tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-339946362024-03-14T10:24:38.968+05:30Coffee with Ajoy SinghaRandom Thoughts by Ajoy Kumar Singha.
Please visit www.ajoysingha.com for more detailed discussion on issues that affect Software Testing.Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-67784359620224431732018-04-29T21:20:00.000+05:302018-04-29T21:20:40.840+05:30A new website for dedicated to Manipuri people<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have recently started a new website (Manipuri News) that will consolidate the news and articles which are relevant to Manipur and Manipuri people.<br />
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Please visit <a href="https://www.manipurinews.com/">https://www.manipurinews.com/</a> to see the latest news from Manipur, Northeast India and other breaking news.<br />
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Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-34433422652438848552015-10-23T08:39:00.000+05:302015-10-23T08:39:43.877+05:30Software Testing Magazine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My own <a href="https://www.testingcircus.com/" target="_blank">software testing magazine</a> TESTING CIRCUS has completed 5 years in September this year. It is a wonderful experience. Feel free to download a latest copy of the magazine.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-J9rDNFjVRWA/VimkGxHdOrI/AAAAAAAAIqU/snKP9nO6bHo/s1600/Software-Testing-Magazine-September-2015.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Software Testing Magazine" border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-J9rDNFjVRWA/VimkGxHdOrI/AAAAAAAAIqU/snKP9nO6bHo/s640/Software-Testing-Magazine-September-2015.png" title="Software Testing Magazine" width="492" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Testing Circus - September 2015 Cover Page</td></tr>
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September 2015 edition is available <a href="https://www.testingcircus.com/september-2015/" target="_blank">here.</a><br />
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Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-9180338821192136042013-01-08T00:48:00.000+05:302013-01-08T00:50:45.654+05:30The world did not end on 21st December.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The world did not end on 21st December. Somebody forgot to test the prediction.<br />
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It is the time of New Year. I recently read a wonderful work by Neil Gaiman. It is about New Year wishes. When we wish someone we wish him to do well in the New Year, we wish for the very best of everything he does. Neil says we should wish they made mistakes. "Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.<br />
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So that's my wish for you and all of us, and my wish for me. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.<br />
Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.<br />
Make your mistakes, next year and forever."<br />
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With this wonderful thought, I wish you make lots of mistakes in the New Year 2013. And next time when someone predicts the end of the world, get it tested from testers.<br />
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- Ajoy Singha<br />
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Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-24026581862989476612011-05-08T13:24:00.003+05:302013-01-08T00:49:16.684+05:30Thank You For Rejecting My Visa<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It has been almost a month my L1B visa application was rejected. I want to share my experience and feedback on the whole visa application and approval system. </div>
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<b>Application Process</b>: Since mine was a L1B visa, my organization scheduled the interview after I filled the online application. The application fee includes two parts – one a demand draft of Rs. 23500/- ($500) and another demand draft of Rs. 105700/- ($2250). The fee was paid by my organization. </div>
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<b>Interview Day</b>: You will see a huge gathering outside the consulate. The security guards will try to drive you out if you reach earlier than your appointment time. At the check point you will need to switch off your mobile phone and submit the security personnel. You will be issued a token number. The first thing they will check is supporting documents for your visa application. Expect few questions on name change, organization name etc. The interviewers at this point will most like be an Indian.</div>
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<a href="http://www.milligazette.com/image2003/2005/125_Yusuf-cartoon_us-cancel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.milligazette.com/image2003/2005/125_Yusuf-cartoon_us-cancel.jpg" /></a>After this you submit the fee at a different counter. Once fee is collected you will be directed to finger scanning section. All the ten fingers are scanned in a scanning device. Here US consulate does not trust any Indians. So the person who will supervise the scanning activity will be an US citizen.</div>
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One thing I noticed about those interview windows is that there is glass separator between interviewer and interviewee. The mic and speaker system they have installed to facilitate communication between the interviewer and interviewee is of not very good quality. In a standalone isolated place the system would have worked well but with 100s people standing and seating (and talking) just 5 meter behind you makes the sound of the interviewer less audible. I simply call this #FAIL in twitter slang.</div>
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Once your token number flashes in a window you go to that window and submit your passport and supporting document. The interviewer will ask you a range of questions (for L1B visa) like how long you have been with your organization, what is the team size, who is your client, what does your client do, what is your role in the current project and the most important question are what is the special skill that you have and what you will be doing in your client location. </div>
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I have been told that I should prepare answers for those above questions and specially the last two questions. Let me explain why these two questions are important. </div>
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<b>Question</b>: What special skills do you have?</div>
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<b>Why is this question asked</b>: L1B visa is a special kind of visa given to specialized skill professionals. The skills those are not available easily in the US market. So if you are applying for L1B visa you should have special skills that no one in your organization has and the skill that is rarely available in US (at least US consulate think so).</div>
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<b>How do companies ask you to prepare for this question</b>: They will ask you to mention the tools and utilities such as “company proprietary tools”, non-existent technologies and virtual roles that you perform. </div>
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<b>Question</b>: What will be your roles in client location?</div>
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<b>Why is this question asked</b>: They want to see if you are going to do something that cannot be done by the client employees or any US citizen there. If you are going to do very generic roles such as requirement gathering, onsite offshore coordination work then they will not be convinced.</div>
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<b>How do companies ask you to prepare for this question</b>: You should mention something that is unique (or at least sounds unique) while answering for this question. Tell them that you are the only person who knows about that tool and nobody in the earth have that skill. So your role is unique. </div>
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If you can manage to bluff these two questions you are likely to be granted an L1B visa. If not, they will ask you to apply again for individual category visas. If you are rejected they will keep the visa application fee.</div>
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Few observations that I made during my interview process - </div>
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<li>The glass partition at the visa window is bad. The interviewer’s voice is not properly audible to the candidate. They can arrange a head phone with mic instead of cheap speaker system.</li>
<li>There is not enough sitting space for candidates. People standing and haphazardly standing behind the candidates make the interviewer’s voice less audible.</li>
<li>The interviewer is not technically qualified to judge every candidate’s “special skills”. Even if candidate bluffs about a tool called “<b>ASFT</b>” they will not able to able to catch that. (Purely my opinion and the ASFT mean Ajoy Singha Fake Tool).</li>
<li>Visa rejection rate is higher than 90% for L1B these days. Two years back it was not so. I do not remember to have met anyone whose L1B was rejected from my organization during 2006 to 2009. But today I am eager to meet someone whose visa was granted.</li>
<li>High visa fee. US consulate is making big money by rejecting enough number of visas. This helps them fight against Osama and Saddam. Do you want to pay that huge amount for getting rejected?</li>
<li>Why do we require unique skills and tools to convince you? There are enough software projects where a common tool can be used to do unique work. Every software requirement is unique and those can be achieved by common tools. It is the human brain that helps it created. So tool cannot be unique always.</li>
<li>It is almost impossible to convince you about my project and special skill in a 3 minute interview (unless I am Rajanikanth or Digvijay Singh). You cannot judge me whether I have special skill or I am a plain chap with those two questions.</li>
<li>If every Indian applying visa could have been replaced by an American, you would not have allowed outsourcing. We are cheap, disciplined, committed and highly skilled than the billing rate that our organization charges you. That’s why you do or allow outsourcing.</li>
<li>So you think Indian L1B applicants have suddenly become less specialized in their skills in last two years compared to 2006-2009? I can cite numerous people who cannot write a good email in English, who have been granted the same L1B visa during those 3 years. And now you are rejecting every possible application. Can you publish a data how many L1Bs were rejected in last one year/month/day?</li>
<li>You may tell me most of the software work can be done from offshore as we have high speed internet, applications to collaborate real time, video and voice chat, remote infrastructure access etc. Plus we are committed enough to wait for your morning (our mid night) status meeting call. So even without physically being present in the US land we can achieve almost anything in a software project. I have just one question – why was Obama required to be in India when he could have just done a video conferencing with the people he wanted to talk and video recorded the placed he wanted to visit?</li>
