Quality Center/ Test Director an edge for wing to wing Test Management

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I am sure using the word QA would make you think of processes we go by standard definition. But you all would certainly agree that testing and QA are quiet interchangeably used. Working in Software services since start of my career and mostly with onsite and offshore model I have worked in both SDLC and typical third party QA practices where the SDLC is being conducted in a distributed framework (Requirement and Design is done by one company, Coding and Unit testing by another, QA by another and final support is done by some other company). 10 years back I felt a dearth need for an end to end test management tool which would reduce confusion and chaos during the QA\ Testing process. To fulfill this I feel Quality Center is a perfect tool. I have implemented and used Quality Center (earlier called Test Director) in various projects across different organizations.

HP Quality Center is basically a web based test management tool which if used and implemented correctly would help you right from specifying testing requirements, planning tests, executing tests, and tracking defects.
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Pre-Paid Booth at IGI Airport-Delhi and our readiness for interanational tourists

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We were coming back after a short holiday at Dubai. As we touched down, we called three Radio Taxis. Routes, the first one didn’t pick up. Then we called Megacab and they refused to give one for Noida/Indirapuram. Then we called Easycab and we were told to ask for the Taxi at the airport since they have a counter there. One of our friends has already tried Quickcabs (or somthing like that) and they also do not cover Noida/Indirpuram. So we waited for the counter.

After our share of immigration, where strangely the guy who was manning the desk asked me that why I came back early, he was bluffing to make me say something odd, dont know why. It was a 3 day simple trip and probably I spent less time to really make good value of the all the expenses, but it was none of his business. Anway, I told him that the plan was to come back so I didn’t really come early and I looked sorry to disappoint him.

We finally got out of Customes and headed for EasyCabs counter. We were told that we would need to wait for 15 minutes. Being alert and frequent travelers, we guessed it that the guy doesn’t really know, when a Taxi would be available. If its indeed available in 15 minutes then they would say that its waiting at the gate. So I went to Pre-Paid booth which is run by ‘Delhi Traffic Police’. I was non-politely refused when I asked for a cab for Noida. After thinking for another 40 seconds or so, we decided to take one till Delhi-UP border and request my brother-in-law to fetch us from there.

So much for so called NCR, where one even can not get a TAXI.

I paid , it was to be Rs 405 till Ghazipur. We exited, went to another counter. A guy there wrote a Taxi no. Located that Taxi. It was the old classic Amby which has lived its good times. The driver, Ashok Kumar, was courteous enough to open the boot but stayed away from my luggage, such show of respect of privacy was not observed when you are dealing with Radio Taxi, they would rather snatch your valuable heavy luggage. Anway, we got in. It was a non-Air conditioned vehicle with unclean seat-covers. But getting Delhi air after Dubai was still great fun. He dropped us at Ghazipur in 45 minutes, that was very quick. We got out, took our luggage out ourseves, this time he gave me the opportunity of opening the boot. As you would have guessed, I took the luggage out, gave him the pre-paid slip, thanked him and headed towards my bro-in-law’s car.

This was a experience of a localite, imagine what can happen to a new person. Incredible India. I hope someone reads this and may be takes some action.

Our Nursery Admission Score Card

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This is more for us then for anyone else, something to look back later and relive. We had decided to apply at 10 schools, hoping that we would get one at least.

  1. . Amity (Round 1 - Pass, Round 2 - No)
  2. . Apeejay (Round 1 - Pass, Round 2 - Yes. Admission Taken)
  3. . Cambridge (Round 1 - Pass, Round 2 - No)
  4. . DPS (Round 1 - Application not shortlisted)
  5. . Father Agnel (Round 1 - Results on Oct 23)
  6. . Indus Valley (Only one Round - Pass. Selected)
  7. . Khaitan (Only one Round - Pass. Selected)
  8. . Ryan (Round 1 - On Oct 10th. Skipped)
  9. . Somerville (Round 1 - Application Shortlisted, Round 2 - No)
  10. . Vishwa Bharti (Only one Round - Pass. Selected)

Khaitan School, Noida – A primer on Nursery Admissions

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Khaitan is a new school but its gradually getting more popular and is seen as one of the better schools in Noida. It doesn’t figure among big-bro schools in Noida like DPS, Amity, ApeeJay or among the new age modern swanky ones like Step-By-Step, Lotus Valley etc but is gaining ground.

Location - Its in sector 40 which is a little away from the old main Noida but a very handy location for Sector 50, 51, 39 etc.

Age Criteria - 3 years on 1 April 2009.

Form Availability - We applied in 2008, for 2009 session, and forms were available from 15th Sep 2008 - 23th September 2008.

Last Date for Submission - Form submission was on 24th, 25th and 26th.

Admission Process
There is only one round of interaction for parents as well as the kid. We were asked to fill a form which had the usual questions
- Why KPS
- What do you expect from KPS
- Why its important for Father to spend time
- Nuclear family or Joint Family
- How much quality time you spend

Kid was taken to some interaction room and it seemed that the session was exhaustive as my Kid was back after 30 minutes or may be more. She briefly told us that there were puppets (may be they do some sort of role-playing games) and that she was given a banana to eat.

Our interaction was about 60 seconds. We were asked about our education and thats it.

We were fairly impressed with the way the whole process was executed. Staff was very polite (not a usual scenario at schools, they are very teacher-ish) and was smiling (again not a usual thing). School was very clean and I could see lot of work going on, probably some infra additions.

Result would be out on October 3rd.

Update on Oct 6th
——————
330 odd students were selected. We also made in. We need to submit fees by Oct 7th. We tried asking for an extension, hoping to get a result out of APJ, but no luck. Monthly fee is Rs 2.5K and fees at the time of admission is Rs 33.5K. Nothing is refundable out of 33.5 K, should we choose to change our mind later.
We would most likely go and submit the fees.

Test 2008 – Testing Conference

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“Test 2008″ is the first testing conference organized by ‘Pure Conferences’. I happen to know the people behind this and these are the same folks who run ‘Pure Testing’, a testing consulting company, so when I got the invite for being there, I was not surprised.


Vipul, founder of Pure Testing, worked with me earlier at Adobe and while I still continue to test more software out here, he has moved on to pursue his dream of making the world better at doing ‘Software Testing’. After reading the invite and the envious list of speakers, I could not stop myself from writing this small post on the conference.

Test 2008 would be held on Oct 15-16 2008 in Delhi and the theme for the first conference is ‘Agility in Testing’. Speakers from around 10 countries, such as USA, UK, France, Sweden, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, including India will deliver keynotes, tutorials and papers during the conference. Apart from this, the organizers are also trying to make Test2008 a ‘green’ conference as far as possible.

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