tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20857719707793699402012-01-07T18:42:41.467+05:30To Thine Own Self Be True ~ William ShakespeareParimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.comBlogger801100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-47423277731470563042012-01-07T12:31:00.002+05:302012-01-07T12:33:45.641+05:30

There's no such thing as a new year. The way we measure time is entirely artificial. The only time that counts is right now. Worrying about yesterday or planning for tomorrow is much less important than doing something right now. ~ Joel Heffner ~I wrote a Guest blog post on Santhosh Tuppad's blog http://tuppad.com/blog/. When Santhosh asked me to write one, I literally fell off my chair. Knowing

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-81370155532324390672011-12-10T21:34:00.005+05:302011-12-17T12:56:34.538+05:30

Social Engineering Attack The art of tricking vulnerable and unsuspecting people into revealing confidential information like passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, login credentials to payroll systems, customer databases etc with little or no contact with computers. Social Engineers -- Sweet talkers with oozing confidence -- Specialized in dealing with people, not necessarily

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-8469112364117986232011-11-18T21:57:00.001+05:302011-11-18T21:58:08.213+05:30

Claims Testing P.S : This is in continuation with an old blog post on Claims Testing. Regards, Parimala Shankaraiah

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-10402581145654374762011-09-25T16:32:00.008+05:302011-09-25T17:51:03.941+05:30

I was teaching math to one of my cousins who's about to get certified as a 10th grade pass out. I now figure pass out rhymes with drop out :-). Math is an interesting subject. You have hundreds of theorems and corollaries, millions of formulae and lots of problems that appear like "Life and Death" problems to some of us at. I was looking into arithmetic progression in particular. There have

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-59651161133815892862011-09-23T11:16:00.004+05:302011-09-23T11:41:47.304+05:30

 Bangalore Workshop on Software Testing – 3 Theme : Personal Excellence and Skill Development 6th August, 2011 @ S hotel, Bangalore T-shirt Sponsor: Moolya Photo courtesy : Santhosh Tuppad Ever since BWST 3 announcement was put up on Pradeep's blog, we got many registration emails and calls. The slots got filled really fast. When some of them got to know that, they started sending emails

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-27978565224618667312011-08-28T20:11:00.002+05:302011-08-28T20:44:50.976+05:30

This post is continued from my previous post. I dislike calling this part II and previous one as part I because every time I do that, I fail to write part II. Writing jinx. In the book Linchpin, Seth Godin says the following : It turns out that the three biological factors that drive job performance and innovation are social intelligence, fear response, and perception.  Public speaking brings

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-8034006180095382292011-07-24T20:10:00.013+05:302011-07-24T20:21:04.950+05:30

Talk about Speaking Here's one of those impending posts that's close to my heart. One of the major goals for 2010 was to speak at conferences. Somehow, it got too hard. I probably didn't push enough. Talking to a virtual audience In October 2010, I got an opportunity to present a talk to college students across India thanks to Pradeep, Rahul Verma and the team at Edista who organized the

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-59176564624175101732011-07-10T17:14:00.004+05:302011-07-10T17:30:39.548+05:30

Life's been super hectic! Tons of interesting things happening and too little time! In the midst of all this comes a mega annoucement that some of you have guessed at some point or the other in the past. I am officially part of Moolya family as on 4th July 2011 I came into contact with Pradeep Soundararajan in December 2008 through his blog. A little later, he joined an organization which was 

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-67174749728016553662011-05-24T10:01:00.008+05:302011-05-24T15:49:07.110+05:30

My interview is published in Testing Circus magazine, May 2011 Issue. You could read it HERE. Let me know what you think. Testing Circus is a free monthly magazine read by testers across the world. Testers worldwide contribute content to this magazine which is free of cost at this point in time. You can also read previous issues on the websites by downloading or reading the pdf online. 

