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Bad practices for a Software Test Engineer

2017-06-10T12:48:00.002-07:00

People mostly talk about the good and the best practices but it is also important to know the worst or the bad practices which a Software Test Engineer must not follow or practice. At times people don't know what they might be doing wrong unless they are being shown the right direction.

So as a software test engineer we should not follow the below given bad practices:

Do not start working on tickets which are not properly defined or described. Unless proper description or methods are provided to test a certain functionality, one should not immediately jump on it. Rather a software test engineer should communicate proactively to find the details with the product manager or developers and then then put those details in the ticket and then start working on the same.
Do not test too many things at one time. If there is time crunch then one should only focus on testing the basic functionality first and then test cases with medium or low priorities can be tested.
Do not automate all the test cases from day one. This is the worst practice and mindset to follow when one has started writing test automation. First only the highest priority tests should be automated, monitored, fixed for bringing in stability. Once a test engineer feels that the tests are stable and the test environment and other requirements are stable enough to be relied on with confidence, then only medium and low priority tests should be automated.
Do not work quietly and be secluded from the team. Please do interact with everybody in your team and treat all as if they are your friends. Be open in expressing your views and yet remain professional. Remember a good communication, friendly and healthy team relationships are always valued everywhere.
Do not discourage any team member if someone is giving some ideas or suggesting some new process or solutions. First listen patiently and then be a part of healthy discussion. Blocking or not letting someone speak or straightaway rejecting suggestions indicates you are no team player and nobody would like to work with you by their own will.
Do not try to show or boast that you know everything. This kind of behavior is not social rather you should be like a mentor and humbly show the right solutions or directions.
Do not be too descriptive or too short in test documentation. Too much of data is also boring and not interesting. Less information or data also is not welcome as it proves to be useless then. Be accurate and be precise.
Do not try to hide reports, breakages, defect leakages and outages/incidents. This will bring you bad impression and will hamper your rapport. These things are caught sooner than later and then does more harm than benefit. Instead be transparent and humbly accept the mistakes, ensure that you will work to make sure they don't happen in future and provide full analysis on the current or arrange a post mortem session for the same.
Do not avoid putting too many nitpick comments while reviewing a peer's pull request. Rather be a bit generous and only point out genuine issues with the code. Never try to delay or stop progress if you personally don't like the colleague. This is most common occurrence in places where the work culture is very competitive and everybody wishes to succeed faster.
Do not be slow in responding to emails or direct mentions on Slack etc. If one is fast and active it generally makes the Devs and managers feel that as a test engineer you are always on your feet and ready to deal with any type of situations.
Do not stop communicating with higher management regularly. Make sure you meet at least a product manager, or an engineering manager or a technical program manager from your team once a week. Make sure that you know what they expect from you, what are their problems and try to solve them or suggest ideas or solutions. This will make them see you as a valuable resource and will help you grow.
Never stop helping other Test Engineers, Devs or Managers. The more you help the better you understand things and the better relations you establish in and out of your team. Being a part of team and helping others succeed, helps you succeed too.
Never feel shy to learn even from someone you don't like much. Like and Dislike are just emotions rather the larger goal is to acquire knowledge. So bury the hatchet and bring forward the friendly and cheerful side of your personality.
Never try to discredit someone if their role/contribution was lesser than yours, remember a team wins if all in the team wins.
Never confront someone rudely if there is a disagreement. Rather discuss peacefully with open mind.
Never work overtime on things that you could do in a much shorter span of time if you could have managed your time properly or could have done those activities in allotted time slots per day. Like creating a test report of last night's failures. If you would work on the same at the time of your daily sanity testing then you could apprehend what would happen. So make sure you do the work that is required in desired time slots and manage your time better.
Know when to stop trying and when to ask for help. If there is test case to automate on which you have spend a day already and there has been no success. So do not waste more time on it and ask for help from someone. Also the point here is to not straightaway ask for help if you will do that then you will never learn and always go asking for help.
Never hesitate to escalate the situation to higher management if the work is not progressing and is dependent on someone. This should not be done in bad intention but only when you are waiting for a dependency for your testing to complete but the progress is not being made or is being delayed without any appropriate communication.

I will bring more light into such bad practices in upcoming blogs but in case you wish to learn GOOD Practices and wish to be successful in an Agile Test Environment. Please take a moment to read my book Click Here

Why you need to be prepared before starting as a test engineer in agile environment?

2017-04-09T00:50:00.001-07:00

Why do you need to prepare before exam? Why do you need to preheat oven before baking? Why do you warm up before exercising?

For all of the above questions the answer is same so that you are better prepared and ready for what follows.

In the same way you need to be prepared when you are going to get started as a software test engineer in agile environment. Agile environment and agile development or testing methodology is fast paced and competitive.

If you miss a deadline, if you leak a defect or if you fall behind a task then whole product life cycle can change and sometimes can have drastic effects on future and upcoming projects which are in the pipeline.

So the best way to get ready is know and be well prepared to perform as expected and even surpass the expectations set on you. In Silicon Valley and globally too there is has been a trend where work culture has evolved from being easy to tough, and cut throat competitive.

Every day more and more qualified engineers are coming in the job market and some of them are toppers, some of them have more skills than others etc. Also there is already a pool of experienced software testing professionals in the market who compete to get the best job, best salary, best role, be benefits and best of everything.

So think if you are not prepared and jumping in agile testing or agile development and you don't know how work is done in this methodology. How you will cope with it, what are the tips and best practices you need to follow to succeed and grow. What terminology it is based on, what processes are being followed, how testing is done, how work is assigned, and many more such questions. How do you plan to get answers for them. Do you plan to work and learn that is good strategy but it is all catching up rather being in the action and performing at your best.

So if you feel what this is all about and if you think you wish to learn. In order to get your learning back on track and be prepared to win in agile testing please read my book available at link below:

http://mayankmohansharma.blogspot.com/2017/04/my-first-book-published.html

Mentoring in Software Industry

2017-04-08T01:52:00.002-07:00

Many times people think that mentoring is just training people and making them learn certain skill set by giving few classes and the jobs' done. Rather it has all of these things like tutoring, knowledge transfer or knowledge sharing etc engulfed in itself.

Mentoring is lot more than just training and advising people. It is actually you as a Mentor taking responsibility and ownership of making sure that whoever you are mentoring becomes successful and learns how to use certain skill set or knowledge for personal and organizational growth.

Mentoring means following up regularly and monitoring the progress closely. It means making people understand technical topics easily and ensuring that people remember these things without much revision.

For example: if you tell a person that bash_profile is a file that saves certain paths and configuration settings on your mac and this file gets loaded before your terminal loads shell environment etc. Then it will be very difficult for someone to understand this. But if you tell them that a bash_profile can save short forms or aliases for certain commands that you use or type usually, and it can also be used to save path to a certain directory under a shortcut or can be used to save certain access keys etc then the person will remember this for long and can easily know what the practical application of the bash_profile is.

Mentoring helps a Mentor to understand judge his/her capabilities and also lets them know that how well they communicate. Another important aspect of mentoring software engineers is that we need to keep track of all the mentoring/training sessions with proper documentation. This helps people to easily follow the steps and follow the instructions when they need to recall something in future.

Make fear go away: Make sure that you infuse confidence in your mentees that coding or learning a new tech tool or programming language is not difficult and they have nothing to fear as you are always available to help them
Go easy with sessions: Plan sessions to go easy on the mentees. Make sure the initial sessions are short and are precisely pointing out the ways by which it will help them.
Always have practical exercises during sessions: Remember only theory never helps unless your mentees are armchair detectives. A little bit of practical session will always help them retain the knowledge for long and will give them opportunities to ask questions and explore.
Document as you go: Document each session as you go along giving training sessions. This will help in future by providing references and create a central knowledge repository to share and expand.
Test and Analyze: Regularly take frequent quizzes so that you can judge the level of understanding that mentees are holding.
Encourage: Give kudos to good mentees so that they are motivated to do even better.
Give space to explore on their own: Give them time to explore certain problems on their own so that they can develop self-exploratory and problem solving skills.
Continue the above cycle: Proceed with the above points until all the desired skill sets are developed.

This is how I perceive and try to mentor software engineers. Feel free to provide suggestions/feedbacks. Thanks for the read!

Later on we can deep dive in to how it actually works but the first step is to make people understand the need or application of the thing we are trying to tell them about

How to approach participating at Hackathons or Innovation Weeks

2017-04-08T00:30:00.000-07:00

Nowadays Hackathons or Innovation Weeks are organized in almost every company. The goal of these type of competitions are to bring out the hidden talent or ideas from employees which otherwise remains hidden. These talents or ideas or concepts remains hidden because first of all there is always lack of time. Second thing is that the priority of actual work is always greater than any other thing for an employer.

