I ask questions

I just watched the video of our online session with Elisabeth Hendrickson. Though we had at the begin technical problems, this did not stop us: it was fun, we laughed a lot (to answer the question above). We were 6 persons and I guess this is what made the online virtual training experiment so cosy.
The session was presented with an exercise, which certainly everybody knows and which transmits the message of the training easy. Curious ? Well more info here.

And thanks to Merlyn Albery-Speyer, Mark Anderson and Martin Clarke I know now more about Erlang (for German readers: it is not related to the German town Erlangen :-)), stapler testing and stolen blog posts. And I am sure Pradeep Soundararajan you know already from my other posts.

Erkan YILMAZ

Another example for the category playing and asking questions:

I had played with … for two weeks and hadn’t made it crash once. Brian brought the whole thing down in three commands.
…
If only I could get a room filled with 8-year-olds to test my code.

Read Michael’s whole story here.

BTW Michael: if the mountain will not come to the prophet …
Grab your laptop with the test software and go to the next playground. I am sure any child - no matter what age - will be interested (not only because after eating ice cream typing with clammy/dirty fingers on someone elses keyboard is fun ). While doing this I would also involve mothers, grandparents and babysitters.

Erkan Yilmaz

My brother is a great fan of the Linux distribution Pardus (Pardus-Kurulan-2007.2-RC.iso) and I am a great fan of any sorts of cats (see picture at end of posting and my about page point 7).
So I thought, let my other Linux have another companion …

Truth is … I didn’t come so far initially. At the begin of the installation my screen went black. I tried then also the different offered install options, but none of them worked
Google revealed, that some users also had this problem (more info at the end of the article). The installation could go on anyway, when adding the boot option xorg=safe.

Well, in comparison to such an error an unhandled exception might appear less dramatic:

After installation, my problem was now to set up the graphics card with a good frequency (e.g. in Windows, Mandriva to set up 75 Hz with 1152×864 is possible from start, but in Pardus I have so far only 60 Hz ). Downloading new ATI drivers could not fix this problem and the ATI Catalyst Control Center (amdccle) does not want to start at all (it loads and loads and then it decides to not show). Well, I just use for the moment 1024×768 with 85 Hz

But I will definitely investigate here more. I like this distribution and… my brother has some convincing arguments for Pardus. Perhaps I switch with him the hardware

Erkan YILMAZ

edit 2007-07-11: higher resolution: I have now 75 Hz with 1152×864 and the developers have some bug reports in Bugzilla
edit 2007-07-14: unhandled exception: is fixed now in Pardus 2007.2
edit 2007-07-18: black screen: one developer told this seems to be a driver bug. Zorg had identifed the videocard
and configured xorg.conf correctly. Either the driver can not identify the output device or it does not init correctly.

What you should know, before you read the article:
Why I am writing on this issue ?
This goes out to all software vendors: I am a potential customer who is not allowed to use the software and has to search for other ways to achieve his goal. If you want me to use your software in the future, please change some things. E.g. make a basic installer (like the REAL Alternative), so I can still succeed.
Well, it is interesting that with free software you can do what the company itself is not able to But if someting does not work then at least give me a proper dialog: in a good translated version. Read also later: “Does your customer smile when (s)he is confronted with an error? No - why not?“

I just wanted to install the Real Player 10.5 GOLD de to view a rm file. But I can not use it on Longhorn server:

I am told that users with restricted rights are not allowed to use it - and I should contact my sysadmin.

Well, Erkan then thinks: “OK, let me login as admin - who knows perhaps it is because of something weird in UAC.”
Unfortunately when I start the installer as admin, I get the same msg.

So, I assume what they really want to tell me is: that I should not use this software on Longhorn Server.

BTW:
the Freeware Real Alternative 1.52 can install on Longhorn and also plays the rm file

Unfortunately I did not find a public forum where I can look up for similar errors. Also googling did not help much.
Perhaps someone has similar experience with Vista too ? (btw: this site shows me Vista or Longhorn server is not in the supported OS list.)

Let me ask the REAL support about this. (BTW: I want to help also Real with this posting - so other users have not the same problem. Please see this all as positive feedback.)