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-50325779674203961692011-04-27T16:14:00.002+05:302011-04-27T16:28:52.796+05:30

Rapid Fire Question - What comes to your mind when I say “Co-operative unit”? I was curious to know what people would come up with and tweeted this question. Below are the only 3 responses I got: 1. A team located in the same premises, cooperative bank, a team cooperative with each other (vipsgupta) 2. Football (lnsimha) 3. Amul (sdhanasekar) I was expecting “Team” as an answer. Over the

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-52999088259963767592011-04-17T16:19:00.010+05:302011-04-18T10:58:56.470+05:30

There is a huge rise in testing contests in some parts of the world. Many testing conferences today facilitate testing contests, quiz competitions, puzzles solving sessions and many more to draw people’s attention at conferences. Several crowdsourcing companies today offer short term testing projects as contests and award testers appropriately for reported bugs. If you are a tester, you love what

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-58072756111065796432011-03-25T14:22:00.001+05:302011-03-25T14:28:25.145+05:30

Ever since I started blogging, I kept bragging how Curious Tester was my second child and how much I enjoyed spending most of my online time here. When my second child arrived in REAL 3 months ago, I realized how this blog became a step child almost instantly. It hurt because for two years, I nurtured it as if it was a baby and all of a sudden I had orphaned it. As the proverb goes “No pain, no

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-7317452264211190512010-12-17T21:36:00.004+05:302010-12-17T21:55:38.515+05:30

What’s buggy reporting? You might ask. No, No. It’s not yet another new term. I don’t want to add newer terms to the technical jargon wars going on in different parts of the world already. Buggy reporting talks about how buggy real bug reports can be. It bugs me a lot to read buggy bug reports which hardly talk about bugs in a understandable way. As testers, we all know that bug reports are

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-80087349875568731932010-11-11T18:59:00.005+05:302010-11-11T19:06:39.873+05:30

Product Conclave 2010I had the privilege of attending Product Conclave 2010 conference organized by Nasscom recently thanks to my organization’s sponsorship. Apart from the fact that I was nominated to learn about Cloud based services, all that the agenda said was that it was targeted towards entrepreneurs. And it feels good to think that you are an entrepreneur, isn’t it? At least, an

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-10482669712745035502010-09-15T14:36:00.011+05:302010-09-15T17:46:26.949+05:30

I am Back! I am back or should I say tentatively. I have been focusing on my personal priorities and a couple of releases both at work and home  :-). Hence hectic. As I type this, I know that it’s all crap! The reality is I haven’t been able to focus for a while on the stuff that I am passionate about. And consequently, several excuses follow. Finally, I thought today was the day to start over

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-59102268423972692672010-08-10T14:25:00.002+05:302010-08-10T14:46:11.092+05:30

A long pending blog post! Feb 2010 saw the birth of a testing magazine from Software Testing Club (STC). It was an awesome magazine with lots of cool stuff from context driven testers across the world. Be it the nail biting moments of doing the right things at the right time or laughing at cartoons and making fun of oneself, it was truly Awesome! It struck me very late that I could have written

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-18214061764688743042010-07-18T09:49:00.003+05:302010-07-19T10:43:18.660+05:30

Recently, I opposed giving written tests for interviewing testers for hiring few testers for my team. I screened resumes, I shortlisted people from non-computer science backgrounds, I opted for people with tech support experience, I did many things the unconventional way. I experimented a bit with the hiring process as I have “some” power to suggest changes to the existing process or so I thought

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-56511903393119590872010-07-03T18:16:00.006+05:302010-07-04T10:12:17.378+05:30

Part I witnessed some really interesting comments. If you think Part II will be a pocket book on ”How to Interview Testers”, then you may want to stop reading this post right now. I interviewed one person on telephone recently where I asked him to test a marker he claimed to have in his hand. He was shocked, “What? Test a marker?” He intended to say “Do you mean I’ll be testing markers in your

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-69206632100648128242010-06-16T07:44:00.007+05:302010-07-01T10:12:38.509+05:30

Suppose that you have a friend who asks you to interview a tester for your team, How would you do it? Here are a few sample questions: What is the difference between smoke and sanity testing? What is the difference between verification and validation? What is the difference between regression and re-testing? What is the different between a product and an application? ….. I can’t stop

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-72588057047578066522010-06-04T09:42:00.005+05:302010-07-01T09:42:08.124+05:30

Roughly a year ago, James Bach talked about my work on his blog. I rock on his blogroll too. Michael Bolton recently mentioned my name in his Follow Friday list of tweeples to follow in twitterverse. My blog got listed as 30th top software testing blog. uTest thought I am one of the top 20 tester tweeples’ in twitterverse. I got 2 articles published (as author/co-author) in last one year. What