So when you get time to do something you have always wanted to do at your workplace in terms of being creative and floating and trying out new things then this is your time to show what you have it in yourself.

Here are few points to consider when you are planning to work on something in the upcoming Hackathon or Innovation week:

Try to find solution to a problem that is related to your work and your boss also agrees with you that it should be solved.
Be clear of scope of the problem on which you will work on as sometimes can be very huge to solve and you cant get whole of it covered.
Make sure you have the right and balanced team with you.
Building a team and working with your team is very important for those professionals who feel and have got feedback that they are not very good team players.
Have a pitch ready that clearly states your problem statement and what is your approach. A point or two stating that how this problem has been a bottleneck will strengthen your case.
Work by enjoying this time with your team don't stress out too much.
Be focussed on the minimal viable product approach and do not try to put much in at first go.
After the MVP is done make a brief plan on how you would like to go with it in future.
Provide estimate of how much time it would take to make the final product ready for deployment.
Make the final presentation representing your ideas plus points and present it with passion like it is your startup idea.
Enjoy the win with team as there is no one actually loses when all work together for good.

Thanks for the read!

Get my book on Software Testing and Agile Environment from here!

2017-04-06T23:08:00.000-07:00

Get and Read my book "How to start as a Software Test Engineer and be Successful in an Agile Environment" from the below given links:

It is available at below given links:

My Amazon profile as an Author: amazon.com/author/msharma

Audible, Kindle and Paperback edition: https://www.amazon.com/Mayank-Mohan-Sharma/e/B06Y3G4R75

Indian Paperback Edition: https://pothi.com/pothi/book/mayank-mohan-sharma-how-start-software-test-engineer-and-be-successful-agile-environment

Amazon India Kindle Edition: Amazon India Kindle Edition Link

Amazon India Paperback Edition: http://www.amazon.in/dp/9386503131

Flipkart India Edition:https://www.flipkart.com/start-software-test-engineer-successful-agile-environment/p/itmeuaq5acrhnggv?pid=9789386503138

Paytm India Edition: https://paytm.com/shop/p/how-to-start-as-a-software-test-engineer-and-be-successful-in-an-agile-environment-9789386503138_24933

Tips to be better as a Test Engineer in Highly Agile and Complex Environments

2017-03-10T20:12:00.001-08:00

Test Engineers already are great and do their best to keep bugs and defects aways from products and services. Here are some tips I have learnt over the years that will just help them to be better. If you already know them then make sure you tell them to a Test Engineer you meet/talk with to make him/her also succeed.

So here are the tips:

In daily scrums just don't listen the updates but think what you have on your plate for the day. Make it clear if something is ambiguous.
Adding a leaked defect to test suite does not help alone. A post-mortem of the cause of defect leakage for sure does.
Integrate Test Reporting with IMs for instant and hassle free report viewing.
Create bugs for any doubtful functionality or behavior.
Be proactive in communicating problems, achievements etc.
Estimate story points for each Testing Ticket so that you get ample time to test it.
Before automating or testing make sure your test data is accurate and can be prepared easily when needed. First apply effort in making test data creation faster and reliable.
Always communicate the test coverage to all stakeholders regularly.
Discuss with senior engineers and leads out of your immediate team also to find out ways to improve processes, tests, infrastructure etc.
Make a point to learn one new thing per day.
Be bold and speak out any thing that needs to be known to the team or stakeholders.
Build documentation with the code in form of inline statements etc.
Take opportunities to mentor new team members.
Remember planning and strategizing is always welcome even if the time provided is minimal. Prioritization can make your life much easier here.
Fast and close communication with Devs is the fastest way to get a bug resolved.
Think retrospectives as the time when you are playing judge of the process/project and have to suggest improvements and tell about shortcomings fluently.
Give advance notice of personal time off etc for team to plan ahead.
Mark your absence as "OOO" next to your name in present day messaging systems like Slack, Hipchat etc.
Create personal notifiers or bots that notify you when something related to your area of expertise is being talked about at Instant Messaging Systems.
Enjoy and do team outings! Make Testing Fun!

Tips to succeed in Highly Agile and Complex Environments

2017-02-11T17:29:00.001-08:00

I have got opportunity to work in all types of software development methodologies from waterfall to v-model to rapid prototyping to agile. I have been very grateful to all companies and people I worked with who have helped me learn so much in such a vast and highly technical industry.

Today I would like to share few tips which might help fellow test engineers in getting successful while working under a highly agile testing software development methodology. But first I will tell what is agile methodology and how work is planned under it.

An agile testing methodology has usually one or two weeks sprints or cycles in which a product manager/program manager, engineering lead/manager, engineers, test engineers, designers come together to plan out their work for the upcoming week or 2 weeks. This is basically called Sprint Planning.
Work is usually measured by story points or effort required which in turn is given weights using Fibonacci numbers i.e. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13.
Work usually includes new features and products but could include backlog of work and bug fixes.
All the work is tracked by tickets (most favorable tool at least in Silicon valley is JIRA).
All the people sit together and create/update/assign the tickets. Doubts are clarified and any deadlines/priorities are discussed openly.
Once the sprint/cycle ends all people again come together to do a retrospective of what went well, what could have been done better, who gets the applaud for outstanding contribution. This meeting also targets on getting feedback most importantly on how everybody can work more efficiently and how the processes can be improved further. It is a fun meeting and very important part of agile process.
Also important part of agile methodology is daily scrum. When all the team members come together every morning to discuss planned work for the day. Any hiccups/hurdles/dependencies are discussed. It is also used to give heads up for any planned or unplanned release that might happen during the day.

So this was agile methodology in short. A highly agile work environment would have all this done in short sprints with multiple releases and very limited time to automate or test.

In such work highly agile work environments here are some tips to be successful:

Managers/Leads: Create a release calendar which could be updated every day for any unplanned releases and have planned releases visible on them for transparency.
Devs: Mention tickets as QA or noQA so that test engineers need not waste time on figuring things out.
Devs: Mention steps to test particular ticket.
Test Engineers: Mention steps to reproduce bugs with screenshots and related metadata.
Product Managers/Program Managers/Project Managers: Set a kick-off meeting for any features etc for clarification of work, related doubts and dependency on other teams.
Raise alarm or incident immediately in order to avoid further delays.
Test Engineers: Write test automation first for the highest priority tests only in case of newly developed features in testing.
Test Engineers: Run nightly jobs for test automation so that build health is checked daily.
Share knowledge of testing and build environments with everybody in the team to debug and report issues without any dependency on any particular engineer.
Most important have documentation/Readme(s) for every work/repositories.
Set time to transfer knowledge, clarification of doubts or do group testing as and when required.
Team-Bug-Finding Exercises: Invite all engineers/managers/design team/product managers of a team to find bugs/defects in a new feature. This will help in building more collaboration, share knowledge of product with all the team members, and any doubts etc could be cleared instantly.
Get the test plan reviewed by product manager and engineering lead/manager for making sure the coverage is proper.
Publish achievements to larger audience when the product is ready and released for visibility and work recognition.
Write technical papers/white papers on something that could benefit whole industry.
Work for the success of the team if that happens then individuals automatically succeeds.
Interact regularly with team mates and managers to find out pain areas and try to work on solutions.
Enjoy work and happy hour both :)

Thats all thanks for the read once again. I hope this helps!

Best Practices for Mobile Test Automation

2015-04-28T22:49:00.003-07:00

Best practices learnt by experience for Mobile Test Automation are:

Scope decision for Mobile Test Automation in highly agile workflow should be based on the following priority levels i.e. Top -> Smoke Tests, Medium -> Regression Tests, Low -> Features Related Tests
Which Test Automation Tool Programming Language has to be used? This decision should be made on the following:

Does automation of smoke tests or basic functionality require any API/Backend support that is designed in some specific language (hence that preferred should be used for test automation preferably to easily extend or reuse the existing architecture)
Does novice testers needs to be trained for automation which have manual testing exposure or comes from non-engineering background? In this case natural language based or record/play type of tools and supporting languages should be used. (Don't want to quote specific examples here)

Which test automation tool to be used?

