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PC2TV doesn?t work, Zeppelin reunion & loads of test work around but even m
2007-09-12 18:42:00
Downloaded a client called PC2TV which allows you to see about 2,000 TV channels from all over the world, including live Saturday afternoon Premiership matches. Usual teething troubles getting it to work. You get a menu of TV and radio channels available, broken down by country and then select a channel. Needless to say it didn’t ...
More About: Work , Test , Reunion , Zeppelin

Nothing to buy at the computer shop
2007-09-11 19:42:00
Just been to PC World to buy something, anything for one of the PC’s, but found nothing. Dunno what I was even willing to buy but whatever it was I didn’t find it. Why is that? I was looking at PC games and there was squat. I looked to home software and wasn’t tempted. I looked ...
More About: Computer , Shop

Indian IT software firm outsource to the US, please don?t steal our staff
2007-09-10 19:48:00
Indian software firm Wipro plans to open a big software design center in Atlanta. The Bangalore, India-based firm expects to hire around 500 computer programmers in the next three years. It’s a curious turnabout from the much more familiar story: a U.S. software company creating jobs in India. Does that mean that if a US company ...
More About: Software , Indian , Steal , Staff

Agent gets 200 resume?s via email, hope he doesn?t figure out email forward
2007-09-10 18:42:00
An agent has phoned about another position in the City which sounds promising, and has even come back and said they want to interview me. Which is good as some of the experience they want I have not got. It also appears that every position that is available the agents are receiving about 200 resume’s by ...
More About: Agent , Email , Resume , Hope , Figure

New podcasts and sluggish Vista
2007-09-10 14:54:00
I thought I’d have a look at some new podcasts on iTunes as a lot I was subscribing to appear to have stalled and I haven’t received any updates in a while. Signed up for ‘Album’s you should hear’, where they talk about classic rock albums but don’t play any of the music. I thought they ...
More About: Podcasts , Vista , Slug , Casts

Finding too many defects & have you skimmed all the resume or just the firs
2007-09-10 12:48:00
In the last 2 weeks I have found and raised about 40 defects on the project for the small, but getting bigger company, and a few are getting trashed by the user team leader, I think part of the problem is in that job title. Not sure if he doesn’t understand my system type bugs that I ...
More About: Resume

Waste of time interview, resume printed on slightly wrong shade of paper?
2007-09-07 18:09:00
I had an interview with a company in the city yesterday and it was obvious that prior to the interview they had only read the last couple of positions on my resume. The agent obviously thought it was a shoe-in as she said that they were only interviewing one other person and would make a decision the same ...
More About: Time , Interview , Resume , Paper , Wrong

?You?re not running it right? and other reasons why it?s not a bug
2007-09-06 18:36:00
I worked on a project where the software was released live way to early and was dragged back screaming and shouting into development so that we could perform a proper system test on it. They hadn’t actually system tested it prior to going live, but they had performed a user acceptance test on the application. When any of ...
More About: Running , Reasons

Wordpress contact Flickr clients, Starwest and speedy old Windows Easy Tran
2007-09-05 14:00:00
Somebody at Wordpress got upset with this blog awhile back and suspended the Wordpress version, as opposed to this the self hosted version, because it had photos from Flickr on it. I did offer to remove the Flickr photos from the Wordpress version but they had noticed that the Wordpress version linked to this version which was ...
More About: Windows , Contact , Clients

Start an IT agency, make millions
2007-09-05 09:45:00
There seems to a load of IT contract agencies that now specialise in software testing, one I called yesterday was very close to me and the agent was keen on meeting up, think he wants to have lunch, so why not. It would be good to speak to one of these guys socially, everything off the ...
More About: Agency , Start , Make , Millions

The World?s unluckiest software tester
2007-09-04 16:31:00
I worked with a tester once who must have been the unluckiest tester in the World . He had piles of testing experience but he just couldn’t test anything, that is prove whether something actually worked or not. Even if he was testing from a Test Director script something would go wrong. And the things that would ...
More About: Software , The World