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-58318678491928951222010-05-25T18:08:00.001+05:302010-05-25T18:11:24.674+05:30

Appraisals are underway in most organizations. Some of us are hopeful of a raise. Some of us are hopeful of a promotion. After all, we stuck to our guns (the organization to be precise) during the deadly recession. We have executed the responsibilities of an engineer one level up, but our designation rots at one level down. Or so we think. Our friends/batch mates in other organizations are

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-61979481224162764452010-05-12T06:19:00.002+05:302010-05-12T06:24:51.479+05:30

Matthew Heusser formed a group called the “Rebel Alliance” at the recently concluded STAREast conference. The Rebel Alliance attended the conference in a group, met up in Eric Jacobson’s Conciege Suite at night after the conference and presented or listened to great lightning talks. It takes passion to do such things. Videos Shmuel Gershon’s lightning talk on An exploratory test tool

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-30822241103093220362010-05-04T13:46:00.041+05:302010-05-04T14:12:03.329+05:30

Sometime ago, My 3 yo asked me “What color is your manager?” I was surprised. I didn't know what to answer. For several days, this question kept lurking in my mind. A few days later, I thought managers may not have colors, but could wear different hats (managerial styles). The hats they wear could make or break the teams they manage and even have positive/negative impact on entire organization.

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-15864090716217415252010-04-16T16:31:00.024+05:302010-04-17T13:11:29.057+05:30

Theme: Cutting (c)trap and getting good things done Event Sponsor: Vipul Kocher Venue: Shilton Royal, Bangalore Co-organizers: Pradeep Soundararajan and Santhosh Tuppad Co-facilitators: Pradeep Soundararajan and Parimala Shankaraiah Image Courtesy: Rahul Mirakhur Presenters: Sharath Byregowda, Selim Mia, Ashok T, Rahul Verma, Vipul Kocher, Dr.Meeta Prakash, Sukanta Bhatt. Attendees: Swetha

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-45077158138395874902010-04-13T09:42:00.005+05:302010-04-13T11:11:28.872+05:30

When I talked about Questioning skills a few months ago, I wasn't very clear on which tools to use to practice questioning [Of course, in addition to my brain]. Plenty Questions and Dumb Charades took me a step forward. I saw a downside to it. Some questions were lost, some were forgotten and others not important enough. This is where my Note-taking skill came in handy. As I made notes of

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-70749789999939305852010-03-30T15:26:00.008+05:302010-04-01T10:15:58.381+05:30

Dr. Cem Kaner describes stakeholder as someone who has a vested interest in the success of the testing effort and/or in the success of the product. Stakeholders could be project managers, marketing managers, product managers, programmers, technical support representative, sales representatives, customers and many others in many different roles. Testing is done on behalf of the stakeholders. Here

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-1265522864366320082010-03-06T16:36:00.015+05:302010-03-07T08:30:25.205+05:30

Curious Tester was born exactly 1 year ago on this day. I had created a blog page around February 2009 and did not know how to start and where to start. I was pondering over this for quite some time until I came across a blog post 5 Questions for Pradeep Soundararajan on Philk's blog. A few hours later, I got an email from Pradeep as follows:Hi Parimala,I found your blog with no posts. No matter

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-70991421021190928092010-03-03T07:16:00.014+05:302010-03-06T10:00:21.370+05:30

A few weeks ago, my colleague Ajay Balamurugadas and I went books shopping together. Jerry Weinberg’s books were on the top of my list. I wanted to buy Wienberg on Writing while Ajay had 3 choices: The Black Swan and a couple other books related to Perl. What happens when two thirsty intellectuals go book hunting? We had every reason to buy books spanning Psychology, Management, Philosophy,

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-57068607336526300662010-02-20T21:55:00.007+05:302010-02-21T10:47:21.039+05:30

SCENE IA little over two months ago, Pradeep Soundararajan published a blog post about the importance of Testers learning to code. As a Perl enthusiast himself, Pradeep developed a puzzle Finding Nemo. He not only released it to the testing world, but also challenged testers to find the logic of the puzzle using Reverse Engineering. Pradeep’s Nemo survived wear and tear and adverse climatic

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-83666968368420815642010-02-12T22:52:00.005+05:302010-02-13T13:54:35.456+05:30