This decision depends on several factors that a combined decision or understanding can answer this. For example how big is test automation requirement if it is not huge and apps are completely native plus no specific requirements are on the design patterns to be used then native UIAutomation tools can be used. One advantage in using native UIAutomation tools is that they get direct support from the mobile platform owners and is usually robust.
If there is large number of tests to be automated and the application is relatively complex then the tests should be based on a design pattern and can use pretty advanced third party test automation tools
In case the test automation has to be parallelized and integrated with Continuous integration systems then we should use design patterns, third party tools and also cloud based test automation environments along with a solid CI solution which is difficult to find currently but yes whatever is available solves the purpose

An effective test automation tool should always have a solid reporting mechanism based on the organization requirements.
Test Automation Coverage should also be tracked in order to derive useful metrics and efficiency/productivity derivations.
Tests should be independent of any device/simulator and should have conditions to tackle runs on all types of mobile test environments.
All test automation should majorly focus on two aspects first is to help in shipping faster and secondly reduce manual test dependencies.
Tests should always avoid explicit waits at any point and have sufficient retries and conditions to avoid these.
3 phases of test automation should go in parallel for a highly agile workflow else test automation is bound to fail i.e. development, execution and maintenance. In order to avoid failure prioritization and scope has to be define in pretty solid terms beforehand.
Page Object Pattern is generally the most efficient design pattern for mobile test automation.
Agile process should include suitable workflows for inclusion of test automation enabling accessibility labels/ids.
Reusable methods/functions should be designed to reduce redundant test steps as much as possible.
Use of human readable function/variable/method/class/abstract method names should be used.
Code with complex logic handling be marked with suitable justifying comments to avoid fellow test automation QAs understand your logic.
Tests should be written such that failure of one does not affect any other test running in parallel to fail. Sequential test run model should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Parallelization is the key to test automation success!
Each part of a test should be configurable for user/data inputs. No hard coded values are appreciated in the real coding world.
In the end all genuine code review comments should be acknowledged and be used as learning points for future test designs.
The best teacher for test automation is your self do as much as you can and you will see that you are innovating and passing all hurdles with ease.

Thanks all for the read, I will keep sharing the goodness as and when I will learn more by experience and by hands-on!

Big Data application in Software Testing: An Enormous Growth & Research Opportunity

2014-08-17T23:17:00.001-07:00

No matter what tools we use, what scripting language, what processes, design patterns, approaches, strategies, types or methodologies we use. Software Testing has always remained the same i.e. being "Function Centric" only. The ways has been different in order to verify and validate the basic functionalities under test but largely the motive has always been the same.

But now the paradigm shift is beginning to take place, which might be seen by some people who likes to think about the future. The shift is towards the way technological applications' are used and how efforts are being invested in order to study the usage or usage patterns of these technological applications by end users.

For example if there is a mobile app that tells about the latest football match score many people can use it differently as per their preferences. Like a normal football team fan use it to see whether his/her team is winning or not by only checking scorecard in midst of his daily job schedule. A second user can use it to watch live telecast of the match. A third user can use to it bet on teams, A fourth one to track only his/her favorite player and also a fifth one who can use it to see that when the match might finish and at what time he should hit the road (that has the stadium in its path) to reach his home on time to attend his kid's birthday party.

So there can be a lot many use cases where an app can be used differently apart from it's basic functionality. Now most of the companies are today concentrating on this basic functionality that focuses more on their business model and USP of the app itself. This is what is absolutely right as per the today's utilization of their app's service solution.

But as we are gradually witnessing the role that usage analytics based on Big Data utilization is playing these days, we can say that the days are not far when applications has not only be tested for their basic functionality but also for other logical patterns; the information provided by these applications can be or is being utilized knowingly or unknowingly by the end users.

In the present day we have seen an exponential rise in analytics tools that can deliver all the hardware/software platforms end users are using, navigational paths, conversion rates, most sold item, least read book chapter, crash analytics, performance statistics, location based usage and many more kind of analytical informations.

This is just a tip of expanding global industry we are witnessing. The present day scenario is that the tools are good enough to deliver these stats upon some triggers but they are incapable to help us look more into a kind of expandable map of possibilities or provide meaning to this data more precisely. Currently the product managers or developers or testers make sense out of this slightly cooked data to improve there applications. But what I see is an approach that is easy to follow from today itself such that we can use this Big Data more effectively for testing and making products far far better.

Few ways by which we can visualize the possibilities of Big Data based Analytical Testing are:

A tool which can draw all the usage patterns of the app, visually depicting all the possible navigational paths for example: paths of the most frequently used UI navigations map etc. Tool should be capable of dynamically assigning paths with respective weights as the app is being used by end users to make a real data real usage based prioritization testing plans/strategies etc.
Users' usage patterns based on real time events/occasions sometimes defines usage of applications in unique ways so coverage of those scenarios to provide more value other than the basic functionality. This would require analysis of entry and exit points to the applications and pre and post event analysis.
Capture of frustrating or appreciating moments of usage of the applications apart from reviews, ratings, emails etc i.e. conventional methods.
Testing of user desired capability expectations in scenarios the requests can be instantaneous and from unprecedented platforms e.g. if a user does a verbal query from his LG G-Watch for the latest position of a pizza van. But suppose if this feature is only provided on website by that respective company then this might prove to be potential bad customer experience. Although the basic functionality of the app still is functioning perfectly on the website. But still that platform rendered not useful for this customer who is driving and wants to just know the status spoken up by his smart watch. In this case company restricted customer of using real time update just because company never came to know that there might be around 50 users that can do exactly the same thing again or some of them have even tried and failed earlier, making them shift to some other pizza vendors.

These are only a handful of ways that I have provided in order to make you all think that what all other ways can be there and how we can develop or envision them in order to make software testing more advanced and more useful than its present day applicability.

Artificial Intelligence & Software Testing + The World of Artificial Gene Synthesis induced Artificial Intelligence!

2014-06-19T21:24:00.004-07:00

More on Artificial Intelligence and Software Testing:

There is a lot of discussion/debate going on, in the high-tech research fields based on artificial intelligence and its implications on software testing. It is being foretold that intelligent machines like IBM Watson can take over all forms of testing in coming decade or so.

Initially artificially intelligent entities will not be fully aware of their own self. And the process of generating result oriented thoughts/solutions either by induced stimuli or by mere observations will still be a thing of distant future for them. They will not be suitable for jobs where they can create, design or develop according to set protocols and give desired outcomes.

So the next best use of their "artificial-intelligence" will be based on learning how to test or verify & validate a particular functionality as per desired behavior. This AI can be set to try and match the observed results with expected results. And in this due process; the gradually learning artificial conscience can learn to perceive, observe, and judge the observations as accurate or erroneous based on the desired functional patterns.

To understand the underlying concept:

Think that you are being asked to create a pencil that writes with ink instead of carbon lead. The first step to solve this problem will instantly start with imagining a pencil in our mind. And then later we will proceed to think of ways to put ink in the pencil structure and so on and so forth.

But imagine if somebody has not seen a pencil with carbon lead or a pen with ink refill. How this person can start his thought process, what should be the initial step for him to proceed with?

Now consider the same person who has played with a pencil and pen both. He knows about its functionality, its shape, color and other properties. If the problem is now asked to this person he will have a starting point to proceed with and there is a possibility that even, if he has limited intelligence capability, he can imagine a pencil with a pen refill inside it.

What we observed from this example is that to test and to verify/validate is not a job where intelligence is not required rather a job which helps instill a thought process. In such a way that concepts related to the functionality-under-test or validation/verification becomes clear. And sets a path which leads to an actual functional result oriented outcomes. Rather than just a series of failed attempts without any clear point of intelligence incubation.

So the initial applications that we wish to derive out of AI would be more test-centric rather development-centric. In more crude words it will be a baby step towards actual testing from simple tasks of Verification & Validation.

Now another point is that no Test Capable AI also can start without an initiation. Initiation point for this will be a different kind of test data which will give a hint of pattern to this AI in order to initiate the perception, observation and start applying the judgment in testing the functionality.

Mathematically and by the usage of suitable computational resources these concepts will be tested and provided with stats to approve or disapprove them.

Biologically induced Artificial Intelligence:

Now we will talk about a new concept that I thought of while going through the videos of Dr.Craig Venter in which he remarkably presented the creation of artificial DNA sequence. This work can be of great potential in sequencing artificial DNA structures that can work on perception of input patterns and provide results in the forms of algorithmic self-assembly structures.

When these algorithmic assemblies will be compared to an expected result the test can be said to be verified or validated.

To understand this concept think of a much simpler problem i.e. 2+3=5. Now the initiation to test this equation will be the already set: algorithmic self-assembly structures by which we can define each known integer respectively.

The first step will be to perceive that there is a pattern where integers are only used. AI can narrow down its observation patterning capability to only integers now. Now when the this observation will be provided to test to the DNA, it will react to the stimuli and would arrange itself in a uniquely identifiable self-assembly structure.

This structure will validate/verify that the result is integer, & function to be tested was addition. Hence the result will match the observation with expectation successfully.

