Ministry of Testing’s Weekly Software Testing Newsletter

Quality and Testing Information Model

This newsletter is kindly supported by Vornex!

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Testing and the Community

• He hoki tatou! TestBash is back in Wellington, New Zealand! — After an amazing event last year in Wellington, we’re excited to be back on the 16th and 17th of November 2020! Will join us at the world’s most southern capital?
• The Quality and Testing Information Model — Getting important quality-related information to the right people.
• MoT Podcast — Adam Meets Lindsay Strydom & Shey Crompton — Discussing leadership, coaching and mentoring, as well as, each of their upcoming talks and workshops from TestBash.
• GraphQL As A Platform For Testing — It can help with your Exploratory Testing as well as your Automation.
• Embracing Change: From Tester to Quality Coach with Areti Panou — Webinar recording from a recent Cork Meetup. Great session.
• Around the World with 80 Software Testers — Viv has produced a book with reflections and thoughts based on many people’s own personal experiences, some of which you may agree with, and others you may well not. Worth a look.
• AI for Testing Games — Interesting to see AI being utilised in this way.
• Using Outcome Based Documentation For Scoping Agile Developments — Sometimes documentation is unavoidable. Some guide advice for client-facing documentation.
• Four ways to introduce self-care to software testers — Nice reminders.
• When a Team Does Not Want to Do the Work that Needs to Be Done — Learn to communicate in a way that can resolve problems.

Upcoming MoT Events

• Masterclass: Rewrite Vs Refactor — 1 hour — 8pm UK Time — 10th March 2020
• Testing Ask Me Anything — Test Strategies — 1 hour — 8pm UK Time — 31st March 2020
• TestBash Brighton — 26th — 27th March 2020
• TestBash Detroit — 23rd — 24th April 2020
• TestBash Netherlands — 28th — 29th May 2020
• TestBash Manchester — 30th September — 1st October 2020
• Test.bash(); Manchester — 2nd October 2020
• TestBash New Zealand — 16th — 17th November 2020

Accessibility

• ARIA labels — Whatever value is given to aria-label will be accessible to screen reader users, making it much easier to understand a HTML page's structure and purpose.
• XR Accessibility User Requirements — This document lists user needs and requirements for people with disabilities when using virtual reality or immersive environments, augmented or mixed reality and other related technologies (XR).

Automation

• Starting with UI tests in Cypress — Some basics to help you get started.
• Using Git for branching and merging — Great basic info to help you get more familiar with Git.
• AWS examples in C# — run the solution — Explanation of how to install and use the solution in AWS examples in C# blog post series.
• An Example-Driven Introduction to Machine Learning — Comparing Sentences — Lots of good information on tools and how ML works.

Business Posts

• What Is Cloud Mobile Testing? — Chris Tozzi goes through an overview of what cloud mobile testing entails, and how to get started.
• Open Source Spotlight: Git History with Rodrigo Pombo — Rodrigo is the creator of Git History, a tool that lets you quickly browse the history of files in any GitHub repo.
• Don’t Mix Friendship or Politics with Testing — Sometimes we feel bad communicating bugs to everyone in the team or the organization, because of the repercussions these findings may have.
• Accessible Internationalization — Your business or website has both a fiscal and ethical case to make itself available and usable to as many people as possible.

Podcasts

Check out our forever automagically updated list of software testing podcasts…

• Best Automation Practices and Red Flags with Nikolay Advolodkin — Nikolay will share his top automation best practices and things to avoid (hint: BDD). Discover some red flags to look for in your team’s automation efforts.
• AB Testing — Episode 115: Gates and Balmer and Satya (oh my) — This time, we reflect on the Gates, Balmer, and Satya eras at Microsoft.
• Episode 38 Bruce Schneier: On the Future of Public-Interest Tech — Discussing the future of ethical technology and the role technologists can play in positively shaping public policy.
• Application Security — Anthony Shaw — Chatting about Anthony’s security plugin, but also application security in general, as well as other security components you need to consider.
• Episode 684–500 Malicious Chrome Extensions Removed From Google Web Store — This episode talks about what those extensions were doing and what you can do to protect yourself in the future.
• The Testing Show: Performance Assurance — We’ve heard of Performance Testing but what is Performance Assurance?

Security

• ‘Sloppy’ Mobile Voting App Used in Four States Has ‘Elementary’ Security Flaws — MIT researchers say an attacker could intercept and alter votes.
• One of the most destructive botnets can now spread to nearby Wi-Fi networks — Emotet malware has emerged as a top Internet threat that pillages people’s bank accounts and installs other types of malware.
• A ‘stalkerware’ app leaked phone data from thousands of victims — A spyware app designed to “monitor everything” on a victim’s phone has been secretly installed on thousands of phones.

Jobs

• Release Manager — New York, US
• Test Environment Co-Ordinator — Southampton, UK

Meetups

• Fall in love with Testing — New York City
• Ask Me Anything Session — Michael Bolton — Auckland
• #5: Performance testing — Brno
• Topic: An introduction to testing tools: Katalon & Cypress — come meet testers — Cincinnati
• Security Special — Leeds
• The very first MoT Akl Hackathon — Auckland