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I am not writing this post because my visa was rejected. I have many collaborative works to do in India and I am part of many initiatives in Indian software testing domain. Many testers were happy that I am not leaving India. If I had left India, many of my work like <a href="http://ajoysingha.info/training.aspx">my weekend classes</a>, <a href="http://testingcircus.com/">Testing Circus</a> magazine, <a href="http://ncr.indiantestingboard.com/">Testers Monthly Meet (in India)</a> would have hampered. My visa rejection was blessings in disguise. But I feel the whole process of visa application and selection mechanism is wrong. US authorities are doing atrocities that they do everywhere. Let me tell you - Indians are not dogs. We are not beggars. Think about a situation where all Indians working in the US returns back to India and India stops outsourcing business. Will US be able to survive? We are major consumers of US based products ranging from Microsoft Windows 7, Hardware processors, to Cola Cola and Pepsi. If you do not respect Indians, time will come where Indians will produce their own products and US based companies will have hard time saving their ass. Learn lessons from China. So treat us techies as human beings.<br />
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<i>End Note - my Indian readers, please feel patriotic and my US friends, please throw tomatoes, chappals and eggs on me in the form of comments. </i></div>
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Update - US Embassy issued a 3 year H1 Visa to my and my family members. - June/2012</div>
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Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-11037736277690123742011-04-20T18:23:00.001+05:302011-04-20T18:37:52.748+05:30You can help stop creating more Fake Testers!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have been planning this post for a long time. For those who do not know – I teach software testing on weekends. I have reserved a room at my home for training purpose. In the beginning of 2009, I met a guy online. He was looking for training institute in Delhi. He was fresh out of B.Tech College and was interested in software testing. He asked me if I could suggest a good institute in Delhi. I knew lots of institutes which trained people on software testing. I suggested few institutes near his locality. After few days, he contracted me back and informed that one particular institute was asking for Rs. 40,000/- for a three months training. I enquired about the course content and found that it was nothing but some theory classes with session on 2-3 branded automation tools. I offered to teach him the same content free of cost and he would pay me only Rs. 3000/- when he landed in a testing job. That’s how he became my first student. He is now working in a reputed organization and performing very well there. I did not take any fee from him because that’s how I started teaching software testing on weekends. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are 100s of institutes in Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida offering software testing. I do not mind more institutes offering software testing or any other courses. But I want to highlight few basic problems that these institutes have –</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>1. Trainers</strong> – The trainers teaching software testing in these institutes are less experienced or have never tested software in real life. It is also unlikely that they left their full time software testing job and started teaching. I sometimes doubt that they are teaching in institutes because they are not able to clear software testing interviews to get into a full time testing job. How much do you expect to learn from these guys?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>2. High Fee</strong> – The fee charged by these institutes are very high compared the quality of training they provide to the trainees. Remember the fee includes their high advertisement cost, air conditioned class rooms, and salary for that good looking receptionist at the front desk.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>3. Quality of Content</strong> – I really don’t want to comment on this. What they (most of them) teach is few definition based/theoretical concepts and few lectures on record and playback features of branded automation tools. They never put trainees on actual projects or ask them to do hands on testing. How will student learn to test actual software if they do not get any real project to work on?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>4. Fake Experience Certificate</strong> – I can bet most of the training institutes that I know provides fake experience certificates to their students with few extra thousand rupees. They help background verification process; provide appointment letters, visiting cards, fake official email id, salary slips and even identity cards. The training institutes are not entirely responsible for this. This process of faking experience is also fuelled by <a href="http://ajoysingha.blogspot.com/2010/12/hiring-practice-in-testing-industry-can.html">bad hiring methods</a> that we have in our industry. Some how these institutes are polluting our testing community by providing fake experience certificates to badly trained software testers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>5. Placement Assurance (Assistance)</strong> – Few institutes claim to provide 100% guarantee (or in a legally correct nomenclature 100% placement assurance). LOL. No institutes in this world can guarantee 100% placements for their students. How come these institutes are promising 100% placement assurance? Do not believe in their fake promise.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then how is my class different from other institutes? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">1. We are a group of testers who are working in organizations, doing testing from the day we joined those organizations. We are testers by choice. We attend testing conferences and interact with lots of testers and try to learn from them. We have tested various software, applications and products. We write blogs and follow other testers’ blogs. We are the people behind a monthly software testing magazine called <a href="http://testingcircus.com/">Testing Circus</a>. We have a full time testing jobs and if we want to change jobs we believe it will not be a tough job for us. We are fully committed to our Monday to Friday jobs and we teach only on Weekends.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">2. Our fee is nominal and we even teach for free. We do not have decorated class rooms and air conditions. We have our laptops and a white board and lots of hands on exercise for you to practice. No receptionist and no sign boards. Our classes are in drawing rooms/basements of abandoned shops etc.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">3. Content is mostly practical oriented. Less definitions, more hands on exercise. Practical projects and bug hunting sessions. We encourage our students to join <a href="http://weekendtesting.com/">Weekend Testing</a> and <a href="http://utest.com/">uTest.com</a> etc. As a bonus we also train students to improve communications skills – both verbal and non-verbal. We have trained students, who once attended other institutes with huge course fee and did not find satisfactory learning, joined our training. They are now placed in India’s top 5 software services companies. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">4. A big NO to fake experience certificate. We do not and we cannot provide any document which may prove that our students are experienced in testing. We do not provide even course completion certificate. However, we ask students to mention in their resumes that they have learnt testing from us. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">5. We do not promise 100% placement. It is entirely the responsibility of students to hunt for a job. We do inform students where vacancy exists and where they should or should not apply (yes, there are few companies where do not want our students to work). Fortunately or because of our teaching style, most of our students get placed before they even finish their course. Few organizations even contact us if we have students ready who can work for their organizations. I am not lying. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have emphasized this earlier also. We, the experienced testers, should start teaching students. There is huge demand for testing trainings. The fake teachers and fake institutes are spoiling this market. They are helping injecting more fake testers into testing industry. We must stop this. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Teaching testing along with your full time job means screwing your weekends. If you are reading this blog, the chances are that you might be the one who can spend an hour in weekend for teaching. The fake teachers in fake institutes anyway do not read blogs. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></div>Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-70333345644148851552011-03-15T14:41:00.002+05:302014-03-07T01:41:12.976+05:303 Random Stories and A T-Shirt Competition<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I have been planning this post for a long time. <a href="http://moolya.com/blog/2011/03/14/10-t-shirt-giveaways-from-moolya/">Moolya Testing</a> has given me the boost to write this now. </div>
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Do I want to win the T-shirt offered by <a href="http://twitter.com/testertested">Pradeep</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/santhoshst">Santhosh</a> and the team? Yes, anything from a great startup with great people and great ethical values would an award worth winning. </div>
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So I must share something for which I did not get recognized from my organization. I have many. Randomly chosen 3 stories.</div>
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<strong>Story 1 – November 2006. </strong></div>
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I had just joined my new company then. We were testing an enterprise content management product. That product is a platform independent product of a top listed IT company in the world. Whole lots of patch releases and lots of regression cycle were going on in various application server and operating system combinations. I was just learning the product and how to run the product in UNIX systems and J2EE based application servers. I must say we had around 105 platform (OS vs App server) combinations to test. The product was also using a legacy system as storage engine for enterprise contents. </div>
