Software testing is a natural – and essential – part of product development. Effective software testing will be independent, objective, and follow a standardised framework and reporting structure.

It’s highly important that testers have formal qualifications in software testing to show they understand the importance of thorough and objective testing, as well as the tools and techniques for the task.

The ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board) is a non-profit European company, offering a framework that meets businesses’ requirements for effective software testing.

ISTQB testers need to have taken the official exams from the Chartered Institute for IT (formally ISEB) after undertaking a formal ISTQB Software Testing training course. Our ISTQB training courses include the relevant exams on the final day.

Advantages of having the ISTQB software testing certification

• ISTQB is the fastest growing software tester certification in the world
• ISTQB is recognised worldwide Read the rest of "Why Companies Like ISTQB Software Testing"

Are Businesses Releasing Unfinished Products Too Early?

One of the questions put to Google’s Pierre Far at the Ask the Search Engines panel at BrightonSEO last week was of whether Google test new software products and redesigns before releasing them.

Of course, the answer was ‘yes’ – and the questioner was sternly instructed how to ensure Google pay attention to their feedback – see minute 24 of the full panel video for Pierre’s response.

“Didn’t You Test This?”

Martin Belam recently wrote an article about Beta tests, specifically of a new threaded comments system on the Guardian’s website. He cited reader comments along the lines of “didn’t you test this?” – where the answer being that the software they’re using is, in fact, the test. The user in question hadn’t realised that they were viewing one of just six (from 1.4 million) articles that had been chosen to test the new system.

Another notable example of how early releases lead to criticism include BBC Sport, who had to post a lengthy blog post in February in reaction to a huge amount of negative feedback from users. Facebook is similarly often subject to negativity from users after updates.

Releasing software too early can damage your brand’s reputation. If early users find your product too hard to use, they may walk away – and take a lot of persuading to come back.

Trying to manage user expectation is one way around this…but users don’t always realise they are viewing a beta and may assume any problems are consistent across all products and services.

Our Software Testing training is ISEB/ISTQB Accredited and includes Software Testing Foundation training, Software Testing Intermediate training and Advanced certificates for test managers, test analysts and technical test analysts.

Here some tips for making use of an early release model: Read the rest of "How to Make an Early Release Model Work"

Google is showing a growing interest in the possibility of hacking its Chrome browser this year. It has offered a prize of up to $1 million for a successful hack, in exchange for which it wants to know how the hackers managed it. We have seen this tactic employed before by Facebook who offered pre-loaded credit cards to hackers. But it seems that everyone is interested in taking down Chrome, with hackers wanting the prestige and not the money.

Software testing is important to ensure that products are market ready when they go to production. Too many businesses have become notorious for faulty products and broken software. Software testing is an in demand skill, and many businesses are looking to employ accredited testers. We offer ISEB and ISTQB accredited software testing training courses from Foundation to Advanced level.

Hacking Competitions

Competitions are a popular way for testers to meet up and test their skills with the limits of the law. Contestants are encouraged to hack products and if successful receive the product they have hacked and/or a cash incentive.

At this year’s Pwn2Own hacking competition at CanSecWest, Google Chrome was the first piece of technology defeated. Chrome had resisted all attempts at hacking in last year’s competition, which makes the winning time of five minutes, by a group of French hackers known as Vupen, all the more impressive.

Google Chrome had, in fact, been the only browser left standing at the 2011 Pwn2Own, which may explain why hackers were so eager to take it down. Chaouki Bekrar, the research head and co-founder of Vupen, told ZDNet, “We wanted to show that Chrome was not unbreakable. Last year we saw a lot of headlines that no one could hack Chrome. We wanted to make sure it was the first to fall this year.” Read the rest of "Google Offers $1 Million for Chrome Hack, Broken Within An Hour"

It may pain any managers, designers and developers to hear it but software testing is crucial at every part of a product’s development.