As this technology will be based on DNA, Self-Assembly, A.I and possibility of mutable DNA structures as complex reasoning pattern assemblies. It will show us the window towards developing a possible integration of electronics with genetics resulting in computational genetics/artificial genetics induced intelligence or Artificial DNA based Intelligence Simulation. Also as the DNA will be artificially cultured, it can be made perishable; hence human or human(ely) controllable (debatable topic).

There is a lot what we can achieve through this new convergence of Artificial Genetic Structuring with Artificial Intelligence. And there are immense number of possibilities where it can be put to use in order to give astounding results.

So until this is proved and implemented, let us keep exercising our brain muscles and delve into the amazing world of technology and science.

Lessons to be learnt from Mr.Narendra Modi for IT Management

2014-04-28T23:14:00.003-07:00

I have been always a keen follower of Mr.Narendra Modi's (Renowned Indian Politician) thoughts on his governance, growth and development methods.

He has recently become a more impacting and youth driving + motivating sensation in India, with millions of motivated youth from urban and rural parts of India following him and wishing him to be next PM of India.

The few lessons that he conveys to public in his rallies are of such unique but brilliantly vibrant that they can be applied everywhere to give astounding results. I wish to derive the learning aspect of his speeches to devise methods that can make IT Management a very focused route in order to benefit all i.e. client, team, ourselves and employer respectively.

So here are the points:

Never Think of Becoming Someone rather Think of Doing Something: This mantra tells us the root of success in life. When a person thinks of becoming somebody important with power or prominence, it can hurt sometimes if the dream is not accomplished because not always you get what you want, not always the results of your hard work pays in the same amount you toiled for it. When this failure is encountered a person might get demotivated in life and can lose the sight on goal. Rather if you think of doing something which has importance, it motivates the person to deliver in short term goals which progressively leads the person to the larger goal and ultimately success. At times if a person loses the sight of short term goals or feels demotivated he can easily come back by realizing his stagnation or turmoils or mistakes. So now how can I apply this in managing an IT workforce. If we set target for our teammates on short term goals like automating parts of functionality each week, developing this part of code each week rather than giving them a bulk task of automation of complete payment procedure or developing code for complete checkout process. If we break the task it is easier to manage. In the same way if we think of earning a post of Delivery Manager we need to see that how well we are able to understand the basics of development while we are a novice developer, how will we advance on my skill set this year and how will I learn to mentor our juniors next year. Slowly like this when we pass the successive year we can later focus on leading team, innovating ang try to give value to client and then save company cost and increasing earning revenue. Working in the direction of doing something with excellence leads us to position of excellence and once this work habit is developed nobody can stop us from personal, social or organizational growth.
Never look upon someone, never look down on someone rather look collectively towards achieving a goal: This suggests that we should neither look over somebody with self-proclaimed superiority, nor we should look over somebody thinking that he or she is weak, without self-decisive point of view. Rather we should look in ways that how we can contribute with him or her in order to achieve a common goal together. If we waste our time in petty hatred building views in a group or team we can never succeed both personally and collectively. In a team we should try to allocate jobs as per person's dire interest and fore-see how this allocation can be done in order to collectively drive the team towards its set goals. For example if there is a young programmer who does not code well but is good in criticizing other people's code and on the other hand there is a software tester who can find discrepancies in code. This young programmer and tester would normally in real world be asked to continuously do the same job on daily basis even though there vested interests are in opposite roles. But if we don't look upon or down on there performance and adopt a collective approach of problem solving keeping the interests of our code base quality as the benchmark of success we can easily switch the roles and see if this really works. If it works it is good for the team and them if not we can see how there roles can be slightly modified so that they can become code reviewer and software developer engineer for testing respectively. Thus solving both the problems and creating a win-win for all.
Life is choosing between intense hard work, hard work and smart way of working: People can do the jobs in 3 ways, people achieve their goals in 3 ways, people life is also governed by these 3 ways i.e. by doing intense hard work, or by doing hard work in general, or by doing work smartly. Suppose there is functionality to be tested this can be done by covering all the test scenarios manually on all the required platforms by working day and night i.e. intense hard work. This can also be done by combining automation and manual testing by covering all scenarios on all platforms i.e. hard work.Third is using cloud based automated test environments for test scenario execution in parallel yet covering all the scenarios. So the essence is that no matter hard work is always rewarded but smarter way of doing work is appreciated, it saves valuable time, earns benefits and above all develops a way of thinking to do things unconventionally. This out-of-the-box thinking makes us smarter and helps us in making our work more efficient and productive.
Come together to Grow together: If we come together in a team and participate in each and every decision taken by the team management whole-heartedly we have better chances of succeeding together. Rather if people within the teams are divided in sub-groups who does not keep their points or discuss their issues going forward in a particular direction it becomes difficult for all to come together and work towards a team goal. Slowly all members lose interest and neither the team goals are achieved nor the individual goals are achieved. But if all members discuss things and resolve issues beforehand and then work towards a goal whole-heartedly it increases the probability of succeeding. Effort should not be made in the direction of avoiding or alienating team members if they are not willing to co-operate but towards finding ways so that all come together for the same.
Freedom to Work as per own's interest for some part of the day: I personally have experienced the same in my team once. There was Software tester in my team who liked to think about new product designs and innovative products he always was full of wonderful ideas to discuss. But he was going nowhere with them as his job was just the mobile apps for the client. Once a manager thought of giving him some time to analyse the mobile apps and provide some feedback. After 2 days the draft version of app features suggestions he proposed were so marvelous that client's marketing head wished to meet him in order to work on the same ideas he proposed. This is the power of doing what we like doing the most. In IT companies if for identified individuals who have shown some interest based caliber in doing something different that in turn can benefit the project/product should be encouraged.
Growth for all is the solution for all problems: In a team if there are 50 IT specialists, then a lead or manager should have a plan from beginning to ensure growth for all these 50 members from day one. If a lead or manager fails to do so, the team will lose talent, team members will lose interest, team will lose targets, and like a domino effect everything will fail one day. And one day the lead or manager will have to escape and witness the downfall over the shoulder's of new lead or manager.
More the power lead/manager has distributed to subordinates the more powerful the team will be: If a person or 2 person have all the power and tries to manage everything then the team or system will fail. If the person-in-charge distributes the power to capable subordinates and in return looks into solving problems that these subordinates cannot solve, will make a team more productive. Rather than wasting time in managing subordinates.
A Creative Man is motivated by Desire to Achieve but not by Desire to Defeat others: Suppose if I try to compete with a fellow architect and try to defeat him by doing few things better than him. What really I would be doing is that I will be limiting myself to the capabilities of the other guy and concentrate my energy in working on skills that will make me only competitively superior to the other guy. But if I work to compete with myself if I challenge myself that OK if I can design an effective architecture for developing High Performance Cloud Services for Healthcare then how can I better myself in reducing the throughput to a much lower level. If I work in this direction then I will be taking my knowledge and skill set level to a much higher standards rather than wasting my time on petty individual targeted advancement of skill set.
Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it: Suppose I get a low performance appraisal this year so shall I stop performing and stop enhancing my skillset, shall I stop going to office, shall I stop enjoying my work? No if I get something that I don't deserve then I should have the self-esteem and confidence to show the management that what I am capable of. If a person works undeterred towards his/her goal no matter how long he/she has to work he/she achieves what he has always deserved. No hard work goes waste no learning is useless. If we wish to go ahead and succeed we should learn to tackle 10% of hurdles with 90% of positive and powerful determination.

How Smart Watches or Smart Gadgets can truly be made Smart?

2014-04-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

The Smart Watches that we currently have in market or will see in the forthcoming years cannot become truly Smart if they don't present the users with something that is based on disruptive innovation and makes the prospective users accept it as a daily need rather than just providing them with a new accessory for a fashion or geeky statement.

These smart watches will be mere "Mobile Phones" miniaturized and redesigned for wrists having the same redundant phone features without presenting the users with joy and excitement of using a truly remarkable smart companion.

The features that should be included in a true smart watch in order to stand out as a successful product needs to be supported with focused research & development plus with an understanding that redundant products don't last long but the products can creates their own market does.