A little over a year ago, I earned a reputation of reporting maximum number of severity 3 and 4 defects in the team. This appeared bad at the time as compared to other testers who reported severity 1 and 2 defects. Unlike these testers, I reported all the defects because I did not want anyone questioning my credibility as to why I did not find/report a defect. Ok, agreed that I was high on ego.I

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-40771586321806820392010-02-04T10:23:00.005+05:302010-02-04T11:42:17.153+05:30

Rahul Gupta asked me some interesting questions in my previous post. He also suggested that I do a Part II of the post. Here I am with part II. Part I is HERE.Rob the Star PerformerRob managed a group of system administrators in his previous job. He joined current organization as a QA Engineer. He tested an enterprise product and reported defects. A year later, he became a Project Lead. In

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-51565812933984780692010-01-23T15:42:00.003+05:302010-02-02T18:45:26.261+05:30

In one my previous organizations’, I worked for 2 different teams during my ~3 years tenure. Let’s call them Team A and Team B. Team A was a vibrant team with highly energetic and motivated people with diversified experience and skill-sets. The team members included fresh college grads, people with couple of years of experience and a handful with good knowledge of customers’ usage of the product

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-2095714997512503302010-01-13T10:20:00.004+05:302010-01-13T10:29:49.802+05:30

About 5 years ago, I bought William Perry’s ‘Effective Methods for Software Testing’ book. I struggled for 2 months to get myself to read that book as it appeared to be too much of theory for me at the time (my first testing book). At the end of 2 months, I gave up. I gave up reading not just this book, but my reading habit itself. In July 2009, I came across The Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar by

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-84877298686203358802010-01-08T17:42:00.010+05:302010-01-12T13:34:53.423+05:30

Curious Tester gets published on print for the first time! I was interviewed by the Software Test and Performance Collaborative magazine recently. The January Issue of the magazine is a special edition featuring many women testers across the world whom Karen Johnson calls as ‘Women of Influence’ in her editorial. Fiona Charles asks why there are so few women writers in her guest editorial 'And

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-25672087005035111092009-12-30T06:27:00.017+05:302010-04-30T16:22:43.780+05:30

I took part in James Bach's Testing Challenge at Weekend Testing recently. Pradeep Soundararajan reviewed my report and spoke about the gaps in my testing effort as well as the report. As always, I revisited my report to figure out areas that need improvement(read dismal performance report). One of the key problems with my report was that - I did not question the mission that was given to me. I

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-11362346655975321462009-12-19T21:44:00.003+05:302009-12-19T21:54:09.608+05:30

Easter eggs are specially decorated eggs given to celebrate the Easter holiday. These eggs are often hidden, allegedly by the Easter Bunny, for children to find on Easter morning as per Wikipedia.Easter Eggs in software refer to hidden features in the program that are intentionally injected into the product by the programmer. These may include hidden commands, animations, funny jokes, games,

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-9274361102058253272009-12-07T15:21:00.011+05:302009-12-07T16:02:16.178+05:30

I am a Bug is a book written by Robert Sabourin. This is a short book illustrated by his daughter Catherine which explains the software development process using cartoons and live examples from real time projects. Little Nuggets from the book1. When a bug is found, we do not ask if the bug is good or bad. We decide if it is important. We guess how much damage it could cause. 2. When we rush too

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-10076392126281131752009-12-03T06:52:00.010+05:302011-11-18T22:00:07.802+05:30

What is a Claim? A claim can be anything that someone in the company says about the product. It could be requirements, online help, sales/marketing material, Advertisements on different media or even word of mouth blabbering along the hallway by a project manager to the stakeholder. Claims can be classified into two categories. ‘Explicit’ claims are the claims that are explicitly stated. ‘

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-59518840838060696742009-11-22T12:04:00.009+05:302009-11-30T14:36:34.090+05:30

The 9th Annual International Software Testing Conference 2009 in India was held at Hotel Le Meridian, Bangalore on 19th and 20th November 2009. This was my first time at a software testing conference. Naturally, I was thrilled.Conference HighlightsExploring Testing LeadershipThe Conference kick started with Michael Bolton. Michael spoke about ‘Exploring Testing Leadership’ which is the need of

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-60227413387074143472009-11-20T23:13:00.006+05:302009-11-21T08:51:07.389+05:30

