How do you plan your automation test efforts?
Sharing lots of topics for you to digest
TESTING AND THE COMMUNITY
SauceCon 2019 — Tickets Now On Sale!
Join automated testing, Selenium and CI/CD experts from around the world at SauceCon 2019, next April 23–25 in Austin, TX. Early Bird tickets are now on sale, or submit a speaking proposal and we’ll cover your conference registration, plus airfare and lodging too!
My Trip To TestBash Manchester With Ministry Of Testing by Katja Budnikov
It’s been quite some time that I follow the activities of the Ministry of Testing community. I follow loads of people on Twitter, I’m on The Dojo, and I’m a member of the Slack channel. That’s all very cool already. However, I always wanted to meet the community in real life, so I was dreaming of attending one of the famous TestBashes.
[Dev/Test Webinar] Visual Regression Testing at the Speed of Unit Testing
Join Sr. Architect Gil Tayar on Thursday, Oct 25 6 pm BST, as he discusses the new test automation frameworks enabling developers to test as they code. He’ll show how automated visual regression testing fits into that ecosystem, ensuring UI integrity across the entire test matrix — in seconds.
How to become a testing expert — Masterclass 23rd October at 8pm
Do you doubt that you could become an expert in your field? What is the definition of an expert and how does one really get to be one? Is an expert in automation automatically also an expert in exploratory testing? And why is it important anyway? Join our Masterclass to unlock your potential.
Searching For Answers And Clairty With Perspective & Feedback by MelTheTester
Sometimes when I’ve been working in a situation for too long and I don’t understand why things are behaving the way they are, getting someone else to come and sit in on the situation can give you a whole new perspective around what’s happening, whether you are crazy, or if you’ve really not lost your mind, but you’ve somehow become dragged down with everything else happening around you.
How to fail at testing by One Man
There are lessons to be learned from failure, if only we are willing to find an examine them. This is a guide on how to fail at testing.
Automated test planning by Ross
I’m just at the beginning of planning for automated testing for a website (Selenium C#). Planning on using a mind map to establish structure.Does anyone had a preferred method or useful resources for the planning phase? It would be good to hear practical experiences.
Microsoft now faces a big Windows 10 quality test after botched update by Tom Warren
Microsoft has pulled its latest Windows 10 update offline after some users complained of missing files. It’s the latest in a string of incidents with regular patches and Microsoft’s larger Windows 10 updates that have been causing issues for some PC users this year.
Paddington station: Passengers face major disruption
Rail passengers are facing major disruption after a test train damaged power cables near one of London’s busiest stations.
Get on our radar by submitting your blog to our Testing Feeds or emailing something interesting to community@ministryoftesting.com
BUSINESS BLOG POSTS
Why is it critical to perform Automated Testing for the websites? by Cigniti Technologies
The consumer scenario is changing and even the risks are piling up due to the challenges laid by Digital Transformation. Additionally, the risks around cyberattacks are going up, resulting in anxiety around performance, functionality, and accessibility of websites during business critical scenarios.
Cypress vs Selenium WebDriver: Which is Better For You? By Gil Tayar
There’s a new claim to the throne of functional test automation tools: Cypress.io. Is Cypress fast? Yes. Is Cypress interactive? Yep. Is Cypress reliable? You bet. And best of all… it’s cool! But is Cypress an alternative to Selenium WebDriver? Does Selenium, the current king of web automation and testing frameworks, cringe in fear for its position, or is it smiling benevolently at the supposed usurper, knowing full well that, well, it’s just a kid!
How to Create the Most Realistic Load Tests by Larry Loeb
Testing software that engages users must be able to model how the users will interact with the software in real life cases. Working off of assumptions associated with how those users will interact is a recipe for disaster.
Google Play Beta Testing: Setting Up Effective Beta Tests by Sherief Abul-Ezz
From the search engine’s first beta offering to the now famous Gmail beta label that looked like it was never going to come off, Google has always been a disciple and pioneer of beta testing.
PODCASTS
49: tox — Oliver Bestwalter by Test & Code
tox is a simple yet powerful tool that is used by many Python projects. tox is not just a tool to help you test a Python project against multiple versions of Python. In this interview, Oliver and Brian just scratch the surface of this simple yet powerful automation tool.
