PAT or Portable Appliance Test is the process by which electrical equipments are tested at regular intervals to warranty their safety safe for use.

All the electrical tools and appliances, based on the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 are essential to be good retained so as to stop any possible danger. Every holder is required to assess the Electrical Equipment on a set schedule to assure the security of its staff and workers. Everything from monitors, computers, PC's, laptops, printers, photocopiers and fax machine to fans, heaters, and even microwave require to undergo testing. In simpler and short words, any and every electrical necessitate used by the employees or the tenants need thorough analyzing. Even the landholder who own the care homes or rent their assets need PAT testing for all the electrical apparatus used in the belongings.

Besides PAT testing, visual examination of the electrical equipments should be carried out more often within a year. A good visual inspection can lure awareness to unmindful defaults such as cracked casing, loose wire, missing grills and covers.

To ensure the constant security, most of the electric machineries entail frequent testing. The time interval for the assessments depends both on the type of equipment and the surrounding it is used in. However, there are no set guidelines for the frequency of PAT testing on electrical devices, still expected assessment of electrical equipment is essential to ensure the health and safety of employees.

You need to be extremely careful and also cautious while working with the PAT testing apparatus. Here are some tips that would help you to understand the working of Pat Testing Equipment easily:

Become proficient for carrying check :-You need to be expert and also practiced based on the laws so as to perform the PAT testing. By simply concentrating a training course related to PAT Testing from a good center, you can become highly trained for the assessment.
The IEE Code of practice
You are wanted to follow the IEE Code of Practice in order to perform the check. The code of practice for the assessment of the electrical apparatus and the in-service assessments, the manual provides a code of practice. It incorporates advice on compliance with health and protection legislation. Before starting the PAT Tests, make sure that you read it and thus become recognizable to it.

Purchase good authority Pat Testing Equipment
A high authority Pat Tester is a must to ascertain correct results. Try to avoid used or second hand testing machineries. Accuracy and longevity of any tools can be promised by a good PAT testing equipment.

Perform your check in correct order
To promise the accuracy of results, you need to perform the right assessments in a right order. Whatever results are received, the accuracy would be preserved.

Do not touch the Electric Appliance:-Don't ever touch the electric devices while performing the assessments. If performed in the correct order using a good checking devices, PAT testing can become a disturbance free job.



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Dealing with diabetes means more than just having to pop a pill with the anticipation that the medication will keep the sickness at bay. Controlling blood sugar is crucial for a diabetic person so no matter which from the listing of diabetic testing supplies that can watch sugar level can be a huge help in introducing slowly preventive means. The same goes when it comes to supervising a diabetic person’s blood pressure level at any time of the day. For people with Type I diabetes, paraphernalia for insulin shots is significant. Blood sugar strips, BP monitors and insulin shots paraphernalia are but a few samples of the diabetic testing supplies that people with this medical condition have to subscribe to.

If you are wondering which product you would purchase, it will be the best idea to ask your doctor for advises first. Rashly purchasing supplies off the Internet is not a assurance that these products may or can work for you. Most of the obtainable diabetic testing supplies are inexpensive – that fact is true. But these wiil require each day and nonstop use. SomeFew of the more expensive products can be a great investments but only if the person with diabetes really has a need for them. Additionally, the kind of diabetes that the person has dictates what kind of diabetic testing supplies that the person should purchase. For example, Type I diabetics may need daily insulin shots and would therefore need a host of paraphernalia in this regard. There are a number of people with Type II diabetes who may not need these at all. Again, a lot depends on the recommendation of your doctor.

Some of the more common monitoring devices available in diabetic testing supplies shops include: glucose test strips, glucometers (glucose meters,) lancets and monitor kits. These, but, are usually inter-dependent on the actual brand of the monitor kits. This means that glucose strips must be used for specific brands of monitor kits, and not otherwise. When it comes to testing accessories, diabetic testing supplies are every so often brand-sensitive as well. These include glucose monitor electronic logbooks and data cables and software. There are also branded glucometer batteries.

Other online diabetic testing supplies stores also sell other monitoring devices like blood pressure monitors and urinalysis test strips. Though, these diabetic testing supplies stores are probably the best place to order all the necessary paraphernalia needed for insulin shots like needles and syringes; insulin pens (also works as insulin syringes); cooler; pumps; skin wipes and the actual insulin supply. A brief interlude of caution, though. There are many kinds, consistencies and brands of insulin, so a doctor’s prescription should be available when purchasing online. Try not to replace the prescribe insulin for something cheaper or easier to purchase, since these can severely influence your metabolism. Substituting other insulin paraphernalia are acceptable though.

additional products that can be seen in the diabetic testing supplies stores may include diabetic foot care products; diabetic (orthopedic) shoes; nutritional supplements; cookbooks and informational books about diabetes; incontinence diapers (for elderly patients) and even supplies and paraphernalia for pets that are diabetic as well.



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Decision-makers are haunted by nightmares about dishonest outsourcing vendors, software that hardly works or software that you never get to see. There is also a fear of being unable to manage an offshore dedicated team efficiently with all fatal consequences possible.

To begin with, there is nothing worse than missed opportunities and rejecting the idea of outsourcing software development you are very likely to stay disappointed in the end. All you need to do is put aside horror stories told by companies who didn’t know how to outsource sensibly and read the following tips for safe and effective software outsourcing.

- Pay attention to scheduling. Set intervals of time at which you expect to receive information on the progress of your offshore dedicated teams. If you define what and when should be done, you are more likely to be in control at all stages and to actually know at which stage the development process is now.

- Pay attention to details. You opted for outsourcing software development because it was the way to get features that will keep your customers happy. So make sure these features are present in every release.

- Communicate with your offshore dedicated teams on almost daily basis. As it’s been said above, it keeps you informed in general, stimulates knowledge exchange between your in-house and offshore people and doesn’t let minor problems to pile up and block the process.

- Never underestimate the importance of unit and system testing. Insist on creating tests before software is created. It is useful for both clarifying what software should do in the beginning and testing for basic system functionality afterwards. Integration testing is needed to ensure higher levels of performance.

- Recompilation is something that will allow early detecting and quick fixing of problems and errors in your software. Make sure, offshore dedicated teams do not forget about it as this helps to avoid delays in software release.

- Along with offshore dedicated teams a team of your in-house specialists should be responsible for knowledge management. In other words, you should know how software works. Architectural documents and installation instructions are really useful for product installation and support.

Don’t be afraid to come across as meticulous and over-cautious. If you outsource your software development to good specialists you can count on understanding and support in all points mentioned above. Outsourcing software development can work wonders and you have the right to take advantage of this kind of cooperation.



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Microsoft is a well-known enterprise that owned computer software. The company develops video games for multi-platform such as personal computer, Xbox, and Xbox360. Game developing companies are contracted with Microsoft so more new video game titles are expected to be released monthly. Microsoft is back-up with huge capital and the pay rate of Microsoft game tester is higher than other video game company.

Gamer Testing Ground is a website which offers a membership program. The program contains useful information and tools that guide members to become a video game tester successfully. But the program does not guaranteed that you will be hired by a game company, it gives you a better chance to be employed. The program includes more than 50 company titles with open vacancies. Microsoft is one of their clients.

If you are a big fan of Xbox360 and PC gaming, you have probably aware there are thousand of game titles available on these two platforms which owned by Microsoft. The company also produced video games. Many game developers are working with Microsoft with a pile of pre-release game titles. Game company earns 50 billion of dollars each year so in order to increase their profit margin they have to ensure of their game quality. This is the reason why game company hires video game tester to be an eye-keeper for the product quality standard.

As a matter of fact, many people did not realize that this kind of job does exist. Even if they are aware they do not think a game company would want to pay them for playing their video games. This is an example of an opportunity forgoer. Many game companies are agree to pay game testers for testing their video games to avoid possible errors which are 'bugs' and 'graphic glitches'. Microsoft is a huge corporation that sells computer software and video games, so begin your game testing career with Microsoft has a huge benefit in earning more money and opportunity to work with game developers.



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Software documentation is a distinct specialty within the larger discipline of Technical Writing. It's a world with its own rules, processes and lingo.

Here are some more software industry terms you should be familiar with as a technical writer...

Testing - All software are tested thoroughly by a team of testers before approved for final release to the market.

There are different types of tests, like "unit testing" which tests whether a single software component is working properly or not, and "system integration testing" which checks out whether different components of a software system are working well together or not.

There are "stress" and "load" tests which measure how well the software performs under heavy usage. Does the software break down, for example, when a thousand or 10,000 users log in simultaneously? That would be found out in a stress/load test.