Points that can make present day smart watches truly "Smart" are:

A smart watch should have its own tech to access the internet. It is a "Good to Have" feature now that the present day smart watches rely on mobile phones for the same but in future such devices would not be worthy as they are bound to lose user's interest. Mainly because of short battery life, relying on bluetooth short ranges etc. A smart watch that will have its own internet access power will stand out and that access should be supported in all forms like SIM, Wi-Fi or Tethering.
A smart watch needs to have the ability to set smart notifications. A smart notification is like suppose I like to get updated about Formula1 news but I do not want all the news to be collected but only one like Ferrari/Alonso standing in Australian Race. Price of USD/INR fluctuation below certain level etc. Check how many colleagues have voted yes for an weekend outing only with a vote count notification after my Friday's 3:00 pm meeting, remind me of my friend's ping in the evening that I checked but not replied etc. If we can provide with this ability to set smart notifications then that would be a really helpful feature.
Judging the mood of the wearer would be wonderful for example the best way to do it is to notice that how many times the wearer had a laugh in a day or how many times he paid for Starbucks coffee or how late he slept and got up matching it with physical activity next day. So there are many ways in which this also can be tracked and can provide more than just activity tracking. Once we know the mood of the wearer we can make other features on the smart watch behave accordingly like if the person is happy then we can tell him about weekend's weather or latest movie, if wearer is tired due to busy day and less sleep we can decrease the notifications and give the person a more peaceful aura and so on and so forth.
Provide the watch with the ability to detect health conditions like if a user's blood pressure always stays at 80/120 with 5% variations normally but if there is steep rise or fall then watch can ask for SOS alert to preset emergency numbers. If there is sudden rise or fall of heartbeat then ask for user's attention and there can be many other features that can help in this way.
Usage of smart watch's processing power when it is not used at some points of day in order to collect meaningful data/info for the user like I wish to know relation between ontology and knowledge engineering then ask the watch to search through Google's top 10 search results for this and present with a informational summary.
Learn through user engagement like there are times in a day when user will spend time on the watch like going through notifications, checking news headlines or set preferences. So this time can be used to push the user with the info that he/she has shown more interest in like checking of social networking feeds, checking calendar for planning, reminder to reply missed pings/calls/texts etc
Make use of sensors on device to provide with relevant information at relevant time
Ability to connect derive and use information about the user from all the computational platforms like desktop, laptop, phones, home automation systems, music players, other smart devices or sensors. This can be achieved by slowly building the ecosystem or by providing smart watch all possible ways it can connect to these external electronic environments without owning them but via collaboration.
Ability to get long battery life or power through solar energy or utilization of human body heat/movement for energy purposes until other sufficiently advanced technologies are not fully developed for commercial use. What if your watch charges if you tie it around your leg and go for a run?
Most importantly it should have the ability to take feeds from smart watches of friends or relatives who authenticate for example only sharing their Lunch time location so that we can meet up and discuss new ideas. My brother shares his latest time spend in gym for a push-up challenge. My wife's mood share to plan the weekend :) etc.
Ability to provide probabilistic predictions based on my personality like if I ask my smart watch that what will be the best time to go downtown for getting my prized possession watch glass fixed so that there is minimal traffic based delay, or how frequently I need to walk in office so that I can burn at least 500 calories etc
Ability to give me geo-location based feeds of interesting stuff that is happening around like I am travelling to a trekking track but there is hot water spring nearby or if I go to a movie in the evening and find that there will be a surprise visit by the star cast at that theater. So all this stuff can be taken from search services available but the striking point is the semantics that will make this possible
Providing the watch with enough computational power so that it can be connected to a larger display and students in developing nations can use it for very basic & general computer related jobs like net browsing, video streaming, communication etc.
Lastly giving watch the power to authenticate or securely identify the wearer. For example if a pin is required for a transaction smart watch can generate one based on encryption to authenticate a payment, provide secure identification for monitored areas, and provide security officials with users identification in case of fatal incidents.

These are few ideas that can make a smart watch truly "Smart", working and learning ways on how some day these can be implemented. So continue to make your grey matter more dense and enjoy the gifts & joy of learning each day more about science & technology.

Technology Trends that will drive the next decade till 2025

2014-02-02T15:47:00.003-08:00

Technology Trends in the upcoming decade 2015-2025:

Crowd-Based Business Models in Developing Nations: Crowd Funding, Crowd Sourcing, Crowd Testing etc has been a hit in the developed nations. In the coming 10 years if Governments & Entrepreneurs of Developing Nations see the potential of the "Crowd" then this model will grow tremendously in these countries and help these respective countries also grow exponentially. The wonderful USP of this "Crowd" is that it can be applied to every single thing if applied sensibly, and with a solid plan. It has the power of empowering young kids who wish to innovate & become entrepreneurs, it helps people get jobs, and businesses plus nations grow.

Commercial Space Explorations & Tourism: It will be a growing trend to closely watch in this upcoming decade. As all the major space exploratory organizations have expressed their interest in inviting Private companies to provide solutions, services, R&D, Innovation, and help leading nations in advancing their race to explore and commercially benefit from the vasts of offerings that these depths of space has to offer. Space tourism will attract more companies to come forward and devise safe and cheap ways to tour the space. Presently NASA & Virgin Galactic are the first pioneers in taking steps towards commercializing space exploration & space tourism respectively.

Wearable Human Interaction Interfaces: We will see a phenomenal rise in the coming 5 years when Mobile Devices will be considered a thing of obsolete tech. New Wearable Human Interaction Compatible Devices will be defining the way we will communicate with other fellow Human Beings. The infancy phase of this technology began when smart watches, sixth sense and activity/health tracking sports or medical applications centered wearable devices began to appear in late years of 2000.

Inclusion of Robotics to Living Rooms: There will be practical applications devised out of technology that long existed but till now had a very little impact on the lives of common people. We will see Robotics coming inside our living rooms and helping us in ways we never thought of.

Omni-Present, Omni-Controlled Smart Living Spaces: We will see a steep rise in light boards, cars, heaters, ovens, projectors, laptops, TVs and what not being controlled by one omni-control, omni-present network that could be monitored by our phone, watch etc. Technology will enable us to take control of all the things that surround us in the way we want and that will set path to the next level of human evolution & growth.

Bio-genetics & bio-engineering growth (Stem Cell & Space Microbiology): We will witness a boom of technology based out of stem cell research and genetics. We will be able to see increased number of medical procedures where utilization of stem cell research and genetics will be curing more diseases globally. We will see a number of research papers derived out of research our scientists will do in the area of microbiology under the effects of space. It will give us more insight to our origin and curing of some of the major diseases.

Food & Industrial Revolution due to 3-D Printing: We will see a revolution that 3-D printing will bring to this world. Developing & Under Developed nations will be able to develop cheap technology to print food out of ingeniously developed 3-D printers, as the technology has already showcased it's potential we can very well witness a move by WHO soon. Industrial manufacturing of precise machinery, in-space manufacturing, merger of nanotechnology and 3-D printing, bio-nano and 3-D etc such technology branches will emerge and help us solve some technologically tedious tasks in an innovative and much cheaper ways.

Education Centered Technological Growth: We will see nations concentrating on evolving new ways to educate their younger generations. It will be a phase where people will realize that the real meaning of education is to use it for common growth and the betterment of humanity. I again foresee; developing countries who has the potential to become the front runners in this direction. Many technological institutions and research centers will be set up which will focus on certain areas of science & technology such that it will not only benefit the nations specifically but also humanity as a whole.

Advanced Batteries or even No Batteries: There will be more focus in this decade to build batteries with low or negligible energy decay coefficients. In the same direction companies will focus on reduction in their size but increasing their longevity as a whole. R&D based on Super Capacitors or Ambient Back-scatter will see give astonishing results.

Big Data Analysis for Personalized Devices: This decade will be a starting point of big data analysis for personalized devices. People will be surrounded by a number of devices and there would be requirement where people at one point would not know which information is important and which is not for them. This is when we will see global technology focus shift from providing these devices to actually get meaning out of them.

Virtual Currency: We have seen how Bitcoin have grown to actual popularity and adoption by various companies across as a payment method. We might see birth and circulation of more robust technology based virtual currencies in future. Some controlled by Governments and some by no one having obvious pros and cons in both the cases.

Configurable Mobile Devices: Just as we are today able to configure our laptops and desktops in the same way we will see that we will be exactly choose in the future that which hardware we need to put in our mobile phone, smart watch or smart TV. We will have the power to configure all the hardware and software in-and-out, to build our very personalized and self focused devices. Generic devices market will see a falling trend other than the ones that offer basic features in under-developed or developing nations.

This concludes my today's blog post. In the Next I will present some ideas that how Microsoft can again become the leading technology company as it once was. Thanks for the read.

Please follow me on my Twitter Account for my Micro blogs too

2014-01-27T21:18:00.000-08:00

My Twitter Account can be reached at: https://twitter.com/mayankms

Features that can make Apple beat Competition - A letter to Tim Cook (Apple CEO)

2013-09-11T06:34:00.002-07:00

Hi Tim,

I am a guy with a technical and innovative bent of mind. I am a big fan of the innovation culture that Apple has followed all these years. In the recent times media; globally has depicted that Apple is slowing down in innovating. I have few innovative ideas I would like to share with you, if they can be of any use then I will be more than glad. So the list is given below:

1. As Apple astounded the world by introducing first ever Touch Phone it can again astound the world by bringing in first Touch Phone without any buttons only Touch Enabled. This will be a feature that make iPhone or other Apple devices again stand above competition. Instead of buttons gestures based on tapping certain areas of phone, voice commands or a combination of other sensors can easily eradicate the need of buttons. Moreover if the buttons are not there then the Apple Devices can be made water-proof or even fluids proof.