A couple of months ago, I was keeping my fingers crossed that Michael Bolton should make it to the STC 2009 Conference in Bangalore which also meant there were chances of his workshop in Bangalore. This is the first time I attended Michael Bolton’s Rapid Software Testing (RST) workshop at Bangalore on 17th and 18th Nov 2009.I hated magic until I attended RST workshop. Michael stated ‘Magic fools

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-16231305070820203472009-11-16T15:38:00.007+05:302009-12-01T16:18:02.761+05:30

I just completed my BBST Foundations course. BBST Foundations course is an online course which includes a basic introduction to black box testing. Ah! An online course, 1 month duration, black box testing. Yeah, Yeah, You have heard a lot about universities offering online/distance learning courses to working professionals who are desperate for university stamped paper certificates. I just

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-29465566550767579672009-11-07T21:14:00.004+05:302009-11-07T21:22:08.840+05:30

Recently, I got a chance to write about testing. A couple of testing magazines called for testing articles for their upcoming publications. I thought I should try. I have never written a formal article before. By formal, I mean writing about testing for testing magazines. I did think a couple of times to write for stickyminds before I started this blog, but then it never materialized. I wasn’t

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-1432966796037982772009-10-23T22:56:00.006+05:302009-12-19T12:18:18.924+05:30

Project A followed practice ’P’ and faired quite well, Project B followed and faired better, Project C followed ‘P’ and it was one of the best releases ever. Now practice ‘P’ becomes a benchmark for all the projects in the organization and is crowned the 'Best Practice'.A Best Practice is defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-51606523297628226032009-10-14T11:25:00.006+05:302009-10-14T12:55:54.276+05:30

I read an article about New York city police officers attending a training on The Art of Perception. I have been very bad in understanding and interpreting works of art. I prefer to sit up and listen to a story instead. Being a science student, reading psychology books during my college days has helped me a great deal to understand the emotions of people, products, interactions, arguments,

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-61786683724819706332009-10-08T18:18:00.011+05:302009-10-08T22:06:51.208+05:30

Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful Princess. The Supreme Commander of the kingdom lusted on the Princess, while she fell in love with one of the greatest warriors of her kingdom who trained soldiers for war. She admired him for his bravery and courage. This resulted in a battle between the commander and the warrior on a tall mountain which is 10 times bigger than Mount Everest. After a

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-76803968050645930952009-10-06T10:48:00.017+05:302010-04-13T05:44:26.902+05:30

I always wondered how a few testers catch killer bugs so quickly. How is their intuition so sharp compared to others? Practice? In addition to practice, these testers find easy ways to remember important stuff that matters to them in different contexts. Mnemonics can be very useful to remember heuristics and oracles. I compiled the below list for me and you to learn and practice. Of course, with

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-90884683617488861512009-10-04T08:07:00.011+05:302009-10-14T11:05:29.114+05:30

Software testability is the degree to which a software artifact (i.e. a software system, software module, requirements- or design document) supports testing in a given test context. Take a moment to read about Testability Heuristics from James Bach.BackgroundI have not tested for Testability. I did not know what is testability until I heard it as a quality criteria in Weekend Testing 8. When

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-44365353638207447222009-10-04T07:00:00.004+05:302009-10-04T07:10:44.770+05:30

The last time I mentioned about Getting Out of Comfort Zone, I anticipated great learning experience, but I wasn’t ready for surprises! I wanted to participate in the Weekend Testers (Chennai Chapter) and test a CSS Menu Builder application. CharterCross Browser compatibility testing of IzzyMenu using IE 8.0 and FF 3.0 browsers.Experience ReportIzzyMenu did not have a direct hyperlink which could

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-84303032598080309202009-10-02T08:54:00.011+05:302009-10-02T09:13:17.330+05:30

I know how pathetic blogger has been. You readers who use blogger or read blogs on blogger would know how pathetic it is. At one time, I was so frustrated with blogger that I decided to move to Wordpress, but then, I read a bad experience report on Wordpress and decided to wait for a better one. While I continue to wait (or decide to buy my own domain), I found an interesting observation on

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-20968880134816648082009-10-01T15:35:00.006+05:302009-10-01T18:19:54.578+05:30

I have been busy in an internal product training for last 3 days along with my colleague cum mentee Narain Mittal. Today afternoon, product trainer Ravi messaged me on Yahoo Messenger that the training is postponed to 3.30 PM. He requested me to inform Narain as well. Chat text on my chat windowRavi: we will have KT at 3:30pmPari: sure.I copied Ravi’s chat message and pasted it onto Narain’s chat