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If you remember starting summer of 2007 US government changed the daylight saving time (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time">DST</a>). From 1987 to 2006, daylight saving time in the United States began on the first Sunday of April and ended on the last Sunday of October. The time is adjusted at 2:00 AM (0200) local time.</div>
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Since 2007, daylight saving time starts on the second Sunday of March and ends on the first Sunday of November, with all time changes taking place at 2:00 AM (0200) local time. DST implementation varies from region to region. This means all the computers running with US region configuration had to adjust 3 weeks. Operating systems were pre-programmed to adjust old US DST system. Also application servers, Java Virtual Machines, Legacy systems all had to release their patch/service pack to implement the new DST system. </div>
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In our product we had a feature with which we could add annotations to the documents. This is a time sensitive feature. Whenever someone annotates a document it captures the timestamp. So in a workflow application where there are SLAs defined at minutes, these timestamps are very important. So introduction of new DST system with 3 weeks of adjustment would potentially cause problem to our timestamp feature. At the end of 2006, just before 2 months from the implementation of new system, my product development team was very sure that since it was the responsibility of OS, App server, JVM and legacy system vendors to update the systems to fix this problem we had nothing to do and no code changes and hence no testing would be required. </div>
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We were carrying a risk of not testing anything for DST. I did some R&D by downloading the available patches and setting the clock forward to 2nd Sunday of March 2007 and looking at the changes. I bumped into some problem during the experiment. I reported this to our product manager. He discussed the things again with development guys but I failed to convince them again. Needless to say I was the only tester in the whole product team with 8 developers. I was new to the team and they are sounding more technically advanced than me at that point of time. </div>
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In next one week, I sat late in office trying to set up a small test lab – where all the machines had software with DST patch updates. I deployed our product and set up a small work flow with in the application. I advanced the system dates to 2nd Sunday of March 2007 and reproduced the problem. I captured this information in details. Then I took help of a developer friend from our ODC, not from my dev team to look into the code of the product (I am a no-coding guy). He took 3 nights to come up with the solution. He made a one line code change and we rebuild the product. I deployed the new build in the test lab and tried to reproduce the problem. No I could not find the problem. That means the problem was in the code itself not with patches. </div>
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Next morning, I sent out a detailed email mentioning what I found and what code changes we made. I was scolded for sharing the code information with other team’s member. They never recognized the problem I was trying to capture. Later the development manager took 2 months billing for 3 resources from the client sent the patch with my code change. Officially I never got recognition for this story. But I am happy that I saved the organization from some embarrassments that may have happened if I had not rebuilt the product. </div>
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<strong>Story 2 – August 2010.</strong></div>
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I wanted to initiate and take care of a very popular event in software testing. Actually I wanted to head the NCR chapter of that community. I had no direct contact with the founders. I was talking to somebody who was in NCR that time. I asked him with my proposal and he seemed to agree. I was expecting a reply from the founders but I never got to hear from anyone. I was very frustrated because my repeat emails were not answered. One night I decided that I will do something that would one day surpass the popularity of that event. That was how <a href="http://testingcircus.com/">Testing Circus</a> was born in the mid night of 14th/15th August – the independence day of India. </div>
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I have been publishing this magazine from last September onwards. I have received many positive and negative feedbacks for my work and effort. I started a truly Indian magazine dedicated on Software Testing. The magazine is aimed at educating professionals at basic levels. That’s why you would not see many pedantic subjects and you would find features like test case writing, QTP code corner etc. Interview with tester is aimed at encouraging new testers to get advice and future trends in testing. I also wanted to let learning testers know who all are there in twitter who are well known in testing domain. This I assume would help networking with other testers and mentors. I have always tried to balance articles from expert people plus encouraged a newbie to write something for my magazine. This is how I wanted to cultivate and encourage new people to write even though it means rewriting the whole article by me and asking him to learn from that and do the same thing again. </div>
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How do I collect articles from experts? Few people have always supported me by giving articles and giving permission to print their interviews. I try to write to experts to give articles for the magazine and I have been doing it constantly. I just do not want to copy something from their blogs and re-print the same in Testing Circus. Sometimes people respond, sometimes not. </div>
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How do I manage time between my full time job as a project lead and weekend training sessions at my testing coaching class as you might know I teach testing on weekends at my drawing room? Mostly I work at nights for Testing Circus; not hampering my job at office. That means I sleep few hours less than average IT professionals of my age.</div>
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What am I getting? No monetary benefit. No Google ads. No paid ads. I am getting few positive and lots of feedbacks that say I should improve. Also my organization never seems to care about my initiative and it has never given me any impact on my appraisals. But I am happy.</div>
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<strong>Story 3 – November 2010.</strong></div>
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We knew one another and have been talking over phone and twitter but we never met or all planned meeting actually never happened because of some reasons or others. But SoftTech Software Testing conference on 13th November in New Delhi actually helped us meet physically for the first time. There we hatched a plan – to have regular testers meet in NCR Region on a monthly basis and of course a free event for test enthusiasts. Today we proudly call <a href="http://ncrtesters.blogspot.com/">NCR Testers Meet (NCRTMM)</a> as our brain child. Two Vipuls (<a href="http://twitter.com/vipulkocher">Vipul Kocher</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/vipsgupta">Vipul Gupta</a>) and I cultivated the ground for free testers meet in NCR and we started the journey on 18th December in Noida. Today we are four meets old and we have 410 registered members. We are planning for a full day conference in April in Noida to be attended by speakers from all over India. Thanks to our venue and food sponsors. We are actively supported by Indian Testing Board. We have plans to open a Software Testing Book Library in every city monitored by us. The concept of NCR Testers Monthly Meet is replicated in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore. Wao! – I am loving it.</div>
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My organization hardly knows about this initiative. Even we officially tried to convince the point-of-contacts to sponsor the venue for our meet; we never got any positive reply. But I am happy again. </div>
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Sometimes you do not do things to get recognition from your organizations. I believe many such stories exist in Indian Testing Story Book. It is our passions that drive us to do new things, experiment with newer ideas. If I am doing some good work in Indian Testing Domain then it is because of advice, criticism, encouragement and support that I received from few people. I will name those people in a different post. </div>
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If I win a T-shirt from Moolya Testing, then I plan to give away that to another passionate tester in the April <a href="http://ncr.indiantestingboard.com/">NCRTMM</a> Conference happening in Noida. </div>
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If you have similar stories, share that in <a href="http://moolya.com/blog/2011/03/14/10-t-shirt-giveaways-from-moolya/">http://moolya.com/blog/2011/03/14/10-t-shirt-giveaways-from-moolya/</a> You might win a T-shirt too. <br />
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<b>NOTE - I won the competition and they gave me Two T-shirts actually, instead of one. :)</b></div>
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Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-83461913511266172362010-12-29T20:07:00.005+05:302010-12-29T20:18:20.099+05:30Hiring Practice in Testing Industry - Can we change it?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This is my last blog post for this year. In this post I would like to make a point about hiring practice in IT industry specially in testing.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I have been a part of hiring process for my current and previous organizations. I have taken interviews for my project, my client, walk-in interviews and also for fresher hiring at college campus. What did I learn from these interviews? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Most of the resumes are shortlisted by HR persons and then are sent to us for technical evaluation. Then we talk to the candidate to evaluate him. The evaluation process is generally a set of questions starting from “<i>Tell us something about yourself</i>” to some technical questions about testing/non-testing area. If the candidate is able to answer most of the questions fairly well, we select him or pass on to the next level of interview. If he cannot answer the questions – we simply convey – “<i>You can leave for the day</i>.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This is a traditional way of evaluating a candidate for a job. Is there a problem in it? I seriously feel yes. Right from the short listing of resumes to offering a job – the system goes through some pre-conceived procedures/filters. I have seen many bad testers passing through these filters easily and many good testers, just because the filter itself is bad-shaped, get rejected.