Quality Control (QC) or Quality Assurance (QA) - two other terms used to refer to different types and modes of testing.

QA is a comprehensive sort of testing in which testers measure the degree to which a product delivers what it's supposed to deliver. Although they are used separately, in my personal experience, they both refer basically to the same process.

The distinction is that QA is usually regarded a more extensive, global and comprehensive review of product's market suitability whereas QC is generally regarded a more limited, local, component-by-component examination.

Build - Software development is a continuous process during which the developers change, add, correct, and delete pieces of code all the time, on a daily basis, depending on the feedback they get both from the project management and also from the testing, marketing, sales, and other departments.

The software is compiled on a daily, bi-weekly, or weekly basis to see how the product works with the new changes incorporated. Each of such individual compilations are called a "Build."


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Test Objectives

The following can be described as test objectives :

1. Testing is a process of executing a program with the intent of finding an error.
2. A good test case is one that has a high probability of finding an as-yet-undiscovered error.
3. A successful test is one that uncovers an as-yet-undiscovered error.

Testing Principals

The following can be described as testing principals:

1. All tests should be traceable to customer requirements.
2. Tests should be planned long before testing begins.
3. The Pareto principal applies to testing.
4. Testing should begin "in small" and progress toward testing "in large".
5. Exhaustive testing is not possible.
6. To be most effective, an independent third party should conduct testing.

Defects:

The purpose of testing is to find defects. A defect is a variance from a desired product attribute.

Two categories of defects are:

Variance from product specifications

The product built varies from the product specified. For example, the specifications may say that x is to be added to y to produce z. If the algorithm in the built Varies from that specification, it is considered to be defective.

Variance from customer/user expectation

This variance is something that the user wanted that in the built product, but also was not specified to be included in the built product. The missing piece may be a specification or requirement, or the method by which the requirement was implemented may be unsatisfactory.

What is Software Testing?

Software testing is more than just error detection;

Testing software is operating the software under controlled conditions, to (1) verify that it behaves "as specified"; (2) to detect errors, and (3) to validate that what has been specified is what the user actually wanted.

1. Verification is the checking or testing of items, including software, for conformance and consistency by evaluating the results against pre-specified requirements. [Verification: Are we building the system right?]
2. Error Detection: Testing should intentionally attempt to make things go wrong to determine if things happen when they shouldn't or things don't happen when they should.
3. Validation looks at the system correctness - i.e. is the process of checking that what has been specified is what the user actually wanted. [Validation: Are we building the right system?]

In other words, validation checks to see if we are building what the customer wants/needs, and verification checks to see if we are building that system correctly. Both verification and validation are necessary, but different components of any testing activity.

The definition of testing according to the ANSI/IEEE 1059 standard is that testing is the process of analyzing a software item to detect the differences between existing and required conditions (that is defects/errors/bugs) and to evaluate the features of the software item.

Remember: The purpose of testing is verification, validation and error detection in order to find problems - and the purpose of finding those problems is to get them fixed.


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It is commonly believed that the earlier a defect is found the cheaper it is to fix it. Any software product before it is launched has to undergo endless rounds of testing. Application testing is essentially an investigation conducted to inform its stakeholders about the quality of the product or service under test with respect to the relevant context. It could also aid the process of executing a program with the intent of finding software bugs.

A primary purpose for testing is to detect software failures so that defects may be uncovered and corrected. This is a non-trivial pursuit. Testing cannot establish that a product functions properly under all conditions but can only establish that it does not function properly under specific conditions. The scope often includes examination of code as well as execution of that code in various environments and conditions as well as examining the quality aspects of code: does it do what it is supposed to do and do what it needs to do. In the current culture of application development services, a testing organization may be separate from the development team. There are various roles for testing team members. Information derived from software testing may be used to correct the process by which software is developed.

There are many approaches to application testing. Reviews, walkthroughs or inspections are considered as static testing, whereas actually executing programmed code with a given set of test cases is referred to as dynamic testing. More than often the former is omitted, whereas the latter takes place when programs begin to be used for the first time - which is normally, considered the beginning of the testing stage. This may actually begin before the program is 100% complete in order to test particular sections of code (modules or discrete functions). For example, Spreadsheet programs are, by their very nature, tested to a large extent "on the fly" during the build process as the result of some calculation or text manipulation is shown interactively immediately after each formula is entered. Several certification programs exist to support the professional aspirations of software testers and quality assurance specialists. No certification currently offered actually requires the applicant to demonstrate the ability to test software. No certification is based on a widely accepted body of knowledge. Many IT giants have their in-house testing department. Satyam's Product and Application Testing Practice; QEdge is the new synonym for Quality in Independent Testing and Application Development Services.

Arun Gupta is a professional writer for an Offshore Software Development Indian IT company offering customized solutions including Application Testing,
Business Transformation and Infrastructure Management Services for clients around the world.

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For Application Service Providers – anyone who provides clients access to licensed software and application services – implementing a system of checks and balances, risk management procedures and quality control is invaluable. Typically a solid Application Service Provider (ASP) Agreement will fulfill these needs.

An Application Service Provider Agreement manages the relationship between an ASP and the licensed user. In other words, it sets limits and expectations on the use of your software and applications server. It also controls who has access to the software or servers as well as where and when they can be accessed.

An ASP Agreement will also prevent modification or reverse engineering of the software and determine server storage space available for each client, which limits exposure to infringement on intellectual property rights and confidentiality. Most importantly, these agreements reduce the ASP’s liability for deficiencies and defects in the software or on the server.

ASP Agreements are not only necessary for large-volume ASPs; they also cover service providers who offer single applications to their clients. ASP businesses that would benefit from the agreements include:

* Specialist or functional ASP – provides a single application, such as credit card payment processing or timesheet services

* Vertical market ASP – provides a solution package for a specific customer, such as a doctor’s office

* Enterprise ASP – offers a wide variety of solutions

* Local ASP – offers small-business services in a particular area

* Volume ASP – delivers cost effective package solutions through its own Web site

An important component of an ASP is the Service Level Agreement (SLA). This formally negotiated agreement between two parties is part of the service contract in which the level of service is formally defined. This agreement might include delivery time of the service or performance. It clearly defines and documents the common understanding of services, responsibilities and guarantees, while typically covering issues such as serviceability, performance and operation, just to name a few.

Service providers can purchase packages that include a variety of templates, including a software license template. Software license Agreements set the terms and conditions for the end users of your software and includes disclaimers, limitations of liability, and confidentiality agreements, among other safeguards.

When searching for packages, most companies will provide ASP Agreement samples for viewing. Be sure the software license template and the ASP Agreement sample includes the following sections:

* Grant of License
* Use and Access
* Price and Payment
* Technical Support
* Terms and Termination
* Ownership of Intellectual Property
* Confidentiality
* Warranty and Disclaimer
* Limitation of Liability, Indemnification
* Relations of Parties
* Non-assignment
* Arbitration
* Attorney’s Fees
* Severability
* Force Majeure
* Waiver and Modification
* Entire Agreement

ASP agreements will safeguard your company from any future claims of damages, and reduce your exposure and liabilities. Many companies have made it easy to implement the agreements by providing packages specifically designed for the service providers needs. Be sure to preview the ASP Agreement samples to ensure it covers the needs of your business.



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“Ok, we bought an LMS, put up a course and turned it on. We can start using this thing tomorrow.” So says your manager, as you look at him half in shock, and half with that can-do serious face that has got you this far.

Of course nothing is that easy. Listed here are ten tips that you can apply to make your LMS implementation go more smoothly. If you decide on these “philosophical” issues before you start an implementation, it will progress much faster.

· Naming Conventions – Every data category needs a naming convention. Some might be very specific – for example:
o 'Smart' Class IDs — ABC-SAF-1-English-11-16-2008 — Where you have a code for your company (ABC), the category of the subject (Safety Level 1), the language it is being offered in (English, Spanish, Hindi), and the date it is offered (November 16, 2008). Or it can be a simple code like 'Safety101'
Think about the people who will need to use this information and how to make these conventions both easy for them to identify and understand, and for you to organize. Here are some LMS areas where you can effectively decide on such conventions:
o UserIDs – employee numbers, email addresses, auto-generated?
o Passwords – email addresses, user-defined, or a fixed standard password changed by users when they log in for the first time?
o Courses – simple or complex coding structures?
o Classes – simple or complex coding conventions, or something in between?
o Course categories - subject-driven (safety, operating systems, nursing); organizational (Management, Corporate Mandatory, New Hire); something else?
o Hierarchy levels - Organizational or geographical?
· Reporting Needs – Perhaps better defined as “who needs to see what information.” Think of the different groups in your organization – students, managers, administrators, upper management, training managers – each of them probably needs different training information at different levels of detail.