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-46306998422863883012009-09-29T17:38:00.006+05:302009-09-29T18:15:05.784+05:30

Why would you move out of your job? Why would anyone move out of his/her current job? I bet, its not just MONEY all the time. Each one of us wants to be rich, but that does not mean that we would be spending 8-10 hours/day at work just for money without enjoying what we do, without growing in the area of our liking and expertise, without learning new stuff for self improvement etc. All said and

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-21701014810131810432009-09-27T17:21:00.007+05:302009-09-29T10:19:07.826+05:30

Date and Time26th September 2009, 3.00 PMMissionTo find functional bugs in the applicationProduct OverviewSplashup formerly Fauxto, is a powerful editing tool and photo manager. It's easy to use, works in real-time and allows you to edit many images at once. Splashup runs in all browsers, integrates seamlessly with top photo-sharing sites, and even has its own file format so you can save your

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-69280556571964297502009-09-26T23:36:00.005+05:302009-09-27T00:00:21.740+05:30

Date and Time20th September 2009, 3.00 PM, BWT testers meet up on Google Chat.Mission Choose one of the quality criteria out of the following –Installability / Usability / Performance / Reliability / Compatibility /Testability.Product OverviewAreca-Backup is a file backup software that supports incremental, image and delta backup on local drives or FTP servers.TestersAjay Balamurugadas,

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-34311954660717910462009-09-25T17:00:00.008+05:302009-09-25T17:10:37.006+05:30

No. I am not talking about the elementary school that you studied at. I am talking about the School of Software Testing you belong to? I am inspired to write this after James mentioned in one of his recent posts that he was not sure if I think of myself as context-driven. I do think of myself as Context-Driven and I am proud to be a part of the Context Driven School of Testing. The Seven Basic

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-59517217648717735222009-09-21T22:51:00.009+05:302009-10-06T14:01:50.463+05:30

The last time I took up Pair Testing was while testing Vischeck with Ajay Balamurugadas. We had teamed up on Gmail chat, tested the product in a given timeframe and shared our learnings. If you visit the comments of this post, you will realize how I goofed up my learning by completely misunderstanding the product that I tested (I intentionally have these comments in place to remind me not to

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-84278729893517436432009-09-17T18:08:00.015+05:302009-09-18T12:43:45.686+05:30

I wanted to share some good news with you – my blog readers (both silent readers and commenters) who are taking time to read my blog and even go a step ahead by commenting about my work.Firstly, James Bach talked about me and my work in one of his recent posts' titled New Voice: Parimala Shankaraiah. My blog now sits on James Bach’s blogroll. I am thrilled! Appreciation from James is very special

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-12383133651042121772009-09-15T16:34:00.008+05:302009-09-15T16:58:30.136+05:30

I have not explicitly tested mobile devices though I have found issues on different types of cell phones that I have used in the past. This gave me an idea to test Nokia 1650 model cell phone that I own currently. I chose to test the 'Insert Options' feature in Create Message functionality. I quickly glanced through the Insert Options feature at a high level, broke it down into different types of

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-58851833181043903892009-09-14T18:43:00.003+05:302009-09-14T18:50:39.815+05:30

Off late, I have been busy reading a book and a few testing related articles (I am amazed by the amount of information that comes absolutely FREE on the internet for people to read, learn, think and practice!). Reading is something I love to do if I get some free time. This is also one of my ways of relaxing. I recently read a book ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne. You must have heard of the 90/10

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-121383078001253732009-09-10T14:25:00.006+05:302009-09-11T14:58:48.761+05:30

Dead LinkA dead link also called a broken link or dangling link is a link on the World Wide Web that points to a web page or a server that is permanently unavailable. Though nobody explicitly complained about any dead links on my blog, I did not want to assume that all is well. I went ahead and performed a deadlink test out of curiousity :-) Dead Link TestDead Link Tests are very important to

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-37323155389417424122009-08-22T21:35:00.006+05:302009-09-28T11:39:44.528+05:30