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bad Shape of filters –</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>1. Resume Short listing</b> – Resumes are short listed by non-technical people. I don’t know how most of the HR people collect the resumes and hence short list them. My friends’ resumes forwarded by me never got short listed though <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">L</span>. (<i>It is important to have a good repo with HR guys if you want your friends to get a call</i>.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>2. Just in time Hiring</b> – Just in time hiring may sound good to reduce bench strength of the organization. But think of a situation where the person leaving your organization has a particular skill and you do not have a similarly skilled person in bench, you will need to hire from outside. I am not against just in time hiring. I am against initiating the hiring process late. When you know someone has resigned, why don’t you arrange to hire and replace the resigned candidate in the beginning of the notice period? Believe me, 95% of resigned candidates will not take back their resignation. Why try till last date to take him back? If you offer to give him carrots when he resigns, why did not you give that before he had actually resigned? Most of the organization will not allow its employee to leave before they serve their full notice period. But still these companies will want the employees from other companies to join them in short notice. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>Warning – The candidates who can join in short notice are actually fake employees or they are not working anywhere or they are too bad resources. Except, the only situation where he had resigned before your interview process started.</blockquote></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I have even received emails from hiring firms mentioning – “<i>relieving letter not required</i>.” What kind of ethics these firms are practicing? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">If you are forced to hire in short time span – you are bound to recruit bad/fake candidates. So start early.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>3. Knowledge of the Interviewer</b> – It is important to judge the knowledge of the candidate. But it is more important to know how much fit the interviewer is to judge a candidate. Bad interviewers just screw up a hiring process and the filters get more bad-shaped. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>4. Questions asked at Interview</b> – If I list down 100 questions for software testing and commonly asked behavioural questions from internet and if I can remember them all, then I think I can clear most the software testing interviews that happens now a days. All I have to do is get someone who can give me answers for those questions and I will have learn like a parrot. I can just repeat the sentences in front of the interviewer and get the job. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>5. Candidates with Certification</b> – Passing an IT certification exam is easy. Please read my post “<a href="http://ajoysingha.blogspot.com/2010/11/my-investigation-on-certification-exams.html" target="new"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Investigation on Certification</span></a>”. I am not saying certification is bad. I am saying certification has just become very easy and I know few guys who have never tested any software and still they cleared certification exams. It is high time we thought of other methods of certifying people. So don’t just believe that having an IT certification makes someone a good candidate for the job.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Need for a better hiring practice-</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">What are things that we can do as industry thought leaders in testing? (Sorry, I am not a thought leader yet in testing or any other industry. I am just a follower of good practice.) This is what I suggest – if you care to agree.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>1.</b> Follow a hiring practice that companies like <a href="http://moolya.com/hiring.html" target="new"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Moolya</span></a> follows. Ask candidates to test an open source product and send the test report. Brilliant process. What you will get is real tester with real result. Bad apples automatically get filtered out. However, this method will need discipline and ethics from the hiring organization. Also you will face challenges as a large service based organization to reach out to more number of candidates. Walk-in type of interview will need more planning and resources. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>2.</b> Do not care about what is written in resume. Do not care about what certificate they have. Do not care about what educational background they have. Just care about if they can really test. Clue – Good testers are thinking heads. Challenge them with problems. See how they have solved problems in real life. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>3.</b> See how passionate the candidate is about testing. Is it just another job (money earning machine) or he really thinks about testing? Ask him what he wants to do in testing or what he has done in testing. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>4.</b> Do not discriminate people from another industry. Do not just throw him out just because he is from BPO, Medical sales or HR background. I am a Mechanical Engineer and had worked for a year in chemical industry before moving to full time testing. If you think I have done something in testing, then every other guy from other industry has a potential to do magic in testing. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>5.</b> Do not discriminate people with gaps. We tend to filter out people who have gap period between two jobs. Investigate why there is a gap. I have seen many female testers who left their jobs because they got married and they had a kid to care about. Now that the kid is grown up, they can join back testing job. They face lots of challenges in even getting an interview call. I understand that those who have not worked for last few months/years may not be as smooth in working as compared to those who have been working continuously. But a passionate tester can ignite the passion anytime. You just need to give them a chance.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>6.</b> Do not ask lots of definitions during the interview. Do not care about skills which can be trained. Only care about skills/traits that cannot be trained. Attitude, interest, motivation, commitment, vision – these can be changed but it takes time. Think what you want – a person with full of definitions or someone who wants to learn and can be moulded to do good testing. However, do check if the candidate knows about coding if you are hiring a white box tester for example. Special skills are important too.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Testing is not everybody’s cup of tea. It requires thinking. Passionless testers will get bored in few years of testing. Choose good people for testing, not just another job seeker. Today, testing is not regarded as a class one job in IT industry. ‘They’ think testing is a low skilled job. You know what I meant by ‘they’. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It will take time to convince everyone to change their hiring practices. Thanks to <a href="http://twitter.com/testertested" target="new"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Pradeep</span></a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/santhoshst" target="new"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Santhosh</span></a>. <a href="http://moolya.com/" target="new"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Moolya</span></a> has started the trend. Others will follow. Let us make a New Year resolution – to uplift the image of software testing professionals by adopting a good hiring practice and not to be the same as what other bad recruiters are doing. Do you support me?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>I promise to offer my free professional help to organizations who want to change their current hiring practice and adopt new better practice. <a href="mailto:aksingha@gmail.com" target="new"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">Write to me</span></a>.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I have used ‘he’ in this post to mean the “3rd person singular” gender. ‘He’ here is just a pronoun meaning both he and she. And I do not intend to discriminate male and female. </span></div>Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-27206658880097156682010-11-28T22:54:00.000+05:302010-11-28T22:54:01.891+05:30Can Automation replace Manual Testing?<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">What is manual software testing? Boardly, Manual testing is activities which are executed by human such as gathering requirement, writing test cases based on the requirement and executing those test cases on the build (compiled code).</div><div class="MsoNormal">Whereas, automation software testing involves using a tool for writing and executing test cases/scripts. Computers (tools) are fast, reliable, capable of multi tasking, they do not require coffee breaks. But the point of concern is "tools cannot think." Your automation test cases/scripts are as best as your manual testing test cases. Tools convert manual test cases into executable scripts, nothing else.</div><div class="MsoNormal">On the other hand, a human can think. They have the ability to think on their own and make decisions. They can decide and write test cases on the areas scripts cannot reach. Also all test cases cannot be automated. Tools cannot decide the usability factor of an application.</div><div class="MsoNormal">The best way a tool (Selenium, QTP, Rational Functional Tester, Silk etc) can be used is where there are large number of regression test cases which are required to be executed over and over again, build after build. Also tools (LoadRunner, WebLoad, JMeter) are best used when it comes to performance testing. It can replicate large number of virtual users and generate loads of desired quantity which will be very difficult for human testers to do.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Using automation software testing is very helpful but the simple answer to the question - "Can automation replace manual software testing?" is "No".</div>Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-13469599686607241462010-11-12T22:46:00.001+05:302010-11-12T22:47:46.862+05:30My Investigation on Certification Exams - Time to CHANGE the Method<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Let me be very clear. I am not against any Certification program. I just wanted to share few incidents that I came across recently.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I saw an advertisement few days back in some orkut community. Somebody called ‘super boy’ claimed that he can clear any certification exam and he has a good ‘link’ with testing centers. He had given his email with the advertisement. I shared the advertisement link with few of my seniors and mentors in testing community. They too expressed their disappointments about this.