This tip comes from Zach Fisher who wrote about it here. FileHamster provides real-time backup and archiving of your files while you work. It enables you to monitor specific files on your hard drive and automatically create incremental backups whenever those files are modified. It also enables you to store notes about the changes that have been made, allowing you to quickly locate a specific revision or provide a detailed account of the work you've done on a project.
When testing software that relies on number inputs, it's easy to get caught up and use the same kinds of numbers over and over. To add variability, (and increase your chances of discovering something interesting) use tools to create numbers for you to test. Random.org has a lot of options available online.
In Ruby, all you need is to call the "rand" method in IRB. ex. try typing rand(32), rand(100), rand(1000) in IRB. Other programming and scripting languages have similar functionality.
In Excel 2007, try the RANDBETWEEN function: =RANDBETWEEN(-100,100)
In Ruby, all you need is to call the "rand" method in IRB. ex. try typing rand(32), rand(100), rand(1000) in IRB. Other programming and scripting languages have similar functionality.
In Excel 2007, try the RANDBETWEEN function: =RANDBETWEEN(-100,100)
Ajax and other rich client technologies such as Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex submit information to web and application servers differently than traditional web applications do. As a tester of these technologies, it's important to understand what is being sent and when. Get started by using Wireshark, a free network protocol analyzer, and find out. You might be surprised at what gets sent, and whether sensitive information is encrypted, and how much network chatter a rich client web application might generate.
If you need to rapidly test an application in a language that you don't speak, use your (clean) spam email messages to create input data. Once you have selected several appropriate spam emails, run them through an online translation service such as Google Translate or Babelfish. Translate from the language you work with into the language you need to test with, and save the output as input data. This will work for rapid, superficial testing, and has the added benefit of prompting a few chuckles from the native speaking tester who comes after you.
How does the web site or web application you are testing look to people who are color blind? Use Vischeck to see for yourself.