22nd August 2009, 3.00 PM sharp, BWT testers assemble (on Google chat). The product was Free Mind 0.9.0 RC5. Mission: The Mission is to test the entire product and find bugs.Product OverviewFreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. We are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-49433025219305607032009-08-21T18:45:00.011+05:302009-08-22T13:48:52.950+05:30

One particular discussion in TestRepublic ‘ISTQB and CSTE' caught my attention. There is an interesting trend in how students approach testing certifications.Different ways of clearing testing certifications:1. A student studies and practices in and out of the subject by referring to at least some of the reference books, gains tremendous knowledge and attempts the certification exam.2. A student

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-71567003066330482552009-08-18T13:07:00.003+05:302009-08-19T13:00:44.780+05:30

Once upon a time, there was an ignorant tester who followed test scripts(written by someone else) while testing a product. This tester ran tests over tests, updated the test case status to Pass/Fail/Blocked/Not Executed and this went on. At the end of 27 months, the tester got bored because not only did this tester execute test scripts written by others, but the tester never wrote the test cases

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-40905206617822175322009-08-17T06:55:00.016+05:302009-08-17T07:26:45.415+05:30

15th August 2009, 9.00 PM sharp, I am told to download, install and test WireMaster v0.46. Mission: To report bugs in the product in 1 hour(Attack In and Out!)Product Overview:WireMaster is a user interface (UI) tool for creating wireframes in an open, XML based format. A wireframe is a basic visual guide used in web design to suggest the structure of a website and relationships between it's

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-49457356190631871622009-08-14T06:57:00.005+05:302009-08-14T10:41:03.346+05:30

A strong passion to test within a group of tester friends ignited an idea of testing for a couple of hours over the weekends very far away from the pressures of a regular full time job. It started off with myself and Ajay testing a website and posting results of our testing efforts HERE. The subsequent weekend had Ajay, Sharath and Manoj testing another website. View the Experience Report HERE.

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-87894796879042615692009-08-06T14:00:00.004+05:302009-09-09T10:27:24.480+05:30

Until recently, I used to ghost follow several blogs. By this, I simply mean that I read a lot of blogs, absorbed them if I liked them or ignored if I didn’t. While reading one particular blog post, I realized that I had faced a similar situation in the past and I felt that I had to share that story. I even thought that my story was better than the story of that blog post. I made up my mind to

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-41264782459174772622009-08-01T22:38:00.003+05:302009-08-01T23:19:44.749+05:30

Yet another TE(Thriller Experience) in Testing. Myself and my friend Ajay teamed up on Saturday night at 8.15pm to test a website. Website testing - A lot of us would have tested several websites both big and small. Now the website we thought of testing was http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php (It was Ajay’s idea to test this website). What is Vischeck? Vischeck is a way of showing

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-69551037242452309692009-07-29T13:11:00.008+05:302009-08-19T14:27:18.528+05:30

I learn/unlearn something new everytime I visit a Bank/ATM/Post Office. I had been to HDFC bank recently to open a Term Deposit. While submitting the application form, I was told that my PAN number was not updated in the bank records(I had given my PAN number at the time of Account opening. Wonder what they did with that?) and that PAN card photocopy was mandatory to make a Term Deposit. I walked

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-32931186893057921372009-07-24T15:08:00.004+05:302009-09-08T18:12:02.427+05:30

I just finished reading James Bach’s new book ‘The Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar’. It is a MUST READ for all the Learners out there, not just Testers! James gives away a lot of his Time Tested Secrets for the betterment of the Learning Community. He also advices the readers to become Buccaneer-Scholars and how wonderful it is to get there and be there just as the true Buccaneers thrived!This

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-47208114123190074172009-07-16T17:13:00.007+05:302009-07-16T18:44:55.687+05:30

Recently, RaviSuriya who is one of my blog readers reported two observations that he had encountered on my blog which are listed below:1.‘Subscription Links' gadget not displaying all the 6 available options to Subscribe for Posts and Comments2.Date field was missing for one of the posts on the blogThere were a few email exchanges between me and Ravisuriya during which I gathered information

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-28148363821176952812009-06-24T19:17:00.004+05:302009-06-25T17:25:46.481+05:30

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to practice what I learnt from the ET Workshop that I had attended. I picked a feature in the product that was not tested by me in the past. Here goes my report:1. Played around with the feature for better understanding2. Brainstormed a few test ideas for testing that feature3. Shortlisted a few areas/sub-features to be tested(used an Excel Checklist