2. One area where no body has yet tapped into is the utilization of mobile phone sensors. There are a number of sensors that an iPhone carries today like orientation sensors, temperature, proximity etc. But there is not a single capable utility or app available that can use the sensory data from these sensors and can provide the user with meaningful information that can be utilized practically. For example if a person who is not very health conscious goes for a hike abruptly then the sensors can automatically feed him with his health stats or nearby rest points to help him in his trip. This is one example rather there are a numerous ways the sensory data can help ( I am working on an algorithm to make use of it)

3. Apple can enable a new feature of User Profiles like suppose I am in office then all my selected office use apps can be set to use mobile data/wi-fi etc to keep me updated about the work and when I am home then office profile should get deactivated (rather we can still select some priority apps to be in active mode) and News or Entertainment apps should become more active. All these profiles can be created by users by selecting apps and also selecting hardware/software options they can access as per user preferences.

4. Apple devices can be given a new feature to share apple device based location with another apple device on security handshake. This can help parents keep track of their children and can help business guys to see if they are approaching the person they wish to meet or even find lost devices.

5. Biometrics based security APIs if integrated and made available to developers to provide users with compatible devices that can provide utils based on high security can prove to be a turning point.

6. Cheaper spare parts should be made available to the countries where Apple devices have low market capture and only a single cheaper version of each Apple device can be launched there. So that competitors can get a good competition.

7. Devices should come accompanied with LBE and NFC Apple Tags that users can paste anywhere encrypted with security password/biometric solutions and use them to give info to family members in case they are going out or have kept dinner in refrigerator as people do with Post-It notes. More uses can be devised of Apple NFC & LBE tags if Apple devices are accompanied with these technologies. Payment enabling using these techs should be left on market popularization and adoption behavior of users towards using these techs for financial transactions.

8. We have touch phones, tablets, watches etc but none of the device gives the ability to have all of them in one i.e. a device with fold-able or retractable or slide open kind of add-on screens that can be folded or held inside a single iPhone. The innovative implementations of the same can be done as I said in many ways or even by the use of new tech but if Apple can introduce this type of device first it will converge the tablet & phone market.

9. Introduction of a Bio-Chemical sensor based Home Button which can detect various chemicals in our body or our health state when our finger touches the Home button.

10. A sensitive SIRI mode which can be enabled by lone commuters, female users in case they feel insecure in certain surroundings. Activation of a distress call or sms can be done when SIRI detects a single distress code word like MayDay, Help, MomDad etc.

11. Inclusion of solar/bio-thermal/bio-pressure charging panels on the phone/tablets so that it can get charged on the go hence lasting the user experience & battery support. The more the people have phones with them the more services/products we can offer.

12. Integration of sending SOS/Distress message even if the cellular or wi-fi network is not available via GEOS International Emergency Response Center. Also this feature can be used in case the device gets lost.

13. Using of Bluetooth or BLE to transfer the apple device view on a goggle or shades while jogging or driving so that user can navigate the phone without holding the device in hand but via remote handling it or remote controlling it through a variety of personal viewing accessories.

14. A mini projector that can fit inside the pocket to be sold as an accessory with Apple Devices or even inclusion of a projector like technology into the Apple Device itself to get the ultimate big screen for enhanced viewer experience.

15. Ability to share free apps without compromising security to other Apple Device users in case they don't have round the clock net access in countries like Maldives, India, Nepal etc. but still there are a number of users who use Apple devices in these countries.

16. Ability to use both the cameras at the same time to record a live party or simply for fun.

17. Ability to use a combined internet bandwidth of Wi-Fi+Cellular+USB Tethering suppose it falls below a particular speed limit.

Many Thanks for the read!!!

Mobile Sensors or Smartphones Sensors based Ubiquitous Computing

2013-07-16T10:21:00.000-07:00

The Smartphones that we use in our day to day lives are filled with a colony of sensory chips or if I compare it to human body it is filled with a number of organs.

In case of human body each organ plays a vital role in keeping us alive and in making our body functional. In the same way the sensors in smartphones today keeps a streamlined flow of informational stats to the smartphones' processor or to the apps in order to keep that particular functionality in the running mode.

Whenever we hold a phone in our hand we do not realize that this marvel of technology has the power to provide us with information that we unknowingly miss or is continuously missed or not interpreted by our mind. As I have mentioned in my earlier post about the "Future of Mobile Computing", Mobile Devices will largely define all the future major innovations in the consumer based computing industry, but in this post I will tell you that how will it be possible to start with providing personalized processed info to an individual and then gradually move on to socially or globally indicative aspects of the processed information from these "Smart Devices".

Taking the example of the recently launched Samsung Galaxy S4 smart computing hand held device/phone. I would like to notify that it is capable of giving us 14 types of sensory data. Please refer list below:

Time
Location
Altitude of the device
Gravity
Orientation
Atmospheric Pressure
Proximity
Magnetic Field
Linear Acceleration
Relative Humidity
Rotation Vector
Gyroscope based Directional Sense
Temperature
Light--> Indoor/Outdoor (RGB & Brightness Sensor data)

But the irony is that the phone does not have a single application that can accumulate data from these sensors as a combined input mechanism in order to give a really personalized & "Üseful" analysed "Info".

Think of the possibility that if we can get information from all these sensors for all the activities we do in only a time frame of 24 hours. It is astounding to know this meaningful information can be used to provide us inputs regarding our vehicle's fuel consumption mileage, our health stats, our emotional status, our location based risks, our social status, predict near future events, alert notifications in cases of emergency, delivery of required info at right time, our most productive time period of the day and numerous other informational feeds.

If we move forward leaving behind the informational impact on a single being, if we can process the data from a group of individuals suppose a class of 15 quantum mechanics students. The teacher can quickly grasp the pointers which left student's lose interest and which made them more enthusiastic. I mean to say if we combine the sensory data of a group of individuals it will provide us the info that can help prevent epidemics or can help in promoting an Ad-Campaign.

Now if we can combine the data across states we can have global demographic data and real time traffic stats to help build new highways. The Micro to Macroscopic view to the benefits of this technology innovation can bring into our lives is endless.

I have begun working on defining a computing algorithm for this type of sensory data utilization for ubiquitous computing. If the interested ignited minds like to contribute then they are welcome.

At the last I would like you to think on the lines of studying the effects of various kinds of informational feeds we take inside our minds via TV, Mobile, PCs etc and look into the possibility of delivering personalized educative content to people in shorter digestible amounts so that they can inch closer to the full grasp of the related topics. This application will be useful in defining an ubiquitous knowledge sharing mechanism by utilizing user patterns of social or informational feeds via various channels.

Future of Mobile Computing - Consumers and Manufacturers Perspective

2013-07-07T07:21:00.005-07:00

Mobile Computing has risen way above since it was first offered to consumers. Initial versions of Mobile Computing offerings used remotely operated objects, embedded devices, laptops, handheld palmtops, digital watches and many more items which made the consumers witness the advances and advantages of Mobile Computing.

But nowadays consumers are empowered with smartphones which have easily become the substitutes for desktops or even laptops. Laptops and desktops are being gradually outnumbered by Tablet PCs, Tablets, Smartphones and UltraBooks. These devices have drastically got reduced in size and have immensely grown in the computational power they offers. There is a merger of two futuristic technologies namely Mobile and Cloud Computing to virtually monitor, offer and shift all the computing to mobile/movable devices which are able to run on software that is remotely located in a distant cloud based server.

The present Mobile Computers or Handheld Devices or Smartphones/Tablet PCs etc offer an ever increasing amount of hardware in terms of its processing, storage or connectivity abilities. A generic solution is available to the consumers from which they have to choose in order to select a piece of product that would more or less suit their needs. Rather the global trend sees a common trend of selecting the latest mobile phone from the manufacturers that is either recently launched or is from a consumer favorite brand like Apple or Samsung or HTC.

But if we look into the future I would see a major shift in what people would like to chose in terms of what kind of Mobile Smartphone or Tablet they would like to buy. In future it would be like a building or configuring a Smartphone down to the lowest hardware/software levels to suit a particular consumer needs.