For example, students might need detailed transcript reports, to let them know exactly where they stand in their training. Managers or supervisors may need to see who in their group is doing their training and who isn't – giving them a tool to remind the people who must still complete their training. Upper management probably wants total numbers, without details – such as percentages of people in their organization who are training according to plan, and percentages who are not – broken out by the separate groups they are managing.

Don't forget that these are training reports only - they aren't about job performance, pay scales, or anything outside the training realm. So be sure to investigate and understand your whole organization's training-information needs. You can then define the reports that need to be built to provide that information, including hierarchy-based reporting structures.

· Catalog Management — Think of how you want to organize your course catalog. Some organizational techniques may be:
o Offering certain classes to specific groups in the organization – A hospital group may want nurses in a specific hospital to take classes only at that hospital, and not at any another facility.
o Creating a separate pricing structure for certain large customers – They might need their own catalog.
o Management leadership programs – You may want to limit courses and classes by management structure.
o By third parties – Such as, offering different distributors different course offerings.

All such cases separate out a portion of your entire catalog for a specific group. So consider defining those groups, and make sure you are able to deliver only the training products that you want them to access.

· e-Commerce If you are going to offer your courses and classes through an e-Commerce portal, you will need to identify a merchant account that will handle all credit-card verifications and back-end banking. Authorize.net and Paypal are popular examples of such organizations.
· Competencies and learning paths – Many companies spend countless hours defining learning paths for attaining job roles, promotions, or other corporate goals. These are often scattered and loosely defined, or are adapted throughout the organization with no standardization. If you need to implement these types of plans, first spend some time understanding what is currently defined in your company and if it needs to be standardized (perhaps even streamlined) for training purposes.
· Branding – Some LMSs let you customize the look and feel or your training site. Determine what those needs are for you. Will your training portal need to parallel your company's existing Website design or its intranet's look and feel? You'll save a lot of time if you gather all company graphics (such as logos and special pictures you will need) and define the color schemes you want to use before your first LMS implementation meeting.
· User Information – There are many ways to get user information into an LMS. This will be defined by your organizational needs, for instance:
o You are an online learning provider - In this case, people will probably need to register for training through an online process.
o You have a stable employee work force - Here, you might need only an initial user-information upload, after which you can maintain the information manually through user editing screens.
o You have a very mobile work force - Maybe a nightly feed from your HR system would work best?
So you should define your organization’s user base and your administrative capacity, and then select the appropriate loading and updating process for your user data.

· Certificates – Do you want to issue certificates to students who pass courses? If so, then define upfront what the certificates will look like and which course/class information will appear on them.
· Interfaces – Will the LMS need to connect with any existing corporate systems? These may include an HR interface, or a backend link to order data on your accounting system. Define what your needs are in this area. Talk with your IT department to see how hard it will be to create such connections, and how long it will take to get your project on their active project list.
· Help Administration – Who will handle help-desk requests from students? Will the requests be centralized in the training department or de-centralized to information experts throughout the organization (IT, course subject matter, networking, and so on). Depending on the size and needs of your organization, most LMSs allow you to disperse this help-desk load. So be sure to identify the people who will fill these jobs, especially their email addresses and phone numbers.

Finally, print this article and give it to your manager. It will help them understand the size of the job you face. Some of these items can be defined and decided easily, while others may take some time and involve other organizations (like marketing, IT, accounting, and sales).

A very simple installation, where all of these items are defined ahead of time, could be done within days (or a couple weeks). But for larger organizations, an LMS installation could easily require months before all necessary decisions are made and everyone reaches accord. Either way, this list should give you a good start on that process.



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So you’re on the hunt for an Automated Forex software to automate your Forex trading activities?

A glance at the internet is more than enough for you to realize that there are tons of Automated Forex software and systems you can choose from. And all of them are claiming to be the BEST Forex trading robot around.

It’s VERY easy for a newcomer in the biz to be overwhelmed by the endless options.

And it’s even easier to waste his money for an Automated Forex software that’s nothing BUT crap…and worse, would wipe out his Forex trading account faster than he can say – “Forex trading.”

How should one go about choosing an Automated Forex software that’s right for him?

If you’re asking that question at the back of your head, then read on!

I will be revealing the 4 things that you should look at when you’re out to shop for an Automated Forex software. Here they are…

Choosing An Automated Forex Software Factor 1
First of all, you want to learn the trading strategy of the software you’re looking at.

Is it going for short term or long term results? Does it have a cautious or “All Or Nothing” approach in Forex trading?

Many of the Automated Forex software out there adopt a risky trading strategy and go for broke…all or nothing as some would say. The gains with such a strategy can be BIG when the software hits a winning trade.

HOWEVER, the losses can be as great when you’re on a losing streak!

Choosing An Automated Forex Software Factor 2
Another thing you should look at is the winning rate.

This represents in percentage how many of the trades that the software went for resulted in gains or profits. Logically, the higher the winning rate of the software the better.

Choosing An Automated Forex Software Factor 3
Drawdown – this is another factor that you should keep an eye on.

By the way, drawdown is the representation in percentage how much of the starting capital was lost during the trades. In contrary to winning rates, the drawdown of a Forex software should be as low as possible.

Choosing An Automated Forex Software Factor 4
RESULTS – all of the benefits of a Forex software is USELESS if it cannot deliver what it claims.

And we’re NOT just talking about back testing here. Back testing results are nothing if they can’t be backed up with profits during live trades. They’re nothing more than a representation of an Automated Forex software’s potential.

This is where reading reviews and users’ experiences would help greatly.



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You can become a video game tester and get paid for playing video game. Game companies are hiring new game tester so there are enough rooms for everyone. Become a video game tester does not require programming experience and education degree. The job is opened for everyone. As long as you enjoy to play video game, then you are qualify for the job. Gamer Testing Ground will guide people who are interested in game testing job for a higher chance to get the job.

Game companies are searching for new game testers each month due there are a few number of game testers. Many people do not know that this kind of job does exist. That's why game companies hardly recruit any candidates each month. Video game tester is scarce and game companies are in demand of testers. This is the reason why they are paying more for the position. This is the best opportunity to get the job and earn at a high pay rate.

Become a video game tester and get paid for playing video game can be a real fun and entertaining. But the job is often tedious and stressful due you need to spend at least 8 hours per day testing video game. There is no limit on how many games you can test, as long as you have enough time you can test as many games as you like. It usually takes more than 8 hour per day to test one game. The more video games you can test, and more money you will earn.

Gamer Testing Ground has the valuable source that guides you through the application process. If you understand how to create your profile the correct way, you will have a higher chance to be employed by a game company. Your resume is the most important factor that a company will determine whether or not to hire you.



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Testing safety-critical software differs from conventional testing in that the test design approach must consider the defined and implied safety of the software at a level as high as the functionality to be tested, and the test software has to be developed and validated using the same quality assurance processes as the software itself.

Test technology is crucial for successful product development. Inappropriate or late tests, underestimated testing effort, or wrong test technology choices have often led projects to crisis and frustration. This software crisis results from neglecting the imbalance between constructive software engineering and analytic quality assurance. In this article we explain the testing concepts, the testing techniques, and the test technology approach applied to the patient monitors of the HP OmniCare family.

Patient monitors are electronic medical devices for observing critically ill patients by monitoring their physiological parameters (ECG, heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory gases, oxygen saturation, and so on) in real time. A monitor can alert medical personnel when a physiological value exceeds preset limits and can report the patient's status on a variety of external devices such as recorders, printers, and computers, or simply send the data to a network. The monitor maintains a database of the physiological values to show the trends of the patient's status and enable a variety of calculations of drug dosage or ventilation and hemodynamic parameters.

Patient monitors are used in hospitals in operating rooms, emergency rooms, and intensive care units and can be configured for every patient category (adult, pediatric, or neonate). Very often the patient attached to a monitor is unconscious and is sustained by other medical devices such as ventilators, anesthesia machines, fluid and drug pumps, and so on. These life-sustaining devices are interfaced with the patient monitor but not controlled from it.

Safety and reliability requirements for medical devices are set very high by industry and regulatory authorities. There is a variety of international and national standards setting the rules for the development, marketing, and use of medical devices. The legal requirements for electronic medical devices are, as far as these concern safety, comparable to those for nuclear plants and aircraft.