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I wanted to know what he is actually doing it. So I sent him a mail asking what all exams he can clear for me and what are the charges involved. Next day he replied with a link to blog. I do not want to give link of his blog here because that way I will popularize his blog and more people will fall for fake certification exam. Anyway I visited his blog and found what process he is adopting to clear the exams.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is what I got from the FAQ section of his blog –</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1. <i>How can you clear a certification exam in 1000 rupees?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. I have very good relation with the testing centers. I pay a lot of money to them and purchase the exam question papers from them in black and sell the same paper to many people and gain profit. So for 1000 rupees I will give the exam question paper in pdf format.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2. <i>Certification is an online exam, and exam questions are not same for all then how can you sell a single question paper (same paper) to many people?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. Your exam questions will be selected randomly from the exam server. The question paper includes all the questions that are there on the exam server. So all your exam questions will be selected from my question paper only.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">3. <i>Will you also provide the answers for the questions?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. Yes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">4. <i>What is the guarantee that I will pass the exam? What if I fail the exam?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. Till now I certified many number of people not even one person failed the exam. 100% exam pass is assured. Since I am giving you the exact question paper with answers the probability to fail the exam is negligible. If you fail the exam send the hard copy of your score card to my address, your money will be refunded. No questions will be asked. I guarantee you pass the exam.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For double security I will give you 2 sets of question papers. You will find 90% of the questions similar in both the sets which give you confidence and double security.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">5. <i>You said you already certified many people, what is the proof?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. I can show the screen a shot of my email conversation, people saying thanks to me.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">6. <i>Where do you stay? Can I meet you directly, what is your contact number?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. I am staying in Bangalore. You can meet me. My mobile number +91-XX601226XX.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">7. <i>After the payment, how do I get the question paper and how long it will take?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. Question paper will be sent in email with in 24 hours, after receiving the payment.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">8. <i>For how long the question paper will be valid?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. I suggest you to write the exam within 2 weeks. Please send me an email 3 days before writing the exam asking for the updates. If there are any new questions added, I will give you the new set of questions. You need not pay anything for this.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">9. <i>I am busy with my schedule and I cannot write the exam with in 2 weeks, I want to write the exam after a month or later will you provide the latest one at that time?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. Yes. You can write the exam at any time. Just contact me 2 weeks before writing the exam I will give the latest ones.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">10. <i>Can you write my exam?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. No.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">11. <i>I'm in Canada/US/UK so will I still get the same questions writing it here. Do you have any international people passing the exam?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. Certification is an online exam and exam questions are same all over the world so you can choose any testing center of your choice (world wide).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">12. <i>How can I pay the money? What are the payment modes?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A. You can pay the money in any of the 3 ways.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1. You can transfer the money online or deposit by cash by visiting the bank.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Andhra bank Account number: XX0810XXXX53XXX. Account is in the name of Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx. Bangalore - J P Nagar branch. MICR code: XXXX011XXx, IFSC code: XXXXB0001X0X. Account type: savings. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Or 2. You can transfer the money to my PayPal account. Please transfer the money to this PayPal account: xxxxxxxxsales@xmail.com. If you are transferring through PayPal please transfer 25 US $ because to receive and with draw the money using PayPal charges applicable.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Or 3. You can transfer the money through western union money transfer. If you wish to transfer through western union please ask me for the details.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wao! Lots of information and a well planned method of exploiting present certification exam method. He claimed he can clear almost all certification exams that includes <b>Adobe, Apple, Avaya, BEA, Black berry, Cisco (CCNA, CCNP etc...), Citrix, Dell, EMC, HP, IBM, Intel, Lotus, Microsoft (MCDBA, .NET, MCPD etc..), MySQL, Network Appliance, Oracle (OCA, OCP), Redhat RHCE, SAP, SUN (SCJP, SCWCD, Solaris), Sybase, SAS</b> etc.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I contacted him further asking whether he can clear my ISTQB exam. He took two days to reply to my query. He confirmed that he cannot clear the exam as this exam. It is because the <b>ISTQB</b> exam in India was still pen and paper based, not online. ISTQB India has recently started allowing online exams. So I contracted him again. This time I also mention <b>ISEB ISTQB</b> exam (Exam code ISEB BH0-004) which is also online based and the exam commonly taken at Prometric centers. He confirmed again his inability to provide the questions and answers of ISTQB India exam and ISEB ISTQB exam as according to him “these exams are not conducted from dumps (exam server)”. However, he said he can clear other popular Software Testing certification exams such as QTP, LoadRunner exams.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I said I am not against any certification exam. But after the above incident (kind of investigation on certification) I might want to change my opinion about exams which are based on dumps or question banks. ISTQB still passes my investigation. But then ISTQB should also come up with more stringent measure to stop any misuse of its exam facility. Should not the certification exams include some kind of practical examinations too as we did in 10+2 Science Chemistry Salt analysis practical session?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A good cook will know all recipes and he even can recite them at times. But just memorizing recipes does not make anyone a good cook. Certification doesn't convert a bad tester to a good tester. A good tester with certification doesn't automatically become a bad tester either. But it is high time we should improve the examination method that we follow today.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Your thoughts?</span></div>Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-80846221970043114782010-08-15T15:46:00.001+05:302010-08-15T15:49:10.061+05:30Testing Circus - Another e-magazine on Software Testing?There are hosts of journals available on software testing on internet. Another one is being planned for launch on 1st September 2010. This is a mission by a group of software testing professionals from NCR/Delhi area. I happen to associate with this mission.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>The e-magazine named Testing Circus is supposed to be free to the subscribers and they claim it would be a magazine with a difference. Testing Circus will attempt to capture the readers who are novice in this field. Most of magazines that are already available in web world are targeted at expert testing professionals. Over the years I have felt that there are very less reading materials available for students who want to learn software testing from the beginning. Books available in the market are kind of advanced level structure. There is no book like what we have for dot net, java, sql - teach yourself software testing in 24 hours. Testing Circus e-magazine attempts to capture that market section. </div><div><br />
</div><div>The idea is noble. The name Testing Circus is little tricky. Circus word is usually synonym with undisciplined works. But I feel circus here means 'tricks'. So we meant to convey 'testing is no magic, it is a pure trick, it is a circus.' Testing Circus - magazine on software testing should therefore help new learners of software testing the platform they were missing for years.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Subscribe the magazine at <a href="http://www.testingcircus.com/">www.testingcircus.com</a> Or you can follow them on twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/TestingCircus">http://twitter.com/TestingCircus</a></div><div><br />
</div><div>I wish all the best to Testing Circus e-magazine on Software Testing.</div>Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-65306123573579643332009-09-12T11:31:00.009+05:302013-03-11T13:06:47.809+05:30Best Software Testing Institute in Gurgaon NCR<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 33px;">**</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 18px;">We don't have very fancy decoracted class rooms but we promise to give you best knowledge from practical and hands on training point of view.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><u><span style="color: black;">Course 1:</span></u></b><span style="color: black;"> Manual Testing + Basic Automation Course – This course is suitable for who want to pursue their career in Software Testing. It starts with basic foundation of Software Testing and gradually progresses towards advanced concept of Software Testing enhanced by basic idea of Automation Tools such as QTP and Load Runner. Lots of mock interview practices with feedback on speech and body language.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><u><span style="color: black;">Course 2:</span></u></b><span style="color: black;"> Advanced Automation – QTP – This course is suitable for people who have already attended Course 1 or the testers who have at least 1 year of experience in Manual Testing concepts. This is a pure project based hands on tool learning aided by understanding of advanced concepts of QTP, framework, real life automation issue resolution with advanced level scripting technique.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Duration – Approx 6 weeks – weekend classes</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Please feel free to contact us –<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: red;">»</span></span>Call us at 9911449111</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 33px;">**</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">We don't have very fancy decorated class rooms but we promise to give you best knowledge from practical and hands on training point of view.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For more information - please visit - <a href="http://talentplusplus.com/">http://talentplusplus.com</a></span></div>
