When doing exploratory testing, I like to have a stopwatch running so I can keep track of where I'm at in my session. One of the most common tools I use for this is XNote Stopwatch. There are some cool features like "Always On Top" and "Transparency" that make is especially useful when testing.

There are a million little applets and forms out there to do byte conversions, but for whatever reason this is the one I have bookmarked. I'm sure full time performance testers can do this stuff in their head, but us part-timers need help every now and then. Perhaps I like it because it's a simple clean interface, and it shows me the conversion rates:

1 Byte = 8 Bit
1 Kilobyte = 1024 Bytes
1 Megabyte = 1048576 Bytes
1 Gigabyte = 1073741824 Bytes

Do you have one you prefer? Or perhaps another similar simple tool you use when testing?

Recently Microsoft released Spec Explorer 2010. Spec Explorer is a tool for model-based testing. From the website:

Spec Explorer 2010 is a tool that extends Visual Studio for modeling software behavior, analyzing that behavior by graphical visualization, model checking; and generating standalone test code from models. Behavior is modeled in two ways: by writing rule machines in C# (with dynamic data-defined state spaces) and by defining scenarios as action patterns in a regular-expression style. One of Spec Explorer’s major features is the ability to compose models written in these two styles. This technique enables users to slice out test cases from large state machines by defining relevant scenarios, thus tackling the notorious state-space explosion problem pervasive in model-based testing. Spec Explorer also supports combinatorial interaction testing with a rich set of features.

The team that developed the tool also maintains a blog worth checking out.

For the last year or so I've been using a simple status dashboard to coordinate testing for releases. I find an easy way to share the dashboard is to use a spreadsheet Google doc. Using a Google doc makes it easy for everyone to make updates and see updates as they happen.

Here are the columns I'm currently tracking:

• Client


• Release Number


• Code Complete Date


• First Pass Test Complete Date


• CM Review Date


• Regression Test Complete Date


• UAT Date


• Production Date


• Development Status


• Test Status


• Testing Lead


• Deployment Ticket Number


• Scope Summary

It looks like a lot, but it all fits on one screen (no scrolling needed) and each row in the spreadsheet represents a separate release. If a date is in the past, the cell is colored red. If it's today, it's colored yellow. And if it's done, it's colored green. With one quick glance, you get a high-level view of all the releases and their current statuses.

Today's tip comes from a talk Dave Christianen gave last night at a local Ruby group meetup. When testing a Ruby on Rails application (or really almost any time), make sure you have Exception Notifier turned on. If you test Rails apps, and haven't seen Exception Notifier, check it out.