Are you agile or waterfall?
2007-09-02 15:37:00
An agent rang up about an agile project recently and asked me whether I had ever done work on an agile project. The simple answer is yes, dotted around many projects over the last 15 years and then for a full 10 years prior to that when I was a developer (And boy, was that agile. ...
More About: Agile , Waterfall

Installing chat and forum clients & a marketing podcast, more hits please
2007-09-02 13:23:00
I thought I’d add a chat client and forum to the blog and checked to see what the hosting company provide and it was a bit underwhelming. I tried and found both and neither worked very well and they looked hopeless. Very basic CGI. So I’ll have a hunt around for some jazzy javascript versions. It ...
More About: Marketing , Chat , Podcasts , Podcast , Forum

Erm?can?t listen to football commentaries on an Internet radio after all, s
2007-09-01 16:41:00
The best laid plans………….seems that an Internet radio isn’t any good for listening to local BBC radio stations to hear football comentary after all. This is “for contractual reasons” they aren’t allowed to broadcast them over the Internet. Rats. That definitely proves I never tested that process. Ho-bloody-hum.  I have a battery powered wireless mouse on the Vista machine ...
More About: Radio , Football , Listen , Commentaries

Nuking the XP machine, or do I let XP nuke itself - can’t be long
2007-08-31 20:53:00
I’ve been dithering about using the System Recovery DVD on my old XP machine for ages, I almost can’t face it, and this is something I’ve done numerous times before but not for several years. If I don’t prepare, backup and migrate loads of data I’m going to lose it. The question is can I remember everything that needs preserving. Let’s give it a shot by making a list of everything I can think of that needs saving: All email and the address book from Outlook. That’s relatively easy, write the outlook.pst file to a cd and put it onto the Vista machine, or even easier copy it via the network or use the Easy Transfer Vista application. The DVD I created with Sony Vegas can be moved to the Vista machine and I think Sony Vegas is Vista compatible, but of course the proof is trying to use it. The companion product DVD Architect isn’t Vista compatible. So I can get the data onto Vista, edit it again but can’t write it. Might be a...
More About: Machine , Nuke , Long , Mach

Looking at other projects, current project is just too darn small
2007-08-31 16:37:00
The weather has gone cold, in August, and I have received one solitary email since 6am this morning, and not one call on the landline or the mobile either. Get a northerly wind and everybodies desire to communicate shrivels up. I have been looking at other contracts and I don’t feel too good about that as I have only been on my current contract for a month, but I’m not sure they’d miss me. The test team do what they think of as system testing but is really user acceptance testing. If you explain this to them their eyes just glaze over. A graduate from university, who has 6 weeks experience, is considered one of the more experienced testers. Mention schemas, database tables, log files or any other system plumbing and they are just not interested. It’s odd because some of the more aware testers are under the impression they are heading for a disaster, which they aren’t really. They just need to re-jig the teams a bit and change a few processes a little...
More About: Projects , Current , Project , Small , R Project

How to listen to commentaries of all English Premiership matches live
2007-08-30 11:37:00
A lot of English Premiership football matches are broadcast live, if not on TV via Sky, then on radio via BBC Radio 5 Live or 5 Live Extra. But what about away games, such as possibly 3rd round FA Cup matches away to a smaller football club where there is little chance of it being broadcast on ...
More About: English Premiership , Matches

Earthlink cuts half its workforce, workers pay for slack broadband strategy
2007-08-29 18:33:00
By Chris Williams @ www.theregister.co.uk  Financially-challenged US ISP Earthlink said on Tuesday it will slash about half its workforce after failing to ride the broadband wave Stateside. The Atlanta-based firm will can 900 staff as part of a sweeping cost-cutting exercise. It also lowered its revenue predictions for the third time this year to between $1.19bn and ...
More About: Broadband , Workers , Strategy , Half

Use the iPhone abroad and go broke
2007-08-29 16:11:00
I heard that someone who used their iPhone in Ireland for two weeks got a bill for $2,000 as the roaming charges are not cheap. I also heard that a couple of people who have used the iPhone abroad for web usage, and again the data tarrif’s are not cheap, generated bills of $12,000. This effectively ...
More About: Apple , Iphone , Broad