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Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-2398210258696272752009-05-11T20:51:00.005+05:302010-08-07T21:17:15.740+05:30New Website on Software Testing<div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Testing is often considered as a thankless job.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">While developers say with pride: "Wow!! My code is running in production and application is running all fine", testers usually don’t say "Wow!! The code that I tested is running in production"!!!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Testing identifies faults, whose removal increases the software quality by increasing the Software’s potential reliability and thus removing the risk associated with application’s failure. Testing is the measurement of software quality. We measure how closely we have achieved quality by testing the relevant factors such as correctness, reliability, usability, maintainability, reusability and testability. It is rightly said – Testers don’t make software, they make it better.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Read more about software testing and issues that affect software testing at my new </span></span><a href="http://www.ajoysingha.info/" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Software Testing Website.</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Please visit </span></span><a href="http://www.ajoysingha.info/" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">http://www.ajoysingha.info/</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
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Thanks,<br />
Ajoy Singha</span></span>Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-87904392729137089592007-10-26T12:46:00.003+05:302010-08-08T13:38:00.213+05:30Some Research On My Name.<span style="font-size: 85%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">There is always a risk associated with my name. Whenever I pronounce my name for someone who needs to write it down, there is 60% chance of my full name being misspelled. My name is <em><span style="color: #6633ff;">'<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Ajoy</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Kumar</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Singha</span>'</span></em>. Of these three words <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><em>Kumar</em></span> is often the only correctly spelled one. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 85%;">I spent my childhood in a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">bengali</span> dominated area. The pronounce the word '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">ajay</span> - commonly written version of my name' as <em>'o-joy'</em>. So when I wrote my name in primary school they modified it to '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Ajoy</span>'. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 85%;">Similarly with my surname '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">singha</span>'. When you write this spelling in Bengali or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Manipuri</span>, the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">pronunciation</span> is <em>'sing-ho'</em>- lion in Bengali. '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Singha</span>' is not a popular surname in rest of the India except in southern Assam. So when you say your sure name is '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">singha</span>', they write either '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">sinha</span>'- popularised by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Shatrughan</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Sinha</span> or '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">singhal</span>' - extra L to suite what they have heard so far.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 85%;">Here is some of the problems I faced due to my incorrectly spelled name: :-)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6633ff; font-size: 85%;"><em>1. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">ICICI</span> Bank sent me a gold credit card with incorrect surname '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Sinha</span>' although I had submitted my passport copy, PAN card and salary slip with the application.</em></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6633ff; font-size: 85%;"><em>2. An <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">MBBS</span> doctor spelled my name as 'Ajay <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Sinha</span>' in his <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">prescriptions</span>, all test reports and medicine bills. I had a big fight with my medical insurance company when I wanted to reimburse the cost.</em></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6633ff; font-size: 85%;"><em>3. I donated Blood during my college days. I was <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">awarded</span> with a donor's card with 'Ajay <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Singha</span>' written on it</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 85%;"><em>.....list goes on.</em> </span><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">A friend of mine sent me a list of names with meanings of each name. I did not find my name '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Ajoy</span>' in that list. That inspired me to do some research on my name. The easiest way was to do some <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Google</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">search</span>. Here is what I found out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 85%;">1. Google web-search with '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Ajoy</span>' returned the following : <em>Results 1 - 10 of about 345,000 for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Ajoy</span>. (0.19 seconds)</em></span><em><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;"></span></em><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">2. The same search when I clicked 'I'm Feeling Lucky' <em>button</em> directs to </span><a href="http://www.ajoy.com.au/"><span style="font-size: 85%;">http://www.ajoy.com.au/</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: 85%;">3. According to register.com information, <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">ajoy</span>.com</em>, <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">ajoy</span>.net</em> are already registered domains. <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">ajoy</span>.info</em> is still available.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">4. Google Image-search with '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Ajoy</span>' returned : <em>Results 1 - 20 of about 6,060 for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Ajoy</span>. (0.09 seconds).</em> All size image with moderate sate search on.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">5. Google web-search with '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Ajoy</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Kumar</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Singha</span>' without double quotes returned the following :<em>Results 1 - 10 of about 743 for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Ajoy</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Kumar</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Singha</span>. (0.21 seconds)</em></span><em><br />
</em><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">6. Google web-search with '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Ajoy</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Kumar</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">Singha</span>' with double quotes returned the following :<em>Results 1 - 8 of 8 for "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">Ajoy</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Kumar</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Singha</span>". (0.26 seconds).</em> All this results were related to my blog, my comments on other blogs, my profile on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">wikipedia</span>, my engineering college website guest book entry. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">7. I did the same search with the pages from India option. I got the following result : <em>Your search - "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">Ajoy</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Kumar</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">Singha</span>" - did not match any documents. </em></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">8. I tried 'define:<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">Ajoy</span>' (finding the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">definition</span> of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">Ajoy</span>) on Google search did not give any result either.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">9. While doing all this I found out one river in West Bengal (India) called '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">Ajoy</span>'. I did a Google Map search for the same but could not locate it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">10. Finally I surfed </span><a href="http://babynames.indobase.com/indian-boys.php"><span style="font-size: 85%;">http://babynames.indobase.com/indian-boys.php</span></a><span style="font-size: 85%;"> and found out the meaning of '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">Ajoy</span>', which says the meaning is 'Joyful'. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">Here is one image search result from </span><a href="http://spiritnetwork.com/ajoy/titleajoy.gif"><span style="font-size: 85%;">http://spiritnetwork.com/ajoy/titleajoy.gif</span></a><a href="http://spiritnetwork.com/ajoy/titleajoy.gif"><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">ajoy</span>/<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">titleajoy</span>.<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">gif</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 85%;"> </span><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iveanWU1YSE/RyGWu1CBUKI/AAAAAAAAAC4/oqCgo0mSwvY/s1600-h/titleajoy.gif"><span style="font-size: 85%;"></span></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iveanWU1YSE/RyGWu1CBUKI/AAAAAAAAAC4/oqCgo0mSwvY/s1600-h/titleajoy.gif"><span style="font-size: 85%;"><img alt="" border="0" height="76" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5125543582178037922" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iveanWU1YSE/RyGWu1CBUKI/AAAAAAAAAC4/oqCgo0mSwvY/s320/titleajoy.gif" style="float: right; height: 122px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; width: 310px;" width="273" /></span></a><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iveanWU1YSE/RyGWu1CBUKI/AAAAAAAAAC4/oqCgo0mSwvY/s1600-h/titleajoy.gif"></a><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iveanWU1YSE/RyGWu1CBUKI/AAAAAAAAAC4/oqCgo0mSwvY/s1600-h/titleajoy.gif"><span style="font-size: 85%;"></span></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">So next time you want to use my name for writing, pronouncing, please do it properly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 85%;">I wasted few hours for writing and you wasted few minutes for reading this post. If you want to do the same time wasting activity, please go ahead, do a same type of research with your name. And send the material, link or e-photocopy to </span><a href="mailto:aksingha@gmail.com"><span style="font-size: 85%;">aksingha@gmail.com</span></a> <span style="font-size: 85%;">I would be happy to waste some of my minutes for you. <span style="color: red;"><br />
