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A blog for news and information about software testing tools.

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Smartbear AlterSite upgrade

Multiple browser support added to web and mobile performance monitoring

SmartBear have upgraded their mobile and web performance monitoring solution, AlertSite, to support testing on the Firefox and the Internet Explorer browsers. These are the most popular browsers and this tool enhancement allows companies to test and monitor their web-sites to determine the performance of the customer experience.

Ken Godskind, VPof Monitoring Solutions for SmartBear Software, said, "Today there are more browser options than ever, and each browser has very unique qualities that can impact load times of your application. We realize the importance for online businesses to know exactly how their website is performing no matter which browser their customers prefer, and today, Internet Explorer and Firefox have the largest share of the browser market. Our website monitoring service offers a fast and simple way for users to get a multi-browser snapshot of their website's performance to help them manage the user experience. We plan to add new browsers in the coming months as we continue to provide our customers with the most comprehensive insight to improve their online performance."

There is more information about AlertSite Multi-Browser Support here. and a free 30-days trial available. There is also a webinar on 1st December 2011, on How to Start Monitoring Your Website with Internet Explorer

VersionOne Webinar

Testing tools save project management time

VersionOne are running a webinar tomorrow on how Wells Fargo use this testing tool on their projects.

"Managing uncertainty and risk is an everyday reality for Project Managers, but wasting hours and hours each week on project administration doesn’t have to be. Join VersionOne tomorrow and learn how Randy Sanger, a Project Manager with Wells Fargo Funds Management Group, reclaimed 50% of the time he used to spend on project administration by using VersionOne to:

  • Manage and prioritise inputs into project planning
  • Understand the impact of changing business decisions
  • Collaborate with business stakeholders more effectively
  • Give greater project visibility to executives
  • Keep his teams informed, focused and on-track"

Go here to register for this webinar

Selenium test tool overview

Test automation tool Selenium

Selenium is an automated tool that can be used for testing. In the overview of the test tool provided at Selenium HQ documentation

"Selenium is a set of different software tools each with a different approach to supporting test automation. The entire suite of tools results in a rich set of testing functions specifically geared to the needs of testing of web applications of all types. These operations are highly flexible, allowing many options for locating UI elements and comparing expected test results against actual application behaviour. One of Selenium’s key features is the support for executing one’s tests on multiple browser platforms."

The main components of Selenium are:

  • Selenium IDE (integrated development environment) is a Firefox extension that is used for test scripting.
  • Remote Control (RC) is also known as Selenium 1. It was the main component for automated testing scripting for many years but has largely been superseded by the newer Selenium 2.
  • Selenium Grid allows the Remote Control component to handle multiple environments and platforms and support large scale suites of tests.
  • Selenium Webdriver is also known as Selenium 2. This automation test tool offers an object oriented API for communicating with the browser. Evolving this component is viewed as the future of Selenium.

Selenium released Version 2.9 last month (October 2011). It includes a new Android driver that permits test scripts to run on Ice Cream Sandwich devices.

For more information about Selenium, visit:

Spirent and IBM Rational partnership

Infrastructure Test Optimisation

From an interview with the CEO of Spirent in Network World.

Spirent continues to partner with best-in-class organizations to distribute and enhance our solutions. For instance, we work with Anue Systems, a leader in next-generation data communications testing, to offer network emulators which simulate delay and impairments that occur on real-world networks.

Most recently we've partnered with IBM Rational to address the Infrastructure Test Optimization, or ITO, space. Spirent iTest brings integration, automation and collaboration to infrastructure testing, while Spirent TestCenter contributes unsurpassed emulation of real-world scenarios. Combining these with the IBM Rational Quality Manager's full-lifecycle traceability and visibility enables our customers to bring quality products to market faster, significantly reducing business risk.

Spirent remains committed to working with the best companies to deliver the most complete test solutions and partnerships such as these play a role in allowing us to achieve this goal.

IBM test tool = Rational Performance Tester

HP Quality Center Overview

HP Quality Center: A scalable, unified platform for all aspects of application quality management

HP Quality Center is a unified platform that efficiently scales from a single project to multiple, enterprise-wide projects and releases. It enables you to manage application quality with consistent, repeatable processes regardless of your methodology of choice, from Waterfall to iterative methodologies such as Agile.

HP Quality Center supports requirements definition and management, release and cycle management, test planning and scheduling, defects management and reporting, all within a single platform with complete traceability driving collaboration between business analysts, QA, and development teams. HP Quality Center is a Web-based solution providing access to a steel thread of critical project information. This information bridges distributed teams in their related efforts to deliver high quality applications—regardless of geographic and organisational boundaries.

Main features are:

  • Requirements definition and management
  • Risk-based test planning and management
  • Quality release and cycle management
  • Version control
  • Baselining
  • Test scheduling and execution
  • HP Sprinter: integrated manual testing
  • Defect management
  • Developer collaboration
  • Reporting and graphing
  • Agile quality management

Extract from HP QC Datasheet

White paper on Visual Studio Test Professional 2010

Testing with VSTS

Professional testers have two key goals: to validate the quality of an application and to help improve the quality of that application. Many issues come into play, which make these two straightforward goals very difficult to accomplish. Much testing effort is wasted on necessary repetition, unclear test prioritization and downright human error. These common issues make testing ineffective and inefficient.

For example, what makes a good bug? Why is one bug actionable and another isn’t? Why is information that is good enough for one problem not good enough for another? Bugs filed without enough information cause deterioration in the relationship between developers and testers, which causes a downward spiral in communication and collaboration. This is just one aspect of testing. Testers often have a difficult time reporting on the quality of an application because there is no holistic view it. Visual Studio Test Professional 2010 is designed to bridge these types of gaps that exist in many software development environments and to help ensure that software is released with the highest quality.

For the full paper visit Testing in Visual Studio 2010 White papers

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