In the past, the safety requirements covered mainly the hardware aspects of a device, such as electromagnetic compatibility, radio interference, electronic parts failure, and so on. The concern for software safety, accentuated by some widely known software failures leading to patient injury or death, is increasing in the industry and the regulatory bodies. This concern is addressed in many new standards or directives such as the Medical Device Directive of the European Union or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. These legal requirements go beyond a simple validation of the product; they require the manufacturer to provide all evidence of good engineering practices during development and validation, as well the proof that all possible hazards from the use of the medical instrument were addressed, resolved, and validated during the development phases.

The development of the HP OmniCare family of patient monitors started in the mid-1980s. Concern for the testing of the complex safety-critical software to validate the patient monitors led to the definition of an appropriate testing process based on the ANSI/IEEE software engineering standards published in the same time frame. The testing process is an integral part of our quality system and is continuously improved.

The Testing Process

During the specifications phase of a product, extended discussions are held by the crossfunctional team (especially the R&D and software quality engineering teams) to assess the testing needs. These discussions lead to a first estimation of the test technology needed in all phases of the development (test technology is understood as the set of all test environments and test tools). In the case of HP patient monitors the discussion started as early as 1988 and continues with every new revision of the patient monitor family, refining and in some cases redefining the test technology. Thus, the test environment with all its components and the tools for the functional, integration, system, and localization testing evolved over a period of seven years. Fig. 1 illustrates the testing process and the use of the tools..


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This provider of testing equipment to evaluate mechanical properties of materials and components has released Bluehill Lite software. This general purpose software package is said to provide a wide range of tailored application solutions to meet the demands of today's laboratory managers and test technicians. Bluehill Lite is said to be ideal for fundamental applications and standardized tensile, compression, flexure, peel, tear, friction and simple cyclic test requirements. A lighter version of the company's Bluehill software, it is said to be compatible with all of the company's 3300 Series universal test systems. Bluehill Lite is said to be an extremely flexible, easy-to-use materials testing package with an intuitive web-like user interface that consolidates testing, test method definition and reports, and system administration. The software is divided into color-coded tabs and has a home screen that is said to make navigation effortless and increase efficiency of the test set-up.



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If you are company providing software product development then you must be aware of the importance of software testing and software quality assurance. Testing is something which plays a vital role in any software product development as it lets you know where your software development is heading.

According to the experts, software testing service is the process used to spot the accuracy, comprehensiveness, security, and eminence of developed computer software product. This is a core process which is also known as technical investigation and is professionally performed on behalf of stakeholders. The main aim of any testing is to expose all the quality-related information about the developed software product. This is done with respect to the context in which it is intended to operate.

Thus, it shows that this work is best suited for the professionals in this field as software testing involves various complex processes to expose the product to all possible and applicable situations ensuring its functionalities. Therefore if you are going for software product development then simply choose the best one. Softage is one such company which provides software product development along with the rigorous testing rounds. Softage’s testing not only includes the procedure of executing a program or even an application with the intent of finding errors but also assuring the quality.

In any software product development testing quality is the core issue however, it is also said that, testing can never entirely establish the accuracy of capricious computer software. But according to few IT experts, testing that compares the state and behavior of the software product against various specifications.

That’s why it is said while going for any software product development; software testing should be distinguished as a separate discipline of software quality assurance. This not only includes testing but all the quality driven areas. Whenever anyone goes for software product development its main concern is the approach taken towards software testing.

Software testing should be rigorous and effective as it is not only a matter of creating and following custom procedure. In fact it is most intellectual processes which play a very vital role in software product development. Thus, if you wish to go for software product development then Softage is there for you. For more information on software product development, software quality assurance and testing, outsourcing software development and software product development outsourcing please visit www.softage.ru.




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Software Testing is the process of running a program in order to find the errors and mistake of the program at the time of execution. The main intention of Software Testing is to evaluate an attribute and to check the potentiality of the program whether it gives the required output. Testing is not just giving data’s and obtaining the output, it is entirely different – it works at the time if the software fails to function or if it never gives the required output. Discovering the various nonstarter modes of software is quite not possible. Software Testing helps to find and check the quality, safety, security, perfection and completeness of the software developed.

There are different stages of Software Testing and let us go through the process one by one.

Black-box testing:

The Black-box testing is one of the method that is involved in testing. In this method the test data is derived from the defined functional requisites without affecting the structure of the program at the time of completion. It otherwise termed as Input/Output driven, Data-driven or Requirement based Testing.

The major functionality of Black-box testing is to check the functionality of the module. Black-box testing also denotes to functional testing, which is a method of testing accented on carrying out the functions and assessment of both the input and the output data. Here the tester will indulge the software under the black box test, where the specification of the input and output will seeable. The functionality is calculated by detecting the output to the equivalent inputs.

White-box Testing:

White-box testing is just opposite to Black-box testing. The software is considered as a glass-box or white-box under this category, because the structure of the software and its flow rate is clearly seeable to the tester in this type. White-box testing is otherwise termed as Logic-driven testing, Glass-box testing or Design-based testing.

There are various proficiencies accessible in white-box testing, as the trouble of intractableness is alleviated by particular knowledge and care on the formation of the software below this test. White box testing includes a couple of design techniques and they are:

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Software testing is the technical process used to recognize the correctness, completeness,security, and quality of developed computer software. Software testing is executed to display quality-related information about a tested product. Software testing is a vital part of software quality assurance.

Some of the common quality attributes of a product a tester looks for are capability, reliability, efficiency, portability, maintainability, compatibility and usability. A good test not only bring out errors, it also displays interesting informations new to a project community. Software testing play a crucial strategic role for transporting the quality of the product higher in the hierarchy in the software development process. It also underlines the customer's requirements all the way through the product cycle.

Some of the vital software testing procedures involved in testing a product are functional testing, negative testing, customer scenario testing, stress testing, performance testing, scalability testing, international testing, and more. The sole purpose of software testing is to assure that customers receive maximum product quality.

Some of the common types of testing a test engineer consider while testing a product are Black box testing,White box testing ,incremental integration testing,functional testing,

system testing,end-to-end testing,sanity testing or smoke testing,regression testing,
acceptance testing,acceptance testing,performance testing,usability test,uninstall testing, recovery testing, failover testing, security testing, exploratory testing, ad-hoc testing, mutation testing and more.

Though all projects are profited from testing, some projects generally don't need independent test staff. The requirement of test stuffs depend upon the size and context of the project, the risks, the development methodology, the developer's skill and experience and more. A short term, low risk project handled by experienced programmers employing unit testing or test-first development do not need test engineers. Considering the different goals in software testing, different roles are established for software testers. They are test lead/manager, tester, test designer, test automater/automation developer and test administrator.



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Forex signal software can help to keep your portfolio looking incredible when you are new to trading and cannot find the time to keep up with the fluctuations of the market on your own. This software can tell you to invest, when to keep existing investments and when to get rid of them.

Forex signal software can make a big difference in whether or not you make a profit or take an enormous loss on your investment. When you first start out you will require time to gain the knowledge of when you should buy and sale. You decrease your chance of losing dramatically with good software. It is a needed to tool to keep from missing the goings on in the exchange market.

You need to get in the game and start testing out these Forex signal softwares. Not having to do the analysis yourself can make successful trading easier and less time consuming though. For those that wish to enter into trading receiving the correct alert at the proper time can be vital.

Forex killer is just one of many versions of forex trading software available today. This software is for those who would like the job of trading Forex to be easier. Not having to pay a regular fee to a company is benefit of this software. Comprehension of the market is what these systems were designed for so there is no need to worry about missing an investment. All the major currencies of the world are still available for you to trade in as well as the various time zones.

With the forex killer you get every upgrade you will ever need for as long as you keep the software. Keep up with the evolving world or currency trading.

ProSignal is another popular product. It claims you will be making a profit with trading in a matter of hours. There is an ongoing fee due to it being a program that requires a subscription though rather than being something that you only purchase once.

Hundred plus strategies help give this software an advantage. You can get as many as twenty-seven matches for currency to allow you to be kept up to date on the forms of currency that you find interesting.

A simple Internet search will allow you to find numerous amounts of forex signal software on the market today. This basic task of taking trading signals is simplified to 'yes' and 'no'. But which product do you chose?

It's best to short cut the research and find someone who can direct you or find someone you can emulate in your search for Forex trading success.




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The newest testing requirement for biodiesel fuel testing is the cold soak filtration test. The procedure was added to the ASTM Method in October 2008. It is designed to improve purity standards in alternative fuels for consumers.

Biodiesel fuel is a non-petroleum based fuel that is made by the transesterification of vegetable oil or animal fat. It can be used to run unmodified diesel engine vehicles. It differs from straight vegetable oil or waste vegetable oil, which require the use of a converted engine.