</span></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iveanWU1YSE/RyGWu1CBUKI/AAAAAAAAAC4/oqCgo0mSwvY/s1600-h/titleajoy.gif"></a><br />
<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script><br />
<script type="text/javascript">
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urchinTracker();
</script>Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-72085895451493707472007-10-01T11:33:00.003+05:302010-08-08T13:37:36.838+05:30To Mohit and etc who want to join Software Testing !<span style="font-size: 85%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">Mohit wrote this in one of the orkut communities.<br />
</span><br />
<em><span style="color: #6633ff; font-size: 85%;">"Hi Friend, </span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #6633ff; font-size: 85%;">Actually I am working in a call centre in technical support Division. Work is related to maintenance. I passed out with electronics from an REC in 2003. But looking the family conditions I have to join whatever got that time. with a bond on 2 years. Now I managed to setup my family and want to come in real field. I come to know from my friends about software testing , which an emerging field and easy to get into.I also have done Software testing course of 2 months from xxx training institute. </span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #6633ff; font-size: 85%;">In my present field there is not so growth, and moreover I have to work as a technician. </span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #6633ff; font-size: 85%;">There are not vacancies for fresher or they prefer 2006/07 pass outs.Dear friend can you advise me? Should I apply as a fresher or with showing 2 years of experience in software testing? In this case , will company investigate my past? </span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #6633ff; font-size: 85%;">I have not made my resume yet. Please advise me. I have taken the firm decision to change my field. Looking for a job at Delhi. </span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #6633ff; font-size: 85%;">Thanks again."</span></em><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><em><span style="color: #6633ff;"><br />
</span></em>..... And there are so many Mohits in today's IT industry, specially in software testing. People think software testing as a launch pad to IT industry, easy, and not requiring hardcore technical, coding, system knowledge etc. It is not. Software testing is not an easy job. It requires skills to find defects in software, ability to think beyond the obvious, think in different ways. Doing a 2 months theoretical course is not enough to become a software tester. Developers write codes, testers find defects. It is similar to students writing paper and professor checking them. Testers are the guardians of the product. They are responsible for software's quality. It is well said that "testers do not make software, they make them better." </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">So here are some advice for Mohit and etc: </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">1. Yes it is very easy to use software testing as launch pad to IT industry, but it is equally difficult to keep flying if you do not have the real skill. It is very easy to clear interview, but equally tough to do the real work. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><br />
2. If you show 2 years (fake) experience, most of the companies will do a background check. If you are caught, you are black listed.<br />
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3. Doing a course in software testing is good. But do not assume that the training provider will get you a job. It all depends on your skill. Do not listen to fake promises by training institutes.<br />
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4. Learn skills that are required to be a tester. Talk to the experienced people who are in the same profession. Keep your eyes, ears open. Learn about the new technologies. Prepare for ISTQB exam. If you can, do this certification.<br />
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5. Enhance your reasoning ability. Try to think every possible thing in different ways. If you are a fresher, download some beta version software and test it. Compare your results with other fellows testing the beta software. If you find some bugs, mention them in your resume.<br />
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6. Be honest. Say that you are a fresher in software testing. But mention that you have work experience (Call center technical support in Mohit's case). Prepare a valid reason why you want to join IT industry. Don't say growth opportunity. Show your passion for software testing.<br />
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7. You will eventually become a technician if you do not have skills. To achieve growth (in any industry), you have to be proactive, prove your skill and perform better than the team. This is same in IT industry as well as in BPOs. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 85%;"><em>At the end, anyone who is hard working, smart working, skilled and honest will lift the cup. Prepare yourself. Don't be knocked down by your past. You have a war in future to be won. All the best Mohit.</em></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br />
</span></span>Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-23214924677395872842007-09-27T16:20:00.001+05:302010-08-08T13:38:26.427+05:30Checklist Before Going On-site (Abroad) !!<strong></strong><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color:#6633ff;"><strong>Official:</strong><br /></span>1. Passport validity date.<br />2. Visa Expiry date.<br />3. Invitation letter from the company for which you will be working.<br />4. Buy some dollars or euros (check out the conversion rate with respect to Indian Rupee).<br />5. Air Tickets (Both ways, if applicable), keep photo copy of all papers in a separate folder in case you misplace something, this will become handy.<br />6. Note down the address for Indian Embassy offices for that particular country. You will find this in any tourist guide books. Note down the telephone numbers.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#6633ff;">Personal:</span></strong><br />1. Determine how long you will stay in that country.<br />2. Study about the weather changes.<br />3. Take clothes suitable for that weather. I suggest taking clothes from India unless they are cheaper in that country.<br />4. Make sure that your baggage weight is less than the limit allowed by the airlines. There will be some fine if your baggage is heavier than allowed limit. Check out with local airlines authorities.<br />5. Take commonly used medicines with you. Most of foreign countries require a doctor prescription for buying any common medicine.<br />6. If you are interested in Photography, buy rolls from India only. Rolls will be costlier there (I am talking about Europe/UK/US).<br />7. Buy a prepaid tele-calling card as soon as you arrive at that country, unless you have international roaming mobile. For most the countries if you need to make ISD calls you have to use prepaid calling cards. You can insert those calling cards in any public call booths and make calls to anywhere.<br />8. Know about the food habit of that particular country/City. Prepare yourself according to the local norms. Lots of people find it difficult in first few days to adjust food habits. For example you will find difficulty in finding daal rice/chapati in Europe city unless you are familiar with the city whereabouts first. Take help of local guys. Vegetarian guys take special attention of this.<br />9. Don't forget to adjust your watch to the local time as soon as you reach there.<br />10. Also you have to take care of the sleeping time cycle. It generally takes 48 hours to adjust to local time.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color:#6633ff;"><strong>At the airport:</strong><br /></span>1. Try to arrive at the airport 3 hours before departure time. Keep your tickets, passport with visa, and any other relevant documents with you. Don't keep these things in your luggage. Once you check in you will get a boarding pass which will also mention your seat number and gate number through which you have to board the flight. You have to fill a migration form and submit to the customs before boarding the flight.<br />2. Don't take heavy lunch/dinner before the flight. Drink lots of water. It will save you from dehydration during the flight.<br />3. Don't leave your baggage and walk away. Submit the baggage at designated airline baggage handling department. Take proper receipt for it. Generally they will give a barcode sticker once you submit the baggage. You can take a small hand bag with you inside the flight.<br />4. After reaching your destination airport, don't forget to collect the baggage. Perform all necessary activities particular for that country for visa stamping and migration check.<br />5. Ask your friend/company to send someone to pick you up from the airport itself. Otherwise take a prepaid cab to the destination/your hotel.</span></span>Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-33213823168215121492007-09-20T17:28:00.001+05:302010-08-08T13:38:45.875+05:30Sitting Late Vs Working Late !!<span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Recently I came across a good email which was forwarded to me by my colleague. It is about staying late at office, specially in IT organisations. I have seen, in my small career in IT industry, that lots of people stay back in office after normal office hours (9am to 6pm). Why do these people stay back in office after normal office hours? </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />I can list down some of the reasons:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong><span style="color:#3366ff;">1.