If in doubt raise a defect and waddayaget, half the defects are duplicates,
2007-08-28 14:37:00
I was talking to some of the guys on the project about the fact that there are so many open defects. They don’t really like talking about this kind of stuff. They are keen to find as many new defects but there are so many duplicates that unless some kind of rationalisation of the exisitng defects takes place ...
More About: Doubt , Defect , Half , The D

Facebook, I?ll give it a week & some odd practices
2007-08-27 11:57:00
I thought I’d play around with Facebook just to see if I can find any use for it. I feel like the last person in the World that hasn’t used it. Last night I saw someone who I hadn’t seen in a while and she was enthusing about it. I asked her how many friends she ...
More About: Week , Give , Some

2000 outstanding bugs and counting, most live
2007-08-25 10:42:00
I checked the FogBUGZ system for open defects and they have 2,000 of the critters, what’s worse is that they are raising far more than they are closing. I actually don’t want to raise any new defects at all, which is just very weird for me. I’m more interested in proving the supposed fixed defects are ...
More About: Bugs , Live , Stand , Counting , Outstanding

Users lucky to get any data on their reports & a new novel from Arthur C Cl
2007-08-24 22:10:00
The project have a culture of not fixing some bugs, for instance reports, ever. They are just low priority and will never get fixed. How many decisions are made by users out in the wild from the wrong data on reports. Maybe it is best to let sleeping dogs lie. If you suddenly tightened up the ...
More About: Data , Arthur , Lucky , Users , Ports

This company doesn?t know how to get big
2007-08-24 21:06:00
They are a small company but even as I speak they are becoming a slightly bigger company. They?re taking on people as quickly as they can find them, kit is pitching up by the truckload and next year they get to triple there user base. They still think slightly small and some of them are ...
More About: Company , Compa

Testing third-party plugins & Linkedin, what?s it for?
2007-08-23 18:54:00
Had a defect to clear yesterday that was so confusing it took me the best part of 5 hours, and that was just to confirm that it worked ok. How can it take that long? If the original defect had been worded better then it would have taken less time to clear. If the developers had ...
More About: Party , Testing , Plugins , Third Party , Third

Spam drug emails paid off, get skinny cheap & raising bugs with the wrong w
2007-08-21 18:23:00
I have just been reading how young girls are getting slimming pills from online pharmacies and starving themselves to death. After years of spam emails about cheap Viagra and Cialis and heavne knows what else, it seems that it has paid off. Most of these online pharmacies aren’t licensed and are based all over the world. ...
More About: Spam , Paid , Bugs , Skinny , Emails

We?re raising bugs for the developers to fix and the developers don?t know
2007-08-21 00:11:00
I was talking to one of the developers, who has worked on the project for two weeks longer than myself, and he?s had no end of trouble getting the software working. And I don?t mean fixing bugs, I mean getting the development system up and working so that he can see the bugs in all ...
More About: Bugs , Developers , Develop , The D

The five stages of getting bugs to be accepted by developers
2007-08-19 22:17:00
Just been checking the Commission Junction site to see if any of my other applications to advertisers has been agreed by them. Yes that’s right I have to apply to an advertiser to have their adverts available for me to wire them up onto this blog. When you apply to a company, usually they do a ...
More About: Bugs , Developers , Five , Develop , Accept

Turning off the Internet, OK, but only for 5 years right?
2007-08-16 19:51:00
Elton John reckons the Internet should be switched off for 5 years to force people to make music the old fashioned way and to get them out of the house to do real things rather than sitting at home writing wretched blogs (Tell me about that. Ed). Could we live without the Internet? No more blogs to ...
More About: Years , The Internet , Year , Ears

Can you replicate the defect? Nope. Then it didn?t happen.
2007-08-16 00:09:00
The project I am on has some funny features. They are constantly testing you, even tricking you. They will give the same defect to 2 people to see whether one tests a defect better than the other. That sounds OK up to a point but ultimately they are just trying to trip up their own ...
More About: Defect , The D , Then