Avoid Zombie Attack!

This is mostly for testing purposes (I think I’ve done this before, actually). So, I’m using my testing blog to test something. Ha! How ab0ut that?

Great. Except it didn’t work. Annoying.

Let’s try again:

"Must Haves" and more

I saw a cool article by Jeff Patton on Sticky Minds today about “The Forgotten Side of Quality.” Strictly speaking, it probably has more to do with requirements management or software design than testing or quality assurance specifically. Interesting food for thought though. In addressing the Kano method, he notes:

The Kano Method separates product features into general categories. The three big ones are “must haves,” like: brakes on a car (we need those); “one-dimensional” items like gas mileage on a car (higher mileage is better); and attractive quality or “delighters” (leather seats in my German car are a delighter). The idea is that your product should have all the must haves, maximize the one-dimensionals, and toss in some delighters.

However, later the distinction between subjective and objective quality gets mentioned, specifically:

Discussions of quality have revolved around the two aspects of subjectivity and objectivity since the time of Aristotle. Embedded in this objective-subjective split is the idea that objective quality pertains to the ‘conformance to requirements’ while subjective quality pertains to the ‘satisfaction of users.’

Hmm…sounds suspiciously like verification vs. validation, doesn’t it?

Anyway, some interesting thoughts for prioritizing requirements/features and analyzing the relative “quality” of a product, whether it’s a German car or a piece of software.

“Decrapify”

If you’ve ever bought a new PC, you know what happens when you take it out of the box and get it up and running. The first thing you have to do, even before installing your own chosen software and data, is remove the bloatware that litters your new baby’s hard drive. (Of course if you bought a Mac this really doesn’t apply.)

Check out “The PC Decrapifier,” a free program that scans your new Windows XP or Vista PC and gives you the option to remove all that annoying…well…crap. It’s a simple executable – you don’t even have to install it. Just run it, choose which crap to remove, and that’s it. Cool!