Gone will be days when we would be buying a pre-configured phone which the Manufacturer thinks is the best choice for us. We will be able to configure or phones and suit them to our needs. We would fill them with those usability features that would truly help us in our jobs or daily chores. Recently Motorola has taken a brave move in offering phones to UK Consumers which can be pre-configured as per user's needs.

In future we would also see a major shift from limb-held devices to limb-mounted devices. Like we would not be wearing a smart watch but it would be mounted on our wrists as a mounted or embedded component in our skin or by any other prosthetic means.

Also we would be seeing an era of ubiquitous computing and a mobile computing environment which will be self aware of the surroundings and would be smart or intelligent enough to even predict that we have chances of catching cold in case we step into cold water under some jittery health condition.

We are soon approaching the future that all the computing we see will transform itself from a stationary technology to Mobile Technologies. All the Computing will see a major shift from Stationed technology centers to Mobile and Ubiquitous Technologies.

There is lot of scope for innovators to pre-approach and visualize the scenarios to offer newer and smarter services and in the way take advantage of the financial boom it has in it stakes.

How to manage Crowd Testing and Crowdsourcing? Addressing Major Managerial Problems

2013-05-31T10:11:00.003-07:00

Crowd Testing is a new paradigm in the quality driven space of software testing. There are a number of predictions and pros stating that this type of testing might become immensely popular and would be able to acquire a profitable market share in the software testing industry. On the contrary it is yet to be seen any significant success stories or deliveries achieved via this innovative branch of crowdsourcing industry. Without denying the fact that this area of software testing is still in its so called adoption oriented infancy rather it has grown significantly based upon its technology/infrastructure driven maturity level, yet we have to keep a keen eye on the expanse or demise of the same.

Whenever a new technology comes in everybody starts to talk about its advantages and benefits it bring along. But as I am closely related to this field I felt to do otherwise I would like to point out more cons or problems that we need to manage or deal with, so that Crowd Testing succeeds and can truly stay put on the variety of beneficial claims laid down by its pioneers.

The major managerial problem this crowd testing brings can be summed into these categories:

Proper Dissemination of Testing Requirements into the Crowdsourced Team of Testers
Skill identified or Experience based Work Allocation
Concrete Business Clarifications Mechanism
Reduction of crowdsourced resources based liability risks and mitigation plan
Irrefutable Wages Delivery Mechanism
Enabling of testing technologies for mobile, business intelligence, VPN etc on crowd testing environments
Business Confidentiality & Security Aspect Justification for Cloud and Crowd based software testing model
Defects Validation Mechanism
Synchronization Mechanism of crowdsourced testers' (globally located) work for Test Reporting (For periods when defects are scarce)
Crowdsourced Resource Retention
Idiosyncrasy of Deployment Schedules & Stringent Timelines
Ground level binding of Crowdsourced Testers with country specific legal contracts.

The above stated managerial problems presents a challenge to Crowdsourced Testing or Crowd Testing firms/organizations. There might be several scenarios where Crowd Testing companies will try to take these challenges one by one and address them by their own business model or implementation methodologies. Rather the one who can get rid of them all will stand out to be a winner. In my following blog I will suggest my own strategies to deal with these. So till then I invite all like minded and fellow professionals to find a way out and leverage the pros and diminish the cons to give a profitable business solution out of Crowd Testing and Crowdsourcing.

Future of Software Testing - A Practical Approach for Service Industry

2013-05-23T03:26:00.003-07:00

Software Testing of the present day scenario is either manual or automated wherein efforts are invested to get the desired Quality Analysed Validations or Verification based results. The future of software testing is an area not much thought of; in terms of technology based improvements or innovations. Rather people and organizations have largely invested on improving the overlay of various test management/delivery related processes.

The problem with the current approach is that we are able to sustain and also grow in the respective business but what about threat and sustainability issues if an autonomous test mechanism is developed. Large organizations are focusing on creating capabilities and nurturing software testing talent on the basis of the software that is ready to be tested or has been tested once in its life cycle or is currently under development to be tested. But what about if the technology or principles on which software testing itself is based upon will it never change? Should it never evolve? If we will continue to linger upon service providing based on the eons old manual and software solutions will this area ever advance?

In order to get rid of these age old techniques new approaches has to be considered and developed plus adopted for this technology area to grow. There are 4 approaches out of which I do not foresee any clear winner or rather I should say I cannot predict which one shall be adopted more.

Starting from the first one is: AI based Object Identifiers with Metadata based Action Definitions. These Object Identifiers will go through any -> to-be-tested application regardless of the environment via which it is hosted. It will then identify all the user actionable and non actionable fields and make a classical approach based repository. Now the tool will be already be equipped with AI based Metadata Action Definitions which will enable the tool to process and analyse the objects to create test actions. When the Test Analyst will complete the analysis of the same it will execute the same and hence the software testing will be completed with proper capture of Test Actions (Evolved out of Test Design) and Test Results to generate Test Reports in a matter of minutes. This tool can also hold the test analytic from the current test to re-use the same test actions in case similar kind of application comes for any test assignment.

Second Approach is: In current scenario (Laughable Fact) the business requirements gathering is not based on any technology framework which makes it a stenographers job apart from the understanding of the business imperatives/impacts/functionalities etc. which is a specialist's job. The business requirement gathering too should follow a industry standard and all the business logic collection should be done based on metadata or object identifiers based tech. This is will not only enable the testers to easily verify their findings rather reading the functional specifications documents as boring novels. But also enable the developers to easily follow the business logic as per business definitions logic. In order to validate the test actions itself business will also create a Requirement Documents in the Metadata Identifiable format to verify the test results.

Third approach can be: AI Based Object Identifiers Embedding in Source Code. This approach will enable a self inclusion of Test Actions identifiable Object Identifiers based Metadata inclusion into the source code itself at the time of development. In this case it would be easy for the developer to code the application as per the business requirement and Unit Test it also with negligible efforts.

The fourth or the final approach is a bit tedious and can be less popular: Usage of AI based Object Identifiable Neural Network derived Test Actions Repository. In this approach a tester can either enter the test flow or test actions using his/her conventional test design and then see the tool identify the test actions and execute them. Or it can be run in a learning mode wherein the tester can record how it tests a particular application and hence can train a neural network to test the same in subsequent test phases.

In order to get algorithms or technical consulting on the above ideas please comment on my blog or send me mail :)

Features that can still make BlackBerry 10 outsmart competition in Business Phones Market Segment

2013-04-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

BlackBerry 10 comeback is good but not impressive enough to compel customers who have moved on to phones from other popular brands. I will not waste my time in repeating BB10 features. Rather I will suggest a few to make them more Business Smart-er Phones:

1. Include a feature to share App only in Mobile Screen Sharing Mode so that if a person wants to just show a presentation then he can do it, without sharing his wife's continuous texts in the multi-task mode. This feature should enable sharing single or more apps but not the entire multi-mode screens so that a limited private space is still kept.

2. In BlackBerry Peek if the video is running and the BlackBerry Hub is recalled then the video should get paused automatically (This should be an ON/OFF feature).

3. In the BlackBerry Flow if the Browser could show tile-view of all the tabs that are opened then the user can easily click on any one of them that is required instead of first opening the browser and doing the hassle-job.

4. In BlackBerry Keyboard if the swipe from right to left deletes words then in the same there should be an option of undoing delete by swiping in the reverse direction i.e. left to right.

5. In the BlackBerry Balance if the work and personal apps are kept separate then the same kind of separation should be done in BlackBerry Hub so that Facebook and Twitter are separated from Corporate Social Network or Mails.

6. Picture Editing is good option but it should be enhanced with one more feature and that is to include pictures from Gallery of images into Presentations, Documents etc such that we can edit these pics to fit into these docs with simple UI strokes. This would immensely help in case somebody needs to brush up a presentation or a document.

7. Ability to view mail attachments in twin window mode so that a person can also refer the mail as well as read the attachment simultaneously.

8. A better voice recognition so that if a multi-tasking, multi-screen modes are launched in next versions of BB10x then a person can talk and listen via speaker and also do the multi-tasking on phone still maintaining an audible quality of sound, while holding the BB in his/her palm.

9. Ability to integrate Office Communicator with BB Messenger so that the message flow not stops no matter what.

10. Ability to share BB screen with a Desktop with limited or controlled access to the apps or files but with the enhanced or unique ability to drag n drop or even run compatible files on desktop.

I am in the process of thinking of more. As soon as they come I will share more can-be-added-features. Thanks for the read.

Near Field Communication SDK in India

2013-03-18T22:41:00.002-07:00

Hi All,

It was very tedious job for me to find any manufacturer or supplier of NFC based SDKs in India. But luckily there is one supplier MNC based in Chennai that provide us with all the NFC hardware and software bundles from which we can start experimenting with.

