Marketing Your WinRunner Team
July 14, 2007
It won’t matter how effective your WinRunner Team is if no-one outside your immediate organization knows about your accomplishments. For this reason, marketing your WinRunner Team is vital to your success. When times get tough, executives look for cost-cutting measures. The QA group is often the first on the chopping block. If these high level executives don’t fully understand and appreciate the value of your service, they will see the cost of WinRunner licenses and maintenance as well as the highly skilled, but also more expensive WinRunner engineers as a nice place to start trimming the budget. They will not have the time or luxury to launch an investigation to see if these services are really necessary.
The next thing you know, you have a nice library of WinRunner scripts, but no tools to execute them and no one with the skills necessary to modify the scripts as applications are updated. However, if these high level executives have personal knowledge about the benefits of software WinRunner in terms they understand, which are time and cost savings to the business they support, they will be less likely to put it on the chopping block.
Making The Decision To Automate Your Software Testing
July 14, 2007
Not every software testing project can or should be automated. Before your department accepts a new test automation project, you should establish a process by which projects are reviewed and either accepted or rejected. This can be done with a simple Test Automation Acceptance Checklist.
Repeatable Test Cases with Static Data
The true cost benefit of test automation is achieved only when the same scripts are executed multiple times. The first execution is very expensive because it includes the one-time cost of the automation tools and 100% of the Test Automation engineer’s time. When the scripts are executed again, the cost of test automation declines sharply. The tool has already been purchased and the scripts have already been coded. If there have been changes in the application, the scripts may require maintenance before being executed. Maintenance on minor software updates should be minimal.
Because test automation is only successful when the scripts can be executed multiple times, only application which require the same test cases to be executed with the same data are good candidates for automation. For example, a mortgage application that needs to be regression tested on a weekly basis could be a good candidate for test automation. Script maintenance is minimal and the scripts can enter a mortgage application using the same group of test data in a fraction of the time it would take a manual tester to test the same functionality.
Partitioning, Formatting and Reinstalling in Windows 98
July 13, 2007
Formatting and reinstalling windows 98 is very easy if you have the right know-how.
This article will discuss how to format, partition and reinstall windows 98 on your PC.
Before going ahead and doing this, it is important to be comfortable with the terms format, partition and file systems.
Formatting creates magnetic markers, which define sectors where the data is stored.
Basically you might want to format your hard drive if you are experiencing constant problems with your operating system. Another reason could be to clean out the registry, which gets clogged up over time by installing programs (and spy ware and third party software which get installed without your knowledge).
It’s also a good idea to format your hard drive if you are upgrading to a new operating system.
Partitioning is the process of dividing the space available on the hard disk into blocks. One reason for partitioning is that it helps in organising the data.
I.e. lets say you have an 80 GB hard disk drive. You can partition it to organize data into various categories like a drive for your Windows and system files and for your personal work. You can then have another separate drive for storing the rest of your programs.
Crystal Reports for Microsoft Great Plains
July 12, 2007
Microsoft Business Solutions ? Great Plains is designed to meet and extend the needs of small and mid-size organizations for its business success. Its comprehensive accounting and business management applications also provide businesses with capabilities to customize various modules of the Great Plains software to fit to their specific needs. Because of these potentials, Great Plains has been targeted to the whole spectrum of both horizontal and vertical clientele.
A number of industry-specific applications integrate well with Great Plains. This allows for more flexibility and unparalleled access to information that aids in decision-making and analysis of performance.
Crystal Reports is a report-writing software that can integrate itself to Great Plains’ database. It goes beyond the report creation process of Great Plains’ own Report Writer. As a developer, Crystal Reports will help your client access decision-driving information to aid in managing their businesses more effectively. So, how do we use Crystal Reports to extend Great Plains Report Writer?
Great Plains Table Structure
When a business entity is processed, the information is written onto the Great Plains database tables. This can be found by launching Great Plains, then: Tools > Resource Description > Tables. Find the appropriate Table:
How to Build a Basic CSS Layout
July 11, 2007
Designing without tables by using CSS layouts is fast becoming the new standard on the Web because of the benefits mentioned in my previous article. Web browsers used these days are now able to render web pages proficiently. In this article I will endeavor to create a basic 2 column CSS layout which you can use for future design projects.
Web Page: http://www.isitebuild.com/css/css-layout.html Style Sheet: http://www.isitebuild.com/css/stylesheet.htm
1. Divide your page into sections - the div id tags allows you to create distinct divisions on your web page. They are identified with a unique id. You can then add a style (css selector) that specifically applies to the div of that id. Remember to include the DOCTYPE (to render your page accurately in the browsers) and meta tags (enables search engines to spider your pages).
wrapper: is the div that wraps around all the other divs like a container for the page elements. header: defines the top banner of the page main: defines the main content of the page nav: defines the navigation of the page footer: defines the footer and sub-navigation of the page
Can You Calculate Complex Financial Calculations?
July 10, 2007
Are you a whiz at calculating financial information? Not the easy personal stuff, like figuring out your monthly mortgage based on a fixed interest rate for x number of years, or how much money you have available each month after all your bills are paid. (You can probably use your fingers to figure that one out!)
But the hard stuff, you know, the things you need to know when you’re running a small business. Things like company and stock valuation, loan consolidation, cost of capital or even the average cost of capital, variable cash flow, operation value with different rates, those types of things?
You’ve probably heard of these terms but if you’re like most small business owners, you wouldn’t know how to calculate these results if your business depended on it. Well, guess what? Your business does depend on it!
Before your business idea even gets out of your head and onto paper, you need to be prepared to figure these types of numbers out. If you’re planning to do a business plan, which, by the way, is a very good idea, you will need to include an entire section of the business plan devoted entirely to finances. You need to know the break-even point; the break-even point determined using various scenarios, start-up valuation, ROI-ROE, the capacity for growth and more.
Make 2005 the Year You Save Time!
July 9, 2007
Today’s business world is fast-paced. No matter what it is you do, finding a way to do it better and faster makes sense. But being faster does not have to mean being sloppier. You can be fast and efficient if you use the right tools to get the job done. So this year, why not add "Saving Time at Work" to your list of 2005 New Year’s Resolutions?
Even if you’re only saving a few seconds here and a few seconds there, the time savings can quickly add up. Just think how quickly the loose change that you save adds up to real dollars. If one of the tools you use to do your job is Microsoft Excel, you need to try the Spreadsheet Assistant. It’s a powerful Microsoft Excel Add-in that’s definitely worth the price.
Microsoft Excel is without doubt an incredible tool. But many of the tasks you perform when creating and modifying spreadsheets are tedious, repetitive and time consuming. You’ve probably even thought, "Microsoft Excel does spreadsheets faster than I could ever expect to do on my own, but there should be a more efficient way to handle some of its tasks."
Imagine if Everyone Working In Your Office Was In Synch?
July 9, 2007
Microsoft-Outlook is a pretty amazing program. So much more than simply an e-mail client, it provides a task list, a powerful calendar with recurring scheduling capabilities, wonderful electronic sticky notes, mail-merge capability with MS-Word support and so much more.
The problem is, it is a little stingy with its data and doesn’t like to share it with any of your employees