From the initial conception, to the design and development and even the finished product testing should occur to keep the product on task for completion.

ISEB/ ISTQB Foundation Software Testing Training teaches delegates about testing throughout the entire software life cycle.

Testing at the last stage is inadvisable as any necessary changes will mean running the product back through the entire process.

Testing should be done at four stages:

• Planning
• Design
• Development
• End product

The below diagram shows how a problem at each stage of the software cycle can affect the final product:

Testing During the Planning Stage

The Design and Development stages may be spot on, but if the wrong requirements are introduced during the planning stage then the wrong product will be produced. Ensuring that all the correct requirements are in place is vital to design and development of the correct product. Read the rest of "Software Testing Throughout the Process"

News stories like this show how important software testing is for security. Software defects have the potential to cost a business far more than its reputation. Hackers can take advantage of software defects to blackmail businesses for financial gain. Here’s an example of this practice in real life from our guest blogger Alex Smith…

A group of hackers has attempted to blackmail security software company, Symantec in exchange for keeping stolen source code private.

The hackers released a batch of emails to the public that were sent from the FBI posing as Sam Thomas a representative of Symantec.

Officers from the FBI offered the hackers $50,000 or £32,000 in return for the stolen source code. Since negotiations have broken down more source code has been released which is obviously a major concern for Symantec and their customers.

Symantec have been working closely with the FBI after being contacted by the hackers in January.

Our Software Testing Training courses are all accredited to provide delegates with an industry recognised software testing qualification. Get a foot in the door of the software testing industry by learning the best practice approach through ISEB/ ISTQB courses.

It is believed that the hackers are affiliated with the Lords of Dharmaraja who are part of the hacking group Anonymous. Read the rest of "Hackers Attempt To Blackmail Symantec"

Even the best Software Testers don’t pick up every problem and sometimes a bug that is deemed unimportant is picked up by users as a critical issue. Releasing a product that seems unfinished into the public domain may seem counter-productive but it is known to work. Often businesses do this with beta testing – only releasing to a small number of users with warnings that the product is unfinished and an expectation of feedback. Google released almost all of their products early and then makes changes as they go. This means that the finished product is always better at the time of full release than one with no user testing. However, testing is still a critical element of releasing new software and so software testers are still in high demand. Without professional testing, product launches are likely to be hampered by issues unnoticed during development. The best testers are trained testers so please enquire about our accredited ISEB/ISTQB Software Testing Training courses by browsing the websites or calling us on 01273 622272 for more information.

If you have taken the time to research some business terminology then you will probably be familiar with the term ‘iteration cycle’. The idea behind this is that you release your product out into the wild, see how it does, and then improve on it based on the feedback you get.

So in other words, you might release a website, notice that no one is staying on it very long or visiting your other pages, and so improve your navigation and layout. That’s one cycle – release, feedback, edit. Read the rest of "Iteration Cycles and Feedback"

In the summer of 2011 Facebook set up their own bug bounty program to encourage more of their users to find and help prevent any bugs or glitches found within the social media site. With security being paramount to the success of many companies it is vital that social media companies are careful with the data their users have entered.

This is an intuitive method of software testing in which Facebook only have to pay out when users find bugs – much cheaper than hiring a whole software development team. Having access to a huge variety of software testers is also an advantage as they combine different skills and experiences to find bugs that others may miss.

Last year Sony revealed last year that 12700 credit card details were stolen by hackers, leading to the closure of their PSN online network for 23 days to the dismay of millions of its users. The cost of the outage was huge to the massive technology firm’s reputation, as well as its wallet, having to give out compensation packs to lure its tiring and agitated user base of over 77 million back in. This shows that even the biggest companies in the world can make oversights in testing and as a result be held hostage by hackers.

These flaws are more important to the users, whose information they willingly give up to sites and is at risk of being exposed and stolen against their will. And when that comes to bank details many users will find that to be a deal breaker when it comes to using that service again in the future.