Actually about the dialog:
1. the first sentence of the message is quite dazzling:
As user with restricted rights in the windows OS you are not allowed to use this program for installing software. (”Als Benutzer mit eingeschränkten Rechten im Windows-Betriebssystem dürfen Sie dieses Programms zur Installation von Software nicht verwenden.”)

Does it appear only for me as bad German ? I would expect such a message: As user with restricted rights in the windows OS you are not allowed to install this program. (”Als Benutzer mit eingeschränkten Rechten im Windows-Betriebssystem dürfen Sie dieses Programm nicht installieren.”)

2. there is a spelling error

My Basic System Information:
Microsoft® Windows® Server™ Code Name “Longhorn” Datacenter
6.0.6001 Service Pack 1, v.126 Build 6001
AMD Athlon Xp 1800+, 1,25 GB RAM
(more info available on request with a msinfo32 file)

Erkan YILMAZ

Are you a person who uses open source software ?
Do you like it ?
Did you spend until now time to make it better ?

For the first question your answer might be: yes
If the answer for the second is also yes, I would be interested in the third answer.

With this posting I do not want to tell you about the many advantages as a tester to use open source software (practicing your skills; getting to know other, public, collaborative projects; …). No, I ONLY want to invite you to help (if I think about how many people out there could help, my head is swimming).

I am sure, if you give the open source community feedback, they will appreciate this, because:
1. it will be feedback
2. it will be (hopefully) good communicated feedback about a bug or feature

Would it cost so much for you to help ?
Don`t be a parasite - pay back ! Start here ! You can do this right now on your pc !
Use your skills for something good !

Erkan YILMAZ

After Ben asked here if “square” and “Spießer” have the same meaning, I asked some online translation services. The translation of the German term “Spießer” revealed following:

I present the not-winners of the day for this specific term (I do not use term loser with purpose):
IATE (result)
Google Translator (result) and
Babelfish (result)
(or could be said following ? IATE was so honest to tell nothing, instead telling something wrong or something which does not make sense - or does there exist a term “spiesser” in English ?)

From the results one could infer perhaps “Spießer” should be translated with “bourgeois” or “babbitt” ? But I will ask better a native English speaking person to help me out here. Perhaps someone who knows the context of the term since our recent slogan game

Erkan YILMAZ

btw: why do I post about such things ?
- to help Michael and others to assess the quality of online translation services
- I am curious and might gain some interesting info (e.g. do some services use the same database: Beolingus and ergo4u; Google Translator and Babelfish ?)
- you never know where and when you can see a bug. E.g. is the behaviour of Google translator and Babelfish wrong ?
a. From my point of view: yes.
BUT: “A bug is anything about the product that threatens its value. And: Quality is value to some person (who matters).” (James Bach and Michael Bolton, Rapid Software Testing, slide 12, slide version 2.1.3)
And I am not sure, if I matter at Google
So far, I am not quite sure, if there exists really such an English term “spiesser”. So let me ask someone, because I do not know (also: cost value factor of asking a native English speaking person is better than me now doing a search - well: it is also a little late - I hope you excuse me for that). Let’s see what I can investigate afterwards.
b. From your point of view: ?

edit 2007 May 04:
I got a ping and “square” seems the best translation (when used to refer to a person)
and this would make LEO the winner of the day

edit 2007 August 21:
there is an updated graphic available - which includes also dict.cc and woerterbuch.info - see here

Today I created a new category: playing and asking questions

Here you will find my test reports - actually more correct - my game reports. Now you are certainly going to ask, why I then don’t call it “test reports” ?

Well, I want to show with this, that testing for me involves the aspect of exploring and playing respectively. There are so many unknown things in software (and much more in life). And my opinion is, that the best way to tease more info out, is to play with it.

Like a child would do - a child plays and asks so unbelievably many questions.

(this picture is by Pamela Adam and is licenced under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License, source: Flickr)

Testing is really fun - not only my profession.
I hope, you see it the same way (or you will see it like this one day hopefully).

Erkan YILMAZ

I am not so happy with my web provider.
Seems, always when I want to post something, there happen problems - hm, or are there always problems? .

I just had this error 500 message:
“In case you have the opinion this is a failure due to the server, contact the webmaster.”

Of course they are right - there can be different reasons for this error, but still: at that moment I just want my task to be done.
If I email the webmaster, this will eventually take even longer. So I retry. And thank God: it works.

