and/or knowledge:

–verb (used with object)
1. to forget or lose knowledge of.
2. to discard or put aside certain knowledge as being false or binding: to unlearn preconceptions.
–verb (used without object)
3. to lose or discard knowledge.

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* -Taken from Dictionary.com

As we can see from this definition, there are negative and positive sides of unlearning.

How to benefit from unlearning?

• Use it as a brainstorming tool


• Use it as a problem-solving tool


• Use it for retrospective analysis and learning

As an example, below I put a few core assumptions about software development and testing that have already been unlearnt or currently being unlearnt in the industry.

• One needs requirements and test cases to do testing


• Testing can only be conducted after a build is deployed on test environment


• Verification tests passed -> no bugs


• A role of written documentation is critically important in software quality assurance


• Software quality can be unambiguously defined by requirements


• No bugs found -> no bugs in software


• No bugs in software -> customer satisfaction


• Programmers do programming, testers do testing


• Years of experience with tools, or techniques, or technologies is the most important hiring criteria

Image courtesy: theinspirationroom.com

 

Sometime ago I wrote about a quick way to shutdown a hanged application.
But, in fact, shutting down a working application could help you exposing certain types of resource management defects. This is how ends become means.

Sample tests, suggested below, were tried on different Windows Desktop applications, sometimes helping to reveal serious issues.

Local Tests

• Start an application. Begin working process then shutdown the application in the middle of it. Start the application. See if it reports than the previous session wasn't properly finished (and does it suggest something about it, like "start in safe mode").


• Start an application. Begin working process then shutdown the application in the middle of it. Start the application. See if it can access any previously opened files, and how is it handling and reporting the issues.


• Change settings in an application, apply changes. Shutdown the application. If the application saves settings only at exit point, all changes will be lost.


• Change settings in an application, apply changes and shutdown the application simultaneously. Start the application. See if it can access configuration files, does it report that they might be corrupted, does it suggest repairing them? (you can also try corrupting the files manually).


• If an application allows running 2 copies: open 2, then shutdown one of them. Observe behavior of the remaining one.

Server Tests

• Start a client. Shutdown a client. Try to login as the same user: a) immediately b) after a timeout given.


• Start a client. Shutdown a client. Repeat this process (you may want to automate that) while monitoring how Server side of an application allocates and releases (does it?) RAM and hard-drive resources.


• Start a client. Shutdown a client. Repeat this process (you may want to automate that) for a while - you may see errors like "max number of connections exceeded", etc.

Let us know results of your exploration.