Blends of biodiesel and regular diesel fuel are available around the world, and the fuel is graded with a "B factor" to indicate how much biodiesel is present in the mix. For example, a mix containing 20 percent biodiesel is rated B20. In its pure form, B100 may require engine modifications to be made to the vehicle to prevent long-term performance problems, but it presents a wonderful alternative for people interested in reducing their dependence on fossil fuels.

In the past, substandard biodiesel has been known to precipitate material out of solution when exposed to cold temperatures. If a solid material were to precipitate out of the biofuel when it is used in an engine, it can lead to extensive damage. Therefore, legislators took action to prevent such substandard product from making it to the market.

The standards are established by an organization known as the ASTM, otherwise known as the American Society for Testing and Materials. For years, the ASTM has set the standards by which the fuel source is deemed eligible for the marketplace.

The ASTM recently added the cold soak filtration test to prevent the precipitation of solid materials in inferior biodiesel during cold weather. But what is the cold soak filtration test, exactly? In scientific terms, it measures time in seconds it takes for cold soaked biodiesel to pass through two 0.8 micron filters. It also measures the amount of particulate matter collected on the filter.

This works to ensure that end users will not have clogged filters or worse problems with their engines when using biodiesel in cold temperatures. It also ensures that producers will maintain a high level of brand integrity as guaranteed by their customers' satisfaction with their product.

The transesterification of vegetable oil was performed as early as 1853, long before the diesel engine was even functional. Since then, biodiesel applications and standards have come a long way since then. In order to ensure that the fuels you are manufacturing are meeting the newest regulations passed by the ASTM, it is important to subject them to testing.

A lab trained in the cold soak filtration test, as well as the many other tests mandated by the ASTM, will ensure you offer the best product possible. Maintaining high quality standards is the key to customer satisfaction. Be sure your end product is up to snuff by employing a trustworthy lab to test your products and ensure they are held to today's rigorous testing standards.


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How much fire protection do you need for your Sentry fire gun safe? And what do all those ratings mean anyhow? All Sentry safes undergo UL fire testing. This means that safes are tested by the independent Underwriters Laboratory. One very important thing to realize is that you want a safe that is “UL Listed”. This means that the product has actually passed a UL test. If a product is labeled “Tested to UL Standards” that means that the product has been submitted for testing, but does not mean that it passed the test. All Sentry Fire Safes are subjected to fire by UL for either 1/2, 1 or 2 hours. In order for a safe to earn a UL classification, documents stored inside must remain completely undamaged. Here are some of the different tests that a Sentry Fire Gun Safe may endure.

UL 1/2-Hour Fire Endurance Test - Subjected to temperatures of 1550° F for 1/2 hour, and interior remains below 350° F (necessary to preserve documents).

UL 1/2-Hour Class 125 Test - Subjected to temperatures of 1550° F for 1/2 hour, and interior remains below 125° F and humidity below 80%. This is necessary to protect media files.

UL 1-Hour Fire Endurance Test - Subjected to temperatures of 1700° F for 1 hour, and interior remains below 350° F.

UL 2-Hour Fire Endurance Test - Subjected to temperatures of 1850° F for 2 hours, as well being subjected to a flash fire of 2000° F for 20 minutes without explosion or rupture. The interior remains below 350° F.

UL Explosion Hazard Test - All UL Classified Sentry safes pass an explosion hazard test, as well as being subjected to a flash fire of 2000° F for 20 minutes and do not explode or rupture.

UL Fire-Impact Test - Many Sentry fire Sentry gun safe models also pass a UL Classified Fire-Impact test. In this test, after the safe is heated to 1550° F, it is then dropped 30 feet onto rubble, cooled down, inverted, and then reheated to 1550° F for 1/2 hour. To pass this test, the safe must remain intact and locked with an interior temperature below 350° F.

A Sentry fire gun safe may also have an ETL rating. This means that the safe has undergone independent testing by the firm ETL Semko. ETL Semko verifies that the product complies with the manufacturer's specifications for fire endurance.

Depending on the model, SentrySafe products can carry the following ETL ratings:

ETL verified 15 ft. Drop Test

ETL verified 1-hour fire protection for CDs, DVDs, USB Drives and Memory Sticks up to 1550° F

ETL Verified 1-hour fire protection for CDs, DVDs, USB Drives and Memory Sticks up to 1700° F

ETL verified for 2-hour fire protection of CDs, DVDs, USB Drives and Memory Sticks up to 1850° F

ETL verified to manufacturer's fire protection specifications. Up t 1200° F for 30 minutes, interior temperature remain below 350°.

ETL verified to manufacturer's fire protection specifications. Up t 1400° F for 30 minutes, interior temperature remain below 350°.

So, as you decide which Sentry fire gun safe is best for you, now you will have a better understanding of what the ratings mean on the various Sentry safes available.



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When it comes to new products, there is always that one final task that needs to be done before the said product can actually be approved or not for by the target market. Road testing, otherwise known as performance testing, is actually a good way for the manufacturers of all sorts of products especially in the field of technology to be able to obtain the objective kind of feedback that they need from their prospective buyers in order to ensure the success or failure of their products or services. Companies need this kind of software application because they can obtain answers about performance testing related concerns that can make or break their company.

1. Know Where You Stand

The idea of this whole performance testing software is for companies to be able to have a good background when it comes to their potential customers concerns, feedback as well as suggestions about a certain product. This is why there are so many benefits that a company can reap from the performance testing application software, that is a great breakthrough in the business and IT technology.

2. Improve Your Product

No matter how great a product may be, people will still have some hesitations concerning the product where in one way or another we would want to know some information about the product. With performance testing, you can provide customers with sound advice about a certain product to help them decide if it is actually worth their money or not, or at least reassure them that the product they purchase has been checked that it works.

3. Go Direct To Customers

Technology related magazines as well as IT feature programs are sometimes a bit unreliable when it comes to learning the inside scoop about a certain new product because some companies actually just send out press releases for the media to be able to just feed the public with some marketing ploys by companies that are disguised as news items, media people actually feed this to the market since aside from getting incentives from companies for doing them a favor, rehashing press releases into news items is actually a worn out practice in journalism (if you can still regard it as such). Moreover, companies want to also take part of the performance testing technology since it will enable them to further reach out to their target market more by being able to find out the things that they are actually interested in.

4. Advance Your Product Knowledge

Also, the performance testing advantage that a lot of companies can enjoy if they avail of performance testing is that they will also be able to get some inside information as well as some product knowledge on a certain product that can only come from performance testing. The knowledge, as well as the inside information on these products, are incredibly valuable since many points in the product life cycle even from the development to its marketing and up to technical support will be closely watched and they will give you that precious information if you avail of the performance testing service.


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The supremacy to augment your business is by potent employees those deliver commanding output. But identifying the right resource to your assignment is a tedious task without proper recruitment screening. Pre-employment testing consumes cost, time and human resources also.

The better way of screening is by Online Employment Testing.

Why employee testing is important?

* To identify the right people for the right assignment

* To reduce the recruitment time and cost

* HR Team can easily assess the technical skills of the applicants without investing the effort of the technical panel

* Match organization requirements in the form of assessment.

* Screen the candidates based on actual skills instead of blind resumes

Successful Employment testing process

* Identify the skill set required to your assignment and create online tests.

* Scenario based job specific questions (to test the experience) will be the better choice to test experienced candidates.

* Plan for your employment testing (involves creating the candidates profiles, tests, and groups)

* Intimate the candidates to prove their skills by taking the relevant online tests.

* Assess and screen the candidates based on score criteria.


About the author: Ganesan CEO & CTO EPractize Labs Software. Has extensive experience in software solutions and consulting for Employee Skill Development and Employee Skill Evaluation.

Online Employment Testing – Carving a well qualified employees

The supremacy to augment your business is by potent employees those deliver commanding output. But identifying the right resource to your assignment is a tedious task without proper recruitment screening. Pre-employment testing consumes cost, time and human resources also.

The better way of screening is by Online Employment Testing.

Why employee testing is important?

* To identify the right people for the right assignment

* To reduce the recruitment time and cost

* HR Team can easily assess the technical skills of the applicants without investing the effort of the technical panel

* Match organization requirements in the form of assessment.

* Screen the candidates based on actual skills instead of blind resumes

Successful Employment testing process

* Identify the skill set required to your assignment and create online tests.

* Scenario based job specific questions (to test the experience) will be the better choice to test experienced candidates.

* Plan for your employment testing (involves creating the candidates profiles, tests, and groups)

* Intimate the candidates to prove their skills by taking the relevant online tests.

* Assess and screen the candidates based on score criteria.