Episode 347 — IoT Strikes Again — The FDA Warns Patients About A Pacemaker Cybersecurity Flaw by Security in Five
Internet of Things strikes again. Instead of your webcams or kid’s toys this episode talks about Internet enabled medical devices. The consequences are more severe when we are talking about these kinds of devices. This episode talks about an FDA report and a recall of a cardiac device that has a serious security flaw.
Episode 348 — Google+ Breach Really Wasn’t A Breach by Security in Five
Google+ social site joins the club from a data leak. The size of this particular leak is small, relatively speaking compared to others, and this episode explains why this isn’t really a traditional breach. It doesn’t change the fact of unintended data access but the term breach means something specific.
Hacked by The Good, the Bad, and the Buggy
Security testing, data breaches, hacks, and malware. We talk about it all and bring on McAfee’s Chief Consumer Security Evangelist, Gary Davis, to talk about the Most Dangerous Celebrities 2018 Study and provide tips on how to browse the internet more safely.
Episode 349 — Integrate Security Into Your DevOps Adoption by Security in Five
DevOps is the ‘new hotness’ a phrase managers and teams jump for joy when they start down the path. However, Security has been left behind in the DevOps movement and it’s time to re-integrate it to where it needs to be. This episode talks about making sure security is integrated along with your DevOps adoption.
Usable Metrics by The Testing Show
Over the years, a variety of metrics have been gathered to measure and determine how well or how poorly the processes of software quality and software delivery have progressed. Sometimes these metrics are helpful.
TECH
We Don’t Need Mobile Apps. Do We? by Parimala Hariprasad
A product evangelist I recently spoke to, as part of a technology forum asked, “Why do we need mobile apps?” At first, I got into an argument on how the mobile apps are changing the world. Changing the world — yes to some extent. But are mobile apps REALLY changing the world?
Forget the new iPhones: Apple’s best product is now privacy by Michael Grothaus
When my friends come to me asking which smartphone or laptop they should buy, I almost always recommend an Apple product–the latest iPhone or MacBook.
Google will stop bundling its apps on Android phones in response to EU fineby Jillian D’Onfro
In response to the European Union’s $5 billion antitrust ruling in July , Google GOOGL will change how it bundles its apps on Android phones and charge a licensing fee for phone makers that want to pre-install apps like Gmail, Maps, and YouTube in the EU.
33 concepts every JavaScript developer should know by leonardomso
This repository was created with the intention of helping developers master their concepts in JavaScript. It is not a requirement, but a guide for future studies.
Bad Practices on Phone Number Form Fields by anthony
Phone number fields, along with birthdate fields, are tricky to get right. There are many phone number formats users can choose from and they’re often unsure which one is valid. Sometimes they’re even unsure if they should include their country code.
Git Catastrophes and Tips to Avoid Them by János Kubisch
In this post, I’d like to highlight some git features that might be less used/known, but can end up saving your @$$ when things go south in the codebase. Fortunately, it is really hard to irrevocably mess something up with git, as long as you have the .git hidden folder in your project intact!
Why Fake Data When You Can Fake a Scientist? By Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky
Hoss Cartwright, a former editor of the International Journal of Agricultural Innovations and Research, had a good excuse for missing the 5th World Congress on Virology last year: He doesn’t exist.
UPCOMING MOT EVENTS
- Masterclass A Software Tester’s Guide to Expertise | Vera Gehlen-Baum — 23rd October 2018 — Save your space!
- TestBash San Francisco — 2 days — Thursday 8th — Friday 9th November 2018 — Tickets On Sale!
- Testing Ask Me Anything — CI/CD and Delivery Pipelines — Abby Bangser — 13th November 2018 — Save you space!
- TestBash Essentials Brighton — 1 day — Wednesday 3rd April 2019 — Subscribe to launch list
- TestBash Brighton — 1 day — Friday 5th April 2019 — Subscribe to launch list
- TestBash Netherlands — 2 days — Thursday 23rd — Friday 24th May 2019 — Submit your talk or Subscribe to the launch list
TOOLS
WireMock
WireMock is a simulator for HTTP-based APIs. Some might consider it a service virtualization tool or a mock server.
UptimeBar
A simple OS X menu bar app that notifies you if any of your websites are down. Never miss another minute of downtime!
htaccess tester
To test your htaccess rewrite rules, simply fill in the url that you’re applying the rules to, place the contents of your htaccess on the larger input area and press “Test” button.