To find out more about what bugs are common in software take a look at our Top 10 Reasons for Bugs in Software post.

Facebook’s new method to prevent information leakage is to offer hackers who have found an exploit within the social network, of over 800 million members, is to give them a debit card. Read the rest of "Hackers to Receive Debit Cards From Facebook"

While 2012 is still anew and resolutions are still to be made, let alone broken, IBM has started the year in a bold fashion. It started the New Year with a fit of generosity by gifting, well no purchasing details have been released as of yet, Google 217 patents.

These patents have the potential to boost Google’s social network, Google+, and many of its other services by helping them to fulfil the promise of creating a semantic web. This could allow Google+ to identify experts in particular topics in order to identify people with common interests within the network. It would do this by analysing the content of any content posted or read by the user in order to rank them by expertise, helping you get in touch with the most knowledgeable person within your extended network. From a software testing perspective, this would mean being able to find testers who have the most experience or expertise in particular field easily and accurately.

Giving hasn’t been IBM’s only activity this year so far. The giant technologies company has also purchased Green Hat, a company that specialises in cloud software testing. Cloud computing has been touted as the future of computing; connecting all of your files and data to all of your devices to be accessed anytime, anywhere. However, there are many obstacles that must be faced before a cloud based app is ready to be let out into the wild.

Take a look at this video interview with software testing guru, Fred Beringer, for an introduction to Cloud Testing.

As well as compatibility issues (especially in the mobile field) a lot of focus has to be put upon security, as by having your files free to be accessed from any device anywhere, it also implies that without rigorous security your data is free to be accessed by anyone. This is where testing comes in, a process which is reported to take up more than 50% of total development costs. This makes IBM’s move a wise one.

Green Hat’s expertise and experience in cloud development will surely enhance IBM’s Rational Solution section which creates lifecycle management tools to aid in agile software development and testing. They are also making the services available to third party developers through their Global Business Services’ Application Manager Services (AMS). Read the rest of "2012 Has Already Been a Busy Year for IBM"

Silicon Beach Training provide a host of great mobile development courses, including iPhone App training, Android App Training and Mobile Web Design courses. However, every new app needs to be tested thoroughly before launch.  With a wide variety of operating systems, screen resolutions and hardware combinations desktop software testing needs to accommodate for. This, however, is a mere drop in the ocean when compared to the multitude of mobile platforms and smartphones that need to be tested before launching an app.

With apps becoming increasingly popular and complex the need for testing has never been higher, but with so many smartphone platforms, including iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile (and then there’s the tablets!), each of which running different software versions, button layouts, screen sizes and sporting different hardware, covering all of your bases is becoming a time consuming and expensive task.

As well as the software and hardware differences between devices you also have to take into account the number of mobile phone networks that the devices operate on. This makes the number of unique combinations to test vast! So buying one of every type of phone isn’t a practical solution. Especially as there are over 350 types of Android device alone!

Luckily there are other ways which when used will bring your testing time and expenditure down considerably. Here are seven of our favourites: Read the rest of "App Testing for Smartphones and Mobiles"

Software testers often draw certain stereotypes as this hilarious photo from Richard Walker on Google+ shows:

While comparisons to geeks, airport security and the Justice League are hardly productive and don’t help the image of a software tester, there are a number of characteristics that do make a software tester better in their field. These are essential attributes that software testers must have if they want to be successful:

Judgement

Software testers are rarely given exact requirements on a plate and are unlikely to have time to run all tests within a given timeline. Therefore, good judgement is needed. Think like Judge Dredd and have the conviction to make decisions.

It is the software tester’s job to judge what needs testing, how to long to test for, what areas need the most attention, which issues are defects and whether a bug necessitates deeper pursuit.

These questions can only be answered through a combination of knowledge and experience – but you need good judgement to apply knowledge and experience to real life situations. Read the rest of "Attributes of a Software Tester"