</span> <span style="color:#3366ff;">45 hours a week</span></strong>: Most of IT companies work 5 days a week. So you need to spend 9 hours a working day. People come late to office at 10am or beyond that. So to compensate 9 hours they have to stay back in office.<br /><strong><span style="color:#3366ff;">2. Personal</span><span style="color:#3366ff;"> Work</span>:</strong> Lots of people indulge in personal work while in office. It is done better when most of the employees leave after 6pm. With no managers and colleagues around, it is fun to surf internet, chat over the office telephone keeping aside free coffees and Air conditioned rooms.<br /><strong><span style="color:#3366ff;">3.</span> <span style="color:#3366ff;">False Impression to Manager</span></strong>: Most of the managers think who stays back at office after office hours put extra effort to project. They misinterpret sitting late as working late. People leaving the office at late hours are considered as hardworking and dedicated.<br /><strong><span style="color:#3366ff;">4.</span> <span style="color:#3366ff;">And lots more</span></strong>..<br /><br />So is it a good practice?<br /><br />I don't think so. Let me tell you why.<br /><br />1. Sitting late should not be confused with working late.<br />2. People who stay late do not know how to manage their work, finish work in time. If you cannot finish your work within normal office hours, you are a slow worker or your manager does not have good estimation skill.<br />3. People who come to office late are late risers. Late rising is not a good habit.<br />4. Flexi hour does not mean coming late to office and staying back without any reason. Flexi hour gives you flexibility to compensate missing hours when you have some urgent personal work in the office hours that you cannot avoid.<br />5. Staying late at office will cost your oraganisation with extra energy spent for office lighting. USA has Daylight Saving Time (US Energy Saving Act). They work one hour ahead during summer so that they can save energy. Give earth a chance !<br />6. I don't know how ethical it is to do personal work in office hours. When internet is so cheap, internet cafes are available at every corner of your locality, why do we need to spend so much time in checking gmail, orkut, yahoo and youtube in office and doing ALT+TAB when project manager is around? Oh yeh, I forgot to mention, internet cafes do not have firewalls and IT Administrator watching your browsing behavior.<br /><br />I had a manager who used to come to office at 8am and leave office at 5.30pm. I have always appreciated this habit. This gives a lot of advantages. You come to office with no one around, less traffic in road, perform the important tasks quickly. If you find any problem there are plenty of time remaining within the day. Leave office early before the peak traffic rush hour. Go home quickly; spend time with your family. Watch your favourite TV programs.<br /><br />So please complete your work within time. Don't make a habit of staying late unnecessarily. Once you do this and make it a habit, your manager will take it for granted and expect you to do this every time. And think when you get family life and leaving office early (on time) your manager will think that you are no longer dedicated as earlier. You are a looser then.<br /><br />Vinit Nayar, President, HCL Technologies, says, "<em>Big is not equal to Best</em>." Let me say - "<span style="color:#3366ff;"><em>Sitting late is not equal to Working late. Working late is not hard working, it is hardly working</em></span>." It is a myth just as Ram Setu.<br /><br />OK, now you can throw on me flower pots, chairs, rotten eggs and chappals.</span>Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-82410941467989667012007-08-17T11:26:00.001+05:302010-08-07T21:17:43.453+05:30What is the difference between Smoke and Sanity testing?<u><span style="font-size:130%;color:#3366ff;">SMOKE Vs SANITY TESTING</span><br /></u><br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff0000;">From Devankur Thakur's Blog:</span></em><br /><br />I have gathered a few points about the difference between smoke and sanity testing from the responses of two software testing groups. I have added the points below.<br /><br />However, my experience of executing the Smoke and Sanity testing has been the following:<br /><br /><span style="color:#3366ff;"><u>Smoke Test:<br /></u></span>When a build is received, a smoke test is run to ascertain if the build is stable and it can be considered for further testing.<br /><br />Smoke testing can be done for testing the stability of any interim build.<br />Smoke testing can be executed for platform qualification tests.<br /><br /><span style="color:#3366ff;"><u>Sanity testing:<br /></u></span>Once a new build is obtained with minor revisions, instead of doing a through regression, sanity is performed so as to ascertain the build has indeed rectified the issues and no further issue has been introduced by the fixes. It’s generally a subset of regression testing and a group of test cases are executed that are related with the changes made to the app.<br /><br />Generally, when multiple cycles of testing are executed, sanity testing may be done during the later cycles after through regression cycles.<br /><br /><em>1)Smoke testing originated in the hardware testing practice of turning on a new piece of hardware for the first time and considering it a success if it does not catch fire and smoke. In software industry, smoke testing is a shallow and wide approach whereby all areas of the application without getting into too deep, is tested. </em><br /><em>A sanity test is a narrow regression test that focuses on one or a few areas of functionality. Sanity testing is usually narrow and deep.<br /><br />2)A smoke test is scripted--either using a written set of tests or an automated test</em><br /><em>A sanity test is usually unscripted.</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>3)A Smoke test is designed to touch every part of the application in a cursory way. It's is shallow and wide.<br />A Sanity test is used to determine a small section of the application is still working after a minor change.</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>4)Smoke testing will be conducted to ensure whether the most crucial functions of a program work, but not bothering with finer details. (Such as build verification).<br />Sanity testing is a cursory testing; it is performed whenever a cursory testing is sufficient to prove the application is functioning according to specifications. This level of testing is a subset of regression testing.</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>5)Smoke testing is normal health check up to a build of an application before taking it to testing in depth.<br />Sanity testing is to verify whether requirements are met or not, checking all features breadth-first. </em><br /><em></em><br /><a href="http://geekswithblogs.net/dthakur/archive/2004/08/24/10144.aspx">http://geekswithblogs.net/dthakur/archive/2004/08/24/10144.aspx</a>Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33994636.post-65188583601703045812007-03-18T11:55:00.001+05:302010-08-08T13:38:45.876+05:30Let Your Boss Know Your WORK !<span style="color:#3366ff;">Is it enough to just work hard in order to succeed? Maybe not. Making your boss aware of your merit and contributions is important too...</span><br /><br />WHY do many of us feel unrecognised, unrewarded or underpaid, compared to what we think we deserve at work? Why is it that boss-bashing is a popular pastime? A nasty one goes “Boss is a double sob spelt backwards!” Management research also confirms that, by and large, employees join organizations but leave bosses.<br /><br />The boss represents the organization to us and has a major influence in shaping our perception about the organization, its culture and career growth opportunities. So, do you continue to remain at the mercy of ‘bad bosses’, or is there something you can do to alter their perception?<br /><br />Organizational life differs from academic life in one fundamental way: unlike in school or college, your success in an organization is not dependent on you alone. While your efforts and contribution certainly count, the impact of inter-dependence, support and other environmental factors is significant.<br />As part of the hiring and induction drill, organizations will consistently and liberally use phrases like ‘meritocracy’, ‘performance-based’ etc. But truth be told, reward and progression are not based on performance, but on the perception of your performance. Whose perception: yours or your supervisor’s? Clearly, the boss is always right! So you have to perform AND be seen performing. You may believe that results or numbers speak for themselves, but bosses may need hearing aids! Remember that while bosses have multiple subordinates, you have one boss, or maybe two in a matrix setup. So clearly, you have far more at stake in making the relationship with the boss click. In fact, the boss is quite likely focused on impressing the super boss!<br /><br />To help your case, you could increase your interaction with the boss. That does not mean you hang around his office looking busy and neglecting your work! Create a context for meeting and generate valid data for his decision making. Provide a crisp one-page progress update, with what American MNCs term, a ‘Hits’ (achievements) & ‘Misses’ (shortfalls) report, possibly adding a brief section on plans and issues going forward.<br /><br />A common complaint one hears is about the lack of objectivity in their evaluation process, often ending with an exasperated “It’s all so subjective!” While objectives or targets have a role in assessment, evaluations demand subjective judgment calls by managers. If performance could be objectively measured, managers would have long ago been replaced by a computer software programme! Managers are paid to make decisions based upon their subjective evaluation. One sees many unhappy employees moaning that they perform well, but the boss “always rewards or promotes his favourite(s)”. This is often a case of misalignment with what the boss expects. You may do a brilliant job of some assignment, but if it is not in line with the priorities of the boss, you may not get due credit. Most bosses prefer a competent and aligned subordinate to one who’s brilliant but misaligned, which would require high maintenance!<br /><br />It is extremely important that you recognise and accept that the boss has two prerogatives in any organisation: Prioritisation of your work, ie, which activity needs to be completed first and Resource Allocation, ie, how much time, money, materials, manpower you will get to complete the assigned work. Sure, you can negotiate to push back, but the boss finally decides. Some bosses may keep quiet while you stray from the agreed priorities, but come assessment time, they will surely take stock.<br /><br />**Times Life/Sunday Times of India/18-03-2007Ajoy Singhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08910292572520010141noreply@blogger.com3