Imagine product designers and business analysts sitting around a conference room table. All of them congratulating each other on the great work they've all done in creating all the requirements that go into a functional specification document that their new, brilliant, cutting-edge software will be based upon going forward from this point on. The concept has been summarized and all the pieces are in place... right down to the finest details that will make this product the best thing since sliced bread. Read more »

I'm always looking for what is the best defect tracking system currently available - something that is easy to use, that the entire IT team can utilize and collaborate with, is fair priced, and offers a good level of support. For my dollars and for the needs of most QA managers and Dev teams it's hard to beat Atlassian's JIRA. JIRA has matured well and developed into a high quality product that will support your IT team. Read more »

Steve Jobs just announced what Apple is going to do regarding the iPhone 4 antenna issues, “Antennagate” as he referred to it:

• Everyone can get a free case for their iPhone 4 (for every phone purchased through September 30, 2010) and will receive a refund if you already bought a bumper – they’ll give you a choice of cases since they can’t supply enough bumpers just yet
• If you’re still not happy, before or after you get a free case, you can bring your iPhone 4 back undamaged within 30 days for a full refund (no restocking fee) Read more »

I was amazed to learn today that the one and only Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, is recommending iPhone 4 owners to carry a second Verizon phone as a backup so long as they can afford to do so. Goodness, I would have never thought I’d be hearing about this, but it goes to show that good ‘ol Woz stands alone and calls it like it is. You can read more about it here Read more »

We’re all guilty of it. No matter how many test cases you have, how great your test plan is, how well equipped your lab is, or whether you’re using the latest flavor software development process, there are bound to be things that you will still miss in your testing because you’ll primarily be concentrating on the things that you think you should be testing. It’s called myopic testing – where we focus our test efforts on the things that we think are the most important, but in reality they may not be. Read more »

Choosing a bug tracking system for your company can be one of the most important and difficult decisions that you are going to make. Most importantly the product (or design) chosen must translate well to the total needs of the entire IT Team. Read more »

It’s becoming more apparent that Apple is not going to cop to the iPhone 4 antenna issue. An internal Apple document shows how AppleCare reps are supposed to respond to the iPhone 4 antenna issues. It shows that Apple is taking the stance that nothing is wrong with the iPhone 4′s antenna. Being a very long-time and loyal Apple customer this really irks me. I understand that fixing a problem can be quite costly (i.e. offering free bumpers to anyone experiencing the problem), but Apple is going to really alienate their biggest fans and customers. Read more »

It seems like only yesterday that my involvement in software testing/quality assurance adventures began, but in reality it has been well over 20 years! It has been a slow, winding journey through many various types of software including video colorization tools, entertainment CD-ROMs, video-on-demand applications, animated 3D shopping apps, chat rooms, educational CD-ROMs, disk utilities, web sites and visualization/prototyping tools. Read more »

The now famous response of Steve Jobs saying that purchasers of the iPhone 4 are in fact holding their phones incorrectly and that’s why the antenna reception is decreased. He actually said, “Just avoid holding it in that way,” when responding to a customer’s email, but nevertheless this makes one think where the responsibilities of quality should lay – with the expectations of the consumer, or with how the manufacturer has defined quality. Either way, it strikes me as quite odd that we should be told how we must hold a telephone. I’ve never seen that one before on any of my other phones. Read more »

Apple announced today that they are in fact having problems with the iPhone 4, and that they’ve actually had problems with all iPhones since the first version. The confusing thing is that in their latest announcement they attribute the problems to a software glitch that incorrectly displays two more bars than it should for signal strength. Huh? How does a software problem have anything to do with losing signal strength due to the way the phone is held? Read more »