The name is SCM Microsystems. Check out there link: www.scmmicro.com/

Relations between Dynamic Logical Entities and Inherited Knowledge

2012-09-30T11:47:00.002-07:00

There is a relation between dynamic logical entities that expands as we start to learn the universe around us. These consists of all the logical patterns we attain, think, expand, disseminate or produce etc. On the other hand is the Inherited Knowledge that we gain access as instincts from our DNA and ancestral origins plus from people who surround us.

I have been working on establishing a mathematical link between these two wonderful aspects of information and how it can be used to derive knowledge so that all the different random or sequential patterns can be studied to get each tiny or huge bits of information out of it. If anybody is interested in my work please feel free to assist me in the same.

Moore's Law can fail for the first time in History of Computing Power Growth!

2012-07-15T04:22:00.002-07:00

Moore's Law is quite a famous and well known theory that one of the Intel's founding father's Gordon.E.Moore proposed. It said that processors size will be reduced and processing power will continue to rise every 2 years as the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years. I have seen this law prove itself in all these years I grew up seeing hardware/software evolve.

Intel already have reached 22 nanometers scale size for the transistor. But now the challenge that has come up that how transistors can be made to so that they continuously shrink in size. All the nanolithography and etching technologies that were evolved for the same seems to have been saturated and can no longer shrink the size of the transistors. Intel and other players in the market are already behind schedule to reduce the size to 18 nanometers and then 11 nanometers. According to a latest article in MIT Tech Review Magazine the same problem is being stated as a major concern for chip manufacturing companies worldwide.

Intel has tied up with ASML a nanoprecision intruments making company to evolve a new technology called EUV lithography i.e. Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography. This technology holds the potential to further reduce the transistors size using ultraviolet light. But a major hurdle in this is the loss of light due to absorption of the light energy by the surrounding vacuum based systems. Whatever light is being thrown over a silicon compound is being lost and only 90% of it reaches the chip wafer. ASML is being largely funded by Intel to eradicate this problem and develop a solution so that a large number of chips can be manufactured at cheap costs. ASML's CFO has also urged other competitors in market like Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to tie-up with partners in order to let the semiconductor lithography technology evolve and prevent the failing of Moore's Law for the first time in history.

Currently as per all of the nano lithography technologies available for manufacturing processor chips at 22 nanometers level is not enough to bring the dimension further below atleast for 3 years in future. This will foresee a slight fall in the progress of processing power obtained. This would be a first instant since the discovery of transistors and Integrated Circuits that Moore's law pace will be reduced. Hoping that a new technology breakthrough in EUV lithography comes sooner. So that we are not devoid of growing processing power in future.

Conventional Datacenter versus Cloud Offerings

2012-07-07T07:54:00.000-07:00

Conventional DataCenter comprises of basic storage and processing components, unlike the cloud which not only has all the features of a conventional datacenter but also integrated web analytics plus development and testing frameworks all present under a single architectural setting.

Conventional datacenters are always build from scratch as per the very specific requirements like if a business wants to host a large consumer base Java based website. Then they can only establish a dedicated static server plus can develop the site using the same server capabilities and host it there and then.

But what are the disadvantages: First is that a specific setup done on a configurated datacenter will always require add-ins like load balancers, indexers, web analytics tools, development frameworks installed with lots of custom settings and secondly setting up of an identical setup so that whatever the business desires to launch can be tested well.

All these hassles of detailed architectural insight and configurations helps in making a very precise datacenter that can exactly suit a requirement. But the cost of all this to be done comes to be huge as multiple vendors or multiple areas comes into feature which all needs to be looked into very carefully so that issues like spamming, virus attacks, scalability, high performance based delivery, excessive load handling, cache built-up for fast accessibility and search can be done. Moreover the person or business involved has to always keep the payments upfront even if the hosted product/service/site is not used by proposed consumers 365X24X7. Maintenance of the servers, code upgradation, utilization of web based analysis has to be continuously monitored and these all comes with cost involved which is always irrespective of the usage patterns.

Whereas on the contrary in a cloud based environment we already get most of the ''extra'' features like integrated scalability, global accessibility, high performance based delivery, analytics availability, and most important of all the security always enabled, protecting the underlying the products/services. A person/business always has to pay for what he has used in terms of processing power, storage, bandwidth, analytics derived, development or testing licenses used etc.

One more added feature is being implemented in cloud that nowadays give it the power of configuration as per the cloud hosting users i.e. we can setup our own work environment over a layer of preconfigured setups like for Windows we have Windows Devlopment Frameworks, Database, Web Services and Test management tools present all in Microsoft based technologies so that business can simply come and fix the architectural components available as per the needs and start developing, hosting or testing any product. This feature provided by respective cloud vendors have enabled the users to used any kind of web technology base and start their utilization without getting bothered too much about the base/ground level architectural designing and setup. Windows is just one example if a business wishes to have Google based APIs setup then they can use Google cloud services. If they wish to use Open Source then Amazon is there, if any CRM based application is to be developed then Salesforce is there and many more such wonderful combinations are available for the product/service industry.

The presence of web analytics all the time in the cloud helps derive the usage statistics across various geolocations and it proves to be boon if we are trying to read some kind of usage patterns across a variety of demographic locations globally. Whereas if we need to get the same capabilities in a conventional datacenter then a business would require a group of experts in all these fields who can actually setup the same and make all these components available at all the time to the business clientele groups.

A conventional datacenter base is very good still if we are involved into evolving a new kind of architecture where a lot of hardware plus software plus firmware based experimentation is to be done which involves frequent revamping or playing up with each of the configurable components. In a cloud based environment we cannot experiment with their basic architecture as then all of the setup can be jeopardized. Cloud layers will be intruded and the impact that they might inflict can still be a rather interesting topic to study on :)

Also if we are trying to develop an application that forms a middle or back end component and which never has to be scaled up or downgraded or its performance simply don't affect the overall functioning of the system architecture then also a conventional datacenter is best suited. For example if we think on the lines of service providing computations for mathematical simulations or computational modeling etc. As in these kind of requirements we do not need rapidly scalable hardware or software requirements not it is to be used by a large number of users whose numbers vary from peak to low or vice versa or just exponentially. Unless the simulations are for testing these requirements itself.

So a new business model can arrive where a cloud provider can allow the developers or business to configure some of the basic architectural features of their cloud without impacting the already hosted business services/products. This is a challenging business solution but still if somebody can pitch in with a revolutionary idea/model/plan it can be more suited to business domains like banking where security is to be handled much more seriously and analytical components can be detached, communications layer can be replaced by ESB layer and so on and so forth.

Next promising business in cloud domain will be a cloud architecture very similar to Hyper-Hybrid cloud architecture just the difference will be in this business a single private/public cloud architectural components will be configurable rather the integration of services from various other hybrid clouds.

Future of Cloud Computing, Mobile Computing and Tablets!

2012-06-11T10:13:00.003-07:00

The future of Cloud Computing as I think of is; forming the basic architecture of everything we will see on the internet nowadays whether it is banking, retail, entertainment or even all possible combinations of these all and many more. I foresee cloud to be the knowledge hubs of all the information mankind has generated till yet.

A vast semantics will one day run on them and ontology will define each move we will make on the internet. A giant brain you can think of it. Only verbal sayings will be able to generate actions, codes, etc on it. Cloud will monitor each person, every facility and will become not only the backend of all computational architectures but also front end. The possibility it holds is truly amazing also a new model has been introduced that is Hyper-Hybrid model which clearly shows that how easily multiple platforms or ESBs will interact and provide a service larger than any other existing architecture based virtual computation environment.

Mobile computing will form a thin layer over cloud based computational offerings largely in future. Only what new is going to happen that the mobile computing will have new interfaces rest all will be done in the cloud. Mobile devices will be just like thin clients and they will be interact with any one of their kind :P without any hassles or delays etc. The mobile devices will be more of augmented reality and gestures then. But mind tracking devices will have this ability in limited capabilities as if we look at consumer point of view this feature will be largely controlled and limited. Everything will be a computing surface then and even some sort of bio-electronics devices if introduced in future will prove to bring boom like in nowadays Apple, Samsung brings :)

Tablets will have the power to code and will replace the office desktops or any laptop on this planet. They will have easily detachable and up-gradable electronic capabilities. If nanotechnology pitches in then these devices will be mere sheets of paper embedded with billion processors and sensors that can be nurse to your doctor, your personal assistant and even your second brain ;) Multiple-multiple touch enabled surfaces will evolve that will become one single machine or multiple as your wish depending on the way you attach them. No charging will be ever required and they will never suffer wear and tear.

So I will keep writing on more future faces of technologies we see today. So keep on reading.....