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-77740252653819097812009-06-24T18:52:00.003+05:302009-06-24T19:00:56.369+05:30

Life is a constant learning experience. The more I learn, the more better I become. I am just back from the Exploratory Testing Workshop conducted by Pradeep Soundararajan. Am I enlightened? Yes. Have I become an Expert Tester after this? NO. Not even a good tester yet(Let me clarify I hold myself in very high self esteem)This was the first workshop I attended and a workshop in the truest sense(

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-88470541888959248122009-06-18T17:01:00.001+05:302009-06-18T17:03:46.132+05:30

The above sentence was a signboard at a clothing store that I visited recently. I do believe that ‘Customer is KING’. What I did not know was that KING never bargains (probably, the person who hung up that signboard thought that the KING should NOT bargain so he could make more profits!). If customer is believed to be a KING, there could be times when the so called KING could pick up whatever he

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-63062349734585158432009-06-09T11:54:00.005+05:302009-06-09T12:09:23.427+05:30

My office is in the fifth floor and I generally use the stairs to go up and come down. I have been suffering from back ache for sometime and I was told by my doc to avoid using the stairs. I hate waiting for the elevators, but here I was desperately waiting for my turn to get into one particular elevator. One fine day, the elevator was in the 6th floor and coming down towards the 5th floor. I

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-23382570654919436492009-05-11T19:12:00.002+05:302009-05-11T19:17:00.514+05:30

My two year old daughter loves to draw on her slate using a chalk. One day, she asked me to draw something. I drew a few pictures of animals and birds one at a time and asked her to identify them. She did identify most of the pictures saying ‘This is Cat, This is Duck’ etc. After sometime, she grabbed the slate and chalk and scribbled something on the slate. Then she pointed me to the slate and

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-71286589690801078232009-04-27T19:17:00.005+05:302009-04-27T19:38:44.386+05:30

Intellectual Property (IP) are legal property rights over creations of the mind, both artistic and commercial, and the corresponding fields of law. Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; ideas, discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. Common types of

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-58671834903274302502009-04-16T09:21:00.005+05:302009-04-16T13:15:40.526+05:30

I had been to one of the State Bank of India ATMs in Bangalore to withdraw some money. I keyed in an incorrect PIN out of curiousity to check what happens. Alas! It displayed the Select Transaction page with options like Balance Enquiry, Deposit, Withdrawal etc. Was I logged in successfully with an incorrect PIN? Not really. When I randomly selected the Withdrawal option, the ATM prompted a

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-36956339787649352662009-04-13T14:54:00.004+05:302009-04-16T13:17:14.457+05:30

Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) is a Post Office Savings Scheme that doubles your money in 8 years and 7 months with the advantage of premature withdrawal. KVP is sold through all Head Post Offices and other authorised post offices throughout India. I happened to take a 8 years 7 months KVP for one of my cousins for Rs.50,000. I was given 5 Certificates worth Rs.10,000 each. I was surprised to see the 5

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-40911078546008621052009-04-09T15:39:00.005+05:302009-04-16T12:13:36.256+05:30

I just read Pradeep's post on the Change in Hiring and Interviewing Process in India. Wonderful Article. Last time around when I was looking out for a job change, I used to be surprised whenever a HR person called in to check if I had any QA Certification. If my answer was in the negative, they would say that my profile did not suit their requirement. How can people judge me based on a

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-89515997322087119232009-03-10T11:33:00.007+05:302009-03-10T14:06:45.308+05:30

As a tester, it takes immense effort to have an eye for detail and find a defect that can be a showstopper for the product. The first thing most Testers do is to immediately jump with excitement and then notify the developer about the defect and even show it to him/her on the QA environment wherever it was found. Once this is done, a Tester should not think that his/her job is over. It is very

Parimala Shankaraiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304352526906191995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2085771970779369940.post-44003987067850889252009-03-06T16:49:00.007+05:302009-08-04T11:53:44.652+05:30

Hi,Welcome to 'CuriousTester'! My name is Parimala Shankaraiah. I am a Tester who is passionate about TESTING! You might have heard it a million times from a lot of Testers all over the world and I am proud to be one of them. I love Testing and I believe in improving myself through Constant Learning.Once Again, Welcome to 'CuriousTester',Happy Testing,Pari

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