DebugBear Monitor and understand your front-end code. Identify performance regressions and compare previous page versions.
StREST
Flexible REST Tests. Set up tests for REST in seconds with YAML.
PERFORMANCE
BOB series: Shallow Testing gets a bad wrap by Anne-Marie Charrett
In my Exploratory Testing class, I talk about shallow and deep exploration. When you say the word exploratory testing, many think, ‘just playing around’ on the product. And to some extent that’s true, a good true.
Start Performance Budgeting by Addy Osmani
If you’re building a web experience and want to stay fast, a performance budget can be critical. For success, embrace performance budgets and learn to live within them. Network & CPU limits on mobile can require asking hard questions like, “what is really important to my users?”.
Rethinking Netflix’s Edge Load Balancing by Mike Smith
We briefly touched on some of the load balancing improvements we’ve recently been making in our Open Sourcing Zuul 2 post. In this post, we’ll go into more detail on the whys, hows and results of that work.SECURITYSony says it has fixed the PS4 viral message exploit by Stephany Nunneley
Sony now says it has fixed the viral messaging exploit that was sending PS4 consoles into a never-ending crash loop.
Trivial authentication bypass in libssh leaves servers wide open by Dan Goodin
There’s a four-year-old bug in the Secure Shell implementation known as libssh that makes it trivial for just about anyone to gain unfettered administrative control of a vulnerable server.
So What Does A Modern Encryption Key Look Like? by Prof Bill Buchanan
So what does an encryption key look like these days? Well it depends on whether your a computer or a human.
Data Security and Resilience using Secret Shares and Elliptic Curve Methods by Prof Bill Buchanan Our data structures are often not secure, and these are especially at risk when we use public cloud systems. Along with this, we become highly dependent on specific cloud systems.
DevSecOps, Threat Modelling and You: Get started using the STRIDE methodby Bruno Amaro Almeida
Nowadays more and more DevOps teams are starting to shift towards DevSecOps. The security aspect in Software Engineering is now crucial and fundamental taken into account the world we live in. No longer we can simply rely on Infosec departments to get involved in a later phase and help to improve the system security.
The Pentagon’s Weapons Are ‘Easily Hacked’ With ‘Basic Tools’ by Matthew Gault
A new government report reveals that it took hackers just one hour to gain access to a weapon system, and the Pentagon didn’t change the default password on “multiple” systems.
ACCESSIBILITY
Testability as observability and the Accessibility Object Model by Gregory Testing
I attended a talk today by Rob Dodson on some proposals for the Accessibility Object Model that are trying to add APIs for web developers to more easily manipulate accessibility features of their apps and pages.
Designing for Cognitive Differences by Brandon Gregory
Inclusive design is designing to be inclusive of as many users as possible, considering all aspects of diversity in users.
AUTOMATION
API Testing Glossary by offbeattesting
As with any specialization there is a lot of terminology that goes into it and so I thought I would put together a post that summarizes a number of definitions related to API testing.
Lower Level Automation and Testing? Be More Precise! The Automation Triangle Revisited…Again! by Toyer
In this post I want to bring together a mixture of current experience, some theory and a word of caution when tackling low-level automation and testing.
JOBS
Quality and Test Engineer, 3D Inline Inspection (Wolfratshausen, Bavaria. Germany )
Highlights include testing a combination of software and hardware, working with high-tech laser-scanners, analyzing generated 3D data and setting-up systems with laser-scanner mounted on a robot-arm.
MEETUPS
Meetups happening soon!
- Dipping your toes into automation! — Portland
- Testing Security — Patrick Butterly — Dublin
- “Are we there yet? Driving quality & tackling automation debt” with Amber P — Motor City Software Testers
- Ask Us Anything: DevTestOps & ML in Testing — Boston
- How Do You Know You Are Doing a Good Job of Testing? — Philadelphia
- Aylesbury Tester Gathering — Artificial Intelligence #ayltest — Aylesbury
- MoT Berlin #7 — Talks: Spotify Squad Model & Understanding User Feedback — Berlin
- Ministry of Testing Leeds — October 2018 — Leeds
- Software Testing Lean Coffee à Paris, épisode 4 — Paris