But how about, if you place yourself for one moment into your customer ?
E.g. Orkut seems having done this.
When there appears an error, it is told:
Bad, bad server. Today there are no sweets for you.
…
We apologize for the trouble and for the “ruthless” behaviour of our server

I liked this - I even smiled.
But the standard message from my provider is so sh.t.
The request I have to you: make me as customer happy. Even if it is only with an inventive error message. Or better: don’t let even such errors happen.

Erkan YILMAZ

Yesterday I asked the ‘great firewall of China’ a few questions. And the answers were interesting. Have a look HERE !

And today I wanted to check for a long domain name, but could not input it, because there is a limit of 75 characters in the input field

Well, I shortened it then to 71 characters: www.thelongestdomainnameintheworldandthensomeandthensomemoreandmore.com
but I got: Can’t start the test. Can’t open URL.

Erkan YILMAZ

I read about the safari browser for mac. Since I do not have a mac, I am trying now Swift (which uses Apples Rendering Engine WebKit).

First experience: I could not download swift from the swift site:

Ok, the web is big and I found version 0.2 somewhere else.

I installed swift and then wanted to mail developers about the broken download link.
I went in swift to Help > About swift,
then I thought: click on www.getswift.org
and I am forwarded to a site where I am told:
“The domain getswift.com is for sale. To purchase, call…”

Probably I am not the only one, who has such problems with the websites, or?

Well, I closed this tab then and my about-tab is not presented correct:

Nevertheless I will use swift a little more and see what else will happen.
But as you know the first impressions are the important ones.

I will email now the developers and tell them about this (my good deed for today). And if wanted, I can provide then a bug report (this is not the intention of this post)

Erkan YILMAZ

edit:
I emailed developer Chris and wanted to leave also a message on his blog. And found something else: swift does not offer to switch with the tabulator key to the second field. From usability point of view not nice.

I was talking with a friend and at some time he told me a German sentence – I was impressed, because it was grammatically correct and also the pronunciation was good. Later he told a 2nd sentence – and again I was impressed (but this time the pronunciation was not so good ). When I asked about the German sentences, he told he used Google translator. I told that Google translator must be good.
But the next 3 translated sentences proved me wrong – I could not get the meaning at all. Also not, when I translated the sentence word for word back to English (reason: I assumed Google would translate it like this). So I had to take back my initial assumption.
But did I have enough data to say something at all on the quality?

So, we agreed, that I do some further testing on this.

How did I proceed?

1. Search some background info on Google translator (e.g. it was fed with 200 billion words).

2. But well, I did not want to read at that time too much and also maintain my curiosity, so I continued like this:
get me some random sentences.

I went to yahoo and searched for “english site” and took this website for getting me some random English text. Reason: this is a site especially for learning and teaching English – as it tells: “A web-site for teachers and learners of English as a secondary language from a German point of view”.
So, my intention here was: to get something for the benefit for Google, as I assume this kind of text would be better translated (do not get me wrong: for testing I would take later some text which is e.g. more technical, nested, … to challenge the application more )

3. Then I decided to take about every 5th sentence from there (why every 5th? well, which would you have used?) - here are the 16 sentences.

4. So, I started to translate these sentences with Google translator to German (since I have no version info on Google Translator for rechecking later: at 20.3.2007, 21:38 German time (GMT+1)). The sentences which (from my point of view) were translated perfect, I marked with OK - see here the results.
So this makes until now a ratio of about 48% (2 out of the 5 sentences from the conversation and 8 from the above 16 sentences).

Then I translated the remaining 8 not-OK sentences how I would like them myself (using one time LEO) - see here.

Actually the tests are not yet finished, I just gave some random input (16 sentences only - from my point of view easy sentences) to get me an impression on the quality. So, we have now a number - 48% - whatever this might tell. I wonder how much other online translators (Babelfish uses Systran, PROMT, … ) would achieve? But does this prove anything so far? It just tells: for these sentences it had this result - how good this works for each one of us is another case.

But well, it is late and perhaps you can help me testing? Otherwise I will continue soon.

I searched (of course in Google ) for other old bugs from Google translator. Found e.g. these: hit, hit, hit

Erkan YILMAZ

BTW:
Michael has listed here web services for English/German + vice versa translations. My all time favorite is LEO.
Michael plans to write a series on translation tools - so drop by his blog.