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Checking your cable lines are things that you are going to want to do, and you are going to want to do them often. On thing that a lot of cable testing software checks for is the ACR, which stands for the Attenuation to Crosstalk Ratio. This is something that we are going to talk a little more about in a second. We are also going to talk about where you can pick up testing software and where you might want to test your cables yourself. You will find that testing them yourself can actually save you a lot of money. Having the cable company check your cables can actually cost you a lot of money, even though it could be messing with your quality.

So the first thing we are going to talk about is the ACR cable testing software. The ACR is important, because it is going to show the overall performance of your cable. The attenuation, the A in the ACR, can actually cause a reduction in signal strength over the length of the cable. There are a few different things that can cause a drop in performance. The length is one of the ones that is the worst. The longer the signal is on the cable, the more resistance it is going to have, and thus, by the end, less of the signal is, of course, going to get through. Also, the DC loop resistance can play a very big role in the quality of the signal that is coming through your cable.

The other thing that this cable testing software is going to look for is Crosstalk. As signal moves along the outside of the cable, it starts to make an electromagnetic field around the cable. If there are any other cables that are laying adjacent to the cable, then the fields can increase, and you can have crossed signals. The term Crosstalk was actually coined from the telecommunications industry. The best explanation of what crosstalk is can be heard when you are on a phone line. Have you ever been on a phone and you can hear a very faint conversation in the background of your phone that is not yours? This is because you are picking up on the electromagnetic fields of another phone line that is next to yours. The cable lines work in much of the same way. However, this can cause very confusing data to travel between the cable lines and really reduce your signal.

Overall, being able to test your own cables is a good thing. That way you do not have to count on the phone company to come out and fix your cables every time you have a problem. You will also have a better idea of what is wrong with your cables, and you may be able to take care of it yourself. Cable software can be found online and usually rented for a good price. You can buy it if you want, but most people would not use cable software enough for it to pay itself off.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

· Why is software testing important?

· Steps in the software testing process

· What are your options for software testing

· The STRONG reasons for outsourcing your software testing

SUMMARY

Market research studies show that 40% of unplanned application downtime is caused by application failures or "bugs"; 40% by application errors and only 20% by hardware, environmental factors or disasters. Therefore, 80% of unplanned downtime can be alleviated by improvement of IT processes, pre-deployment testing and complete operations training. But not all organizations have the "know-how" or resources to perform the software testing process. Software testing is crucial, but it is certainly not the core activity of most organizations that need it. Outsourcing this process will allow a company to focus on it's core activities while software testing experts can handle the work proficiently, ensuring quality results. The company will save time and money on a process that would otherwise be too tedious and exhausting if performed internal.

Why is software testing important?

Software testing is an essential and vital phase of any software development project. Developers and testers must ensure that newly developed products meet practical and performance requirements and that those products are reliable to operate consistently under every circumstance. The risks of launching a product that is not yet fully prepared are greater now than ever before because of the change in expectations and demands of the end users.

A continuous approach to quality, initiated early in the software lifecycle, can lower the cost of completing and maintaining the software significantly. This greatly reduces the risk associated with deploying poor quality software.

Briefly, the main improvements that come with deploying software testing and highlight the generally quoted reasons for testing are:

- Save time and money by identifying defects early

- Avoid or reduce development downtime

- Provide better customer service by building a better application

- Know that users' requirements are satisfied

- Build a list of desired modifications and enhancements for later versions

- Identify and catalog reusable modules and components

- Identify areas where programmers and developers need training

Steps in the software testing process

Software testing providers focus primarily on evaluating product quality, which is realized through the following core practices:

- Find and document defects in software quality.

- Advise on the perceived software quality.

- Validate and prove the assumptions made in design and requirement specifications through concrete demonstration.

- Validate that the software product works as designed.

- Validate that the requirements are implemented appropriately.

A good test effort is driven by questions such as: How could this software break? In what possible situations could this software fail to work predictably? Software testing challenges the assumptions, risks, and uncertainty inherent in the work of other disciplines, and addresses those concerns using concrete demonstration and impartial evaluation.

What are your options for software testing

Independent testing denotes the test design and implementation most appropriately performed by someone who is autonomous from the team of developers. This means that the results will be impartial and reflect an objective view of product's capabilities.

But though company literature boasts the tremendous time and money saving features of outsourcing software testing - while stressing high quality work you can count on - one should decide clearly whether it is really beneficial to outsource software testing.

How can you decide if it makes sense to outsource software testing? You've got to begin by carefully analyzing your needs as they relate to this critical phase of software development. Software testing means many things to many people. The main objective of software testing is to ensure the software functions as specified before going into production. But it also means making sure the software is intuitive and easy to use.

Before you make the decision to outsource software testing, it's important to clarify what you want from the outsourcing company. As their popularity grows, so do the services these companies provide. Many also provide software design services. Or, they will plan, but not implement a software testing process for your organization. And they will even send individuals to your site to takecare of integrating the software testing tools you purchase with your hardware. In general, regardless of your exact software testing needs, if you've got the money to pay for it, you'll find an outsourcing company willing to do it.

The STRONG Reasons for Outsourcing your Software Testing

ACCESS TO A SKILLED TEAM OF TESTERS

Probably the most important reason why companies decide to outsource software testing is to eliminate the learning curve.

Employees of specialized software testing companies are not only aware of different software testing tools, but they already know how to use them very well. If you work in software development, you know how tight production schedules are. Anything that saves time helps keep projects on schedule. Software delays are costly so when weighing the costs vs. benefits of outsourcing software testing, determine how project delays affect your bottom line.

REDUCE EXPENSES WITH RESOURCES

Following the previously mentioned reason, it's also important to say that software testing providers are not only specialists in testing tools but, obviously, they already own it. And these tools are pretty expensive. So the fact that you won't have to buy them any more is already a significant cost saver.

Moreover, oftentimes software development houses cannot afford to hire and maintain a full-time development team and an in-house software testing team. For these companies, the decision to outsource software testing is an easy one.

BETTER SOFTWARE QUALITY

Another key benefit of outsourcing testing practice is better software quality supported by:

· Organization independence, which ensures focus on quality, correctness and conformance to requirements without schedule or budget overruns

· Technical and process independence which is achieved through mature processes, specialized resources and tools for testing the application

· Central repository of testing best practices such as mechanisms to identify defects in early release cycles and approaches for reducing test case development effort

FASTER TIME TO MARKET

Organizations with an independent testing process ensure improved time to market by enabling faster turnaround of releases. This is achieved through:

· Skills in test automation strategies, enabling faster testing cycles

· Optimizing staffing lead time and improving the ability to handle fluctuations in demand

· Higher degree of predictability in testing effort, enabling adherence to schedule

SAVE OVERALL COSTS

It's an overhyped subject that IT outsourcing in general determines significant costs reduction. But in software testing particularly, research studies show clear figures regarding companies that chose outsourcing instead of in-house deployment.

- In a study conducted by AMR Research, surveys proved a cost of finding and fixind deffects that accounts for nearly 50% of the cost for all software development projects.




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Drug testing labs provide accurate results for drug tests in a short period of time. Oftentimes, companies require lab drug tests in order to maintain a safe and healthy work environment for their employees.

Why Are Drug Testing Labs Used?

A drug testing facility is used to detect the use of drugs in the workplace, the home and even in law enforcement. Many times, employers will require a drug testing lab test prior to hiring as a sort of screening. Also, parents may send a sample to a drug test facility in order to discover whether or not their teen is abusing drugs. Drug testing labs are available in many different forms including urine testing, saliva testing, sweat testing and hair testing. After a sample is collected from a donor, the sample is then sent to a drug testing facility and tested for traces of illicit substances.

How Accurate Are Drug Test Facilities?

Drug test facilities provide the most accurate of drug testing options on the market today. However, many on site drug testing products are equaling lab test quality, making for a more price conscious and convenient option for businesses and families who wish to utilize drug testing.

Pros and Cons of Home and Lab Drug Testing

Deciding between using a drug testing lab or a instant drug testing kit can be difficult. Many different factors should be weighed, including the level of required accuracy and reliability, the rate at which results are produced, sample collection and cost. A drug testing facility will typically cost much more than an instant drug testing kit, although its accuracy is often guaranteed. Regardless of the drug testing method used, once a sample is collected, it can be tested immediately with an on site drug test, whereas a drug test facility will require the sample to be sent to the lab—a process which could take up to a week or more.

All in all, on site drug testing is more effective for the average consumer to use. Businesses can save large amounts of money when buying home drug test kits through corporate bulk accounts and are still guaranteed a high level of accuracy.

Worried parents who fret over their teen’s potential abuse of drugs can use at home drug testing kits to find out whether or not they are using on the spot. Waiting for a drug testing lab to return results can be excruciating, especially when it is your child’s health and wellbeing at stake. While a drug testing facility may be the most accurate and reliable form of drug testing, home drug testing kits provide a reliable alternative that save consumers and businesses money, while protecting families and employees alike from the hazards of drug abuse

Information about this article can be found at Find Drug Testing Lab Facilities. The article is prepared by Serhat Pala who runs the website TestCountry.com.



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I suppose the answer depends on the person and for some not at all. But I will endeavour to give you 12 reasons why I think Testing is "sexy".

1. The world of testing is governed by process and is incredibly black and white. A test passes or it fails; there is no shade of gray.
2. It is like being part of a big family, where the same individuals are involved and you keep bumping into old friends and faces.
3. You have to keep your wits about you and be prepared to change tack quickly, effectively and efficiently.
4. Testing is the underdog of IT. It is trying to bring to people's attention to the value that it brings to the software development life-cycle.
5. You have to be able to think around the developer, understand what they are trying to achieve and then look at how you can think around it.
6. You need to be able to look at a project as a project manager, analyst, designer, architect, developer and tester, giving you a well rounded grasp of IT.
7. There are opportunities to specialise in testing, by technology, by testing type or by process, giving endless opportunities to grow and learn.
8. The work is endless, because finding perfect code from perfect projects is nigh on impossible, keeping us all in employment.
9. We create tangible assets and benefits for those employing our services, leaving them in a stronger position.
10. Whilst sometime invisible to the end users, we make a massive contribution to their use of IT, without which life would be harder, more frustrating and the helpdesk would be inundated.
11. We are growing as a discipline become more recognised and with more accreditation available in universities across the world.
12. We get to break stuff on a very regular basis.

I hate the word "Sexy" being used to describe something like a subject, but it seems to be used regularly these days. Do I dream of curvy defects at night? ....No! But I am passionate about Testing. I do believe in the value that it brings and the value I can add as part of a project. More and more people are becoming involved and the testing community is growing. Less people are falling into Testing and are making it a career choice.

Grant Obermaier
Transition Consulting Limited - India





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Software testing entails a list of activities, but in a nutshell, it refers to the process of identifying the accuracy, comprehensiveness, and quality of the software application. In actuality, there is no way that clients and developers precisely establish the accuracy of a software. That alone suggests that no software program in the world is perfect. However, any software engineer can improve his program by checking errors and by trying its durability. Software clients and developers can do these by testing the program either by hand or by using automated software testing tool.

There are basically two ways clients and developers can test software programs. The old school way of manually checking the application module by module is still very much in practice today. The presence of automation testing, however, does not necessarily imply the obsolescence of manual testing. In fact, it is advisable to pair automated testing with manual testing. Simply put, automated testing software lessens the use of manpower while speeding the checking process. The goal is to test the software efficiently in as little time as possible.

Automated testing software entails four set up activities. These activities include detailed test cases, predictable expectations or results, dedicated test environment, and skilled and dedicated resources. It is therefore imperative that clients and developers consider these minimal setups before implementing the test automation.

Automated test softwares can be either keyword driven or functional decomposition. These two terms refer to the two types of testing automation. Functional decomposition refers to the type of test automation software where the software system is broken down into sub-functions and system functions so that each component will communicate accordingly. The keyword driven type of test automation, on the other hand, uses pre-made key words instead of breaking down the system into components. Each keyword will then correspond to each system function and sub-function.

Each type of automated testing software tool has its own share of advantages and disadvantages. The benefits of using functional decomposition include the efficiency of a modular design, the elimination of redundancy, script reusability, convenient maintenance, and robust error handling. On the other side, functional decomposition can be costly since it needs the employment of skilled technical personnel to write and maintain scripts. This type of test automation software also requires more time since the maintenance team must preserve the test data as well.

Keyword driven test automation software applications, in contrast, are easier to create and maintain. This approach does not also require technical expertise. In fact, even non-technical staff can run and maintain the software, thus encouraging cost-effectiveness within the company. Despite this, creating the central utility scripts demands high level of proficiency. Even custom scripts for intricate scenarios can become time consuming. Failure to build stable architecture in terms of utility scripting may lead to risk of malfunction and system crash.

In spite of these lists of disadvantages and advantages, the choice of using automated software testing tool is not a matter of what type tool to implement. But it is a matter of making the necessary preparations. Remember to have a suitable environment, a stable hardware facility, and skilled workers to maintain and run the tests.


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Classic Testing Misconceptions and Mistakes

Let's take a look at some of the common mistakes or misconceptions that actually reflect on a Testers quality, his efficiency and effectiveness. A couple of assumptions that are the key culprits, are the assumptions that all defects in the software product have been detected and that he or she are capable of testing the program completely.

Other misconceptions like "quality assurance is the responsibility of the testing team" and "the goal of testing is only to find bugs" can lead to a very unhealthy form of testing. Another mistake (usually associated with Junior Testers) is a rather careless approach to with regard to the detection of major bugs and the negligence in reporting usability issues.

In certain organizations more emphasis is given to the unit testing front carried out by the developers leading to the starting of the testing phase too late, This will usher a false sense of security or complacence that they at times even go to the extend of delaying or putting off the stress and load testing to the last minute. This results in the whole testing process being rendered ineffective.

From a testers point of view "incomplete evaluation of the related projects documentation", "ignoring the testing of installation procedures" and the "failure to identify risk areas accurately" can also lead to the degeneration of the effectiveness of the Test. Another common complaint that is encountered is the excessive attention that is paid to running the Test rather than designing and planning the same.

What are the characteristics of a Good Test Engineer?

He or she should possess at least a minimum knowledge of software engineering. Often a Tester should be an expert in a number of areas. He or she should possess a substantial knowledge of the application that is tested. The tester should have a natural hyper-sensitivity to trivial things,

He should possess software engineering skills (understanding the rules of software engineering, knowing computer programming and having operating system level knowledge). Often a tester needs to be an expert in a number of areas, be steady to chaos and pressure of development, management, as well as pressure of different circumstances. While its ok for the tester skeptical of the developers claims, He should not take a Hostile Attitude!

Typically he should be capable of breaking the software with out feeling bad, possess detective skills and strong communication skills which include people skills, Tenacity and the capability to criticize and interpret the criticism is a mature manner.



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The other day a friend asked me what a tester does. In other words what is software testing? What’s a bug? What are the key terms associated with testing? This is a humble attempt to address these questions and initiate the uninitiated to the world of testing.

Software Testing is a process of software analysis and defect detecting. It’s the art (pun intended) of identifying as many defects as possible in order that they can be fixed. A Defect (bug) is the non conformance to requirements or functional specification. It is something that does not correspond to valid Customer’s expectations that are assumed but may be not described in product requirements.

The Test Manager in conjunction with the Project Manager develops a Test Plan which describes what, when, how and who will be involved in the testing process. This basic document also describes a list of tested components, quality criteria and risks of testing, resources and graphs of testing, testing strategy and testing types test budget etc.

The test lead/ senior test Engineer develops Test cases which is basically a set of test inputs, execution conditions, and expected results developed for a particular objective, such as to exercise a particular program path or to verify compliance with a specific requirement.

Classification of Testing Types:

Static Testing is a process, which is used for verifying any work product in terms of code, requirements, functional specification, architecture and design documents, etc. Static testing is one of the most effective ways of defects detecting in the early stages of a product process.

Dynamic Testing Dynamic testing consists of launching the program, running all functional modules and comparing the product’s behavior with expected one using user interface.

Black box testing. Testing software based on functional and business requirements at launching and operating it without knowledge of the internal structure or program source code. A tester tests a product so as an end-user would work with it at the time of its launch and operation. This method checks the proper working of all functions and whether they conform to functional requirements.

White box testing (glass box testing). The Tester uses his or her understanding of source code and accesses the code to develop and execute test cases. This method tests the architecture of the system. It tests the design and programming that goes into building system. White box testing is usually applied when application is not entirely assembled, but it’s necessary to check each of the components, modules, procedures and sub-functions.

Unit Testing. This level of testing is usually carried out by the software developer to perform the testing of a separate module of the system. It may be a testing even of any particular part of the code (class).

Integration Testing. Is the testing of various components of an application (in their integrated form) to determine if they function well together. Also, interactions between applications of big system can be checked with this type of testing. In this case this testing is known as Cross-product testing. Usually it is performed after unit and functional testing has been carried out.

System Testing refers to that type of testing which checks the operation of the system as a whole. It is usually associated with the testing of the functional as well as non-functional requirements of the system.

Functional testing is the process of attempting to find discrepancies between the program and its functional requirements or specifications. Its goals are

1. Defining defects in software product and its documenting

2. Determine if software meets its requirements as defined in the Software requirements Specification (SRS) and other relevant documents.

3. Take an objective decision about possibility of software product delivery to customer; the decision should be documented in test result report.

Smoke Test It is the first and the shortest test, which checks the basic functionality of software product. This test takes approximately 1-4 hours depending on program complexity, A smoke test helps the Test lead to take a decision as to whether to continue further testing or not.

The Author Prakash T.C.is a Support Manager at http://www.binaryspectrum.com/

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It is a known fact that any useful HR department or employment agency have tools to test a person’s skill set. This could be a practical skill, technical skill or behavioral skill. However, has time changes, a flexible HR department or employment selection agency, will need to move forward with more powerful technologies that help them further in their area of expertise, candidate selection! In the early 90’s online filtering was not really appreciable and the technologies employed were generally a database full of resumes from which to select people for possible interview.

Late in the 90’s LMS (Learning Management Systems) broke like wildfire and many corporate firms started to see the logic in a organized approach to employee training, recruitment and retention.

As the 90’s went by and the Internet started to reach a larger audience, many of the firms being reviewed were formed to try and offer solutions to firms from an outsourced net solution. These firms continue to improve products with technology and these firms reviewed are no different. However here is our review of their current state of play and how you could benefit from reading the review and finding which one suits your corporate or small business environment.

We reviewed several factors that are to our opinion ( Having worked both in HR and employment in large industries), very important in choosing the best tool for you.

The factors were:

• Price.

• Ease of use

• Features against uses

• Integration to your own platform

• Server based storage, result notification and record filtering

Some of these features are easily comparable while others have variations that make it more difficult to quantitatively give you a clear result. When this happens, explanations will be around the similarities or differences from a customer’s hiring and practical perspective.

PRICE

As price is an important factor we discuss it here. Obviously people tend to gauge this first before feature looking at what is “under the hood”.

A cost comparison was created based on what might typically happen with a job post on the internet ( where 99% of firms now actually post jobs). Please note we stated one job post. Obviously you will need to multiply that by the number of jobs you target each month to get a realistic estimate of your actual costs.

So for the one job, what was done, was the actual cost of running similar test platforms over a period of a month using the minimum of 50 tests. This would be a fair representation of just one job placement that a HR or employment firm with approximately 50 possible applicants. Again this may be very conservative to the number of people who reply to your job posts but let us use it for reference sake.

Testing Firm Cost

Kenexa Proveit $1250 for 50 tests

Supercandidate $29.99 for unlimited tests

Brainbench $2500 for 50 tests

Articulate $499

Comparing these price factors, we see that Kenexa’s Proveit is the most expensive while Supercandidate is the least expensive by over 97%. This could make a major difference to who can afford the services. Overall Supercandidate is significantly less then any of the others reviewed. We will go into further detail about features shortly to see if that has relevance to pricing.

Ease of Use

When looking at ease of use, we took into consideration:

The GUI (Graphic User Interface)

Learning curve time.

In looking at the GUI we found that only Supercandidate had a built in video tutorial which allowed for step by step learning. The other three did not have this so the learning curve increased. With Proveit and Brainbench, we found that the dashboard was often confusing with many features leading to places that left us confused. This definitely could do with a training session which is offered by the firm at an additional cost.

Articulate was the hardest of all to understand as you needed to have experienced Adobe Flash style products before to easily work with the interface. Our opinion is, that someone without that knowledge would have to spend about 2 days to learn this product.

Features against Uses

This is a very important factor as it determines exactly how the products will benefit you in the real world. Having worked with HR and recruitment, we understand that there are many products out there with so many features to impress. However like many software products, you only really use certain features which work productively for you.

Proveit, Brainbench and Supercandidate offer the most number of useful features, such as premade test banks of “Relevant tests”, easy reporting features essential to fast decision making. Provit and Brainbench offered some more tests but we found that many were not relevant to the majority of users. Supercandidate offered direct access to create own questions which technically meant that you could add, remove and integrate your own questions in. This is ideal for customizing any job spec. This made this product more relevant for practical use as by integrating your own questions, you could keep up to date with any skill you choose – making its test making limitless.

Articulate and Supercandidate offer the most media integration, allowing for video, sound and various media files such as image files, pdf documents(Supercandidate). These you can add directly to the questions. As the age of video integration is here with large bandwidth being the norm ( as seen by the likes of popular sites e.g. YouTube), it offers greater accuracy in job areas that require in-depth skills knowledge, these two products really shine above the others here. Of the two, we think that Supercandidate approach of browse click integration, rather then add to interface using a menu and several steps offered by Articulate, makes it the preferred choice for the majority of users, who look for ease of use and fast integration.

Provit, and Articulate offer the most question types, e.g. multiple choice, true false, checkbox. Now this initially seems an obvious reason for choice. However consider this, 85% of firms and institutions use the standard multiple choice format above all else, so it is likely that you can easily get by asking questions in that format and be well respected in your questioning techniques. If you compare price, the amount you pay is significant for these other question types even though the majority of tests will not need them. Besides tools like Supercandidate offer other options to create those question types using its strong media integration features.

For example, if you use the integrated media types such as a word doc, or jpeg, you can literally add whatever question feature you want. For example you ask a question that requires several answers (typical of a checkbox answer), you could open up your MS word doc and type in the different variations – upload that to the question to offer a question that asks them to choose which set of options is best – similarly you could have created a image file to do this.

Integration to your own customer facing platform

Kenexa’s Proveit, Articulate and Brainbench do not allow you to host the tests directly from your site. For example you will still have to send your clients to their site for the test e.g. provit2/acme (say if your name was acme). Not very professional for branding purposes.

Supercandidate does offer the testing platform to be integrated to the client’s own site with a small charge associated. So if you are Acme company , it integrates straight to your site e.g. acme/testarea

This consideration is needed for those who want to keep applicants on their own site rather then going to another company’s website. It also portrays the firm as a “bigger” firm due to the cost associated with such technologies which only the largest of firms can afford.

Server based storage, result notification and record filtering of results

All the products reviewed offered some sort of storage based setup. However not all storage are the same. While Supercandidate, Proveit and Brainbench offer tests based on their limits:

Supercandidate – unlimited assessments including premade assessments Provit – 900 assessments Brainbench 600 assessments

Articulate allows up to a maximum of 100 assessments.

With respect to result notification all firms offer instant notification of results to the administrator. On this review only Supercandidate, automated a serialized certificate to the test taker if they passed.

The record filtering is key to many who want to administer tests as it is the reason for the tests – to see how someone performed in tangible ways.

All products offer filters. Proveit and Benchmark offer many unnecessary filters, where single tasks are broken down into several report formats. Supercandidate offers by group, by individual test results, with simple point and click methods.

All products offer CSV export features of the data on the online reporting point. Supercandidate and Proveit allow full data transfer to even email accounts.

A key reporting feature we believe is important for the HR person is based around reducing time. All of the products help HR and employment agencies reduce time by using tests to eliminate unqualified candidates. However, only Supercandidate takes into consideration that a live person does not always sit at their desk and has other things to do. For this they offer “Cell Phone” notification, which actually rings your cell when the best candidate is matched. You just head back to your desk and then call them up.

This is a very practical approach to free you from your desk and get on with other client calls, visits etc

Conclusion

Well our review looked at what we believe is key areas based on our 15 years working with HR, recruitment and the I.T industry related to the area of candidate selection. These 4 tools can definitely give you a step up in making sure you reduce time spent from tracking a candidate to placing one to a firm job.

Proveit and Brainbench seem to offer too little for those who want value for their money while utilizing a filter that will meet much of their needs. They have some fancy assessments but neither allows you to create your own tests or add to theirs. Any customization costs you even more if actually allowed.

Important features such as video and sound will play a more dominant role in tomorrow’s candididate selection as bandwidth increases and some features that were impossible outside face to face interviews, are now available to us via these elements. Both Supercandidate and Articulate allow these features.

Supercandidate’s cost of at least 90% less then all others, understanding of the need for quick learning, forward thinking features such as video in questions or cell phone notification on the go make this a really worthwhile product.

There is very little compromise with Supercandidate for those who want a effective filter to reach 95% of applicant testing. For this reason, we recommend the newer, more robust technology offered by Supercandidate Inc for the majority of users thinking of adding prescreening, or selection technology to their recruitment process. Also if you currently are using other forms, its time for an upgrade, especially when you are likely to heavily reduce your downtime and current spend.




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