November 2012
1 post
Running JMeter tests with Jenkins
Performance tests are a very important part of Quality Assurrance process. As Postmark and Beanstalk are growing, the needs for more frequent and more complex performance tests are growing too.
Performance tests help us to identify the maximum operating capacity of our web applications, as well as determining any bottlenecks and elements which could cause performance degradation. By running...
February 2012
3 posts
6 tags
How to build high quality features
Building a high quality product takes time and effort. But as hard as is to build it, it’s even harder to maintain that quality throughout the years, by continually improving product with high quality features, features that people can use with ease.
A good example of high quality product is Beanstalk with beautiful web interface, powerful and ease to use set of features.
Powerful and...
1 tag
Jenkins, Nodes and Windows
One of the cool features of Jenkins or Hudson, depending on distribution you choose, are nodes. Nodes allow you to prioritize jobs, separate their execution and more.
For example, for Postmark, we have a separate node, which runs highest priority tests (like email sending tests), and we have another node which runs the general tests.
Running multiple Nodes as Windows Services
When you are...
December 2011
2 posts
6 tags
Testing continuously with Jenkins [Hudson]
When you are writing automated tests, with Selenium or any other tool, you also need a tool which would allow you to manage execution of the tests efficiently. As number of automated tests grow, running the tests without a proper tool becomes a headache.
You will want to:
group tests
execute them in specific timeframes
review test logs for errors
review how long test was executed and when
...
“If you don’t create a ticket for task you work on, you never worked on it.”
November 2011
2 posts
(Not) Working from Home
I have been working for a long time from my home, as part of the team at Wildbit. Virtual team works great for us, however, I needed a change to boost my productivity.
Working from home has it’s benefits. You don’t need to wake up earlier to go to work, and spend minimum half an hour to get to your working place. It eliminates being nervous when you get stuck in traffic jams, wasting...
6 tags
Automated Testing. Why, What, When?
It has been a busy year at Wildbit, with lots of improvements on Beanstalk and Postmark projects, which resulted in higher demand for automated tests. The projects are growing fast, and they are getting more and more time consuming to test.
Projects growth made me realize that I have to plan my time more carefully, and improve the way I write the automated tests, so they can help me more in...
December 2010
1 post
6 tags
Running rspec ruby tests under Windows
In case you have been working on different platform than Windows (Mac Os, Ubuntu, etc..) you might run into the problems when porting your test cases to Windows.
I am posting couple of issues I ran into when I was porting my rspec test cases from Mac Os to Windows. Ruby version I have used was 1.8.7. and I used Windows 2000.
Issues with paths
While require ‘file.rb’ works under...
May 2010
0 posts
7 tags
Reducing ticket noise
Creating a ticket in the task management system is easy. But frequently, you probably run into the situation where your tickets get “noisy” and become unreadable.
Why does this happen? Well, when many people are involved in a specific ticket, there will be bunch of assigning, back and forth communication, until the ticket is approved, and resolved in the end. I am referring here to...
January 2010
1 post
6 tags
How we work at Wildbit
Since we have moved from Basecamp for task tracking to Lighthouse our workflow has changed significantly. Our workflow improved not just because of using a new task tracking system, but also due to learning from mistakes and figuring out what works best for us. It’s something that did not happen over night. We have made numerous small improvements over time and achieved much better...
August 2009
1 post
6 tags
Automated testing - organizing data and test cases
I’ve been using Selenium for different types of automated testing for some time, and I decided to share my thoughts on the importance of organizing data and test cases when doing automated testing.
Preparing data
When you are testing existing or new features of your application, it’s very important to have adequate testing data. The more data you have, the more bugs can be spotted...
July 2009
2 posts
6 tags
Pivotal Tracker - Closest to Agile
We have been using Basecamp for bugs and features tracking for a while, and we have realized that it doesn’t work well for us. We were struggling to make it work until we realized that we needed to search for another tool, since Basecamp is not suited for agile software development. I’ll be reviewing a series of applications in the next few weeks. The first up, Pivotal Tracker.
The...
5 tags
Speeding up manual testing with Selenium IDE
In the quality assurrance field, the main goal is to ensure the quality and reliability of the product. Manual testing is the most common way of testing and it consumes a lot of time. However, there are techinques to shorten time needed for manual testing by automating time-consuming tasks.
Selenium IDE
There are many different ways to automate tasks and Selenium IDE is just one of them....
December 2008
2 posts
Free tools for software testers
There are many tools testers use for reviewing web applications every day. In daily tasks some of the most used applications include virtual machine for testing in different enviroments and a screen capturing application for reporting bugs with screenshots. I will present you couple of free tools for Windows which I use all the time.
Dexpot
Dexpot is a great virtual desktop tool, which allows...
6 tags
Scrum in virtual teams
Scrum as a process of software development is often used in agile development environment, and no wonder that it’s so popular: it’s very easy to learn and requires little effort to start using it.
Chris recommended scrum to the team. After a couple of months of experimenting and polishing the process, we are using it successfully in our virtual team. I will show you how we are...
November 2008
1 post
4 tags
Basecamp as a bug-feature tracking system
We were using many different bug tracking systems in the past, but none of them suited our needs. Some of them were too complex, some did not have features which we needed, but mainly most of them weren’t easy to use, and did not have easy overview of tasks. We needed something easy to use for us an our clients. Besides bug tracking system, we were using Basecamp from 37signals mainly for...
October 2008
1 post
5 tags
Bug Tracking Tips
My name is Igor Baloš and I’m QA consultant at Wildbit.
I put together a small set of tips for tracking bugs, ideas, and changes when working with software projects. We’re always trying to find the right balance between organization and simplicity. If you have your own tips, please let me know and post a comment.
Create small tasks
Bug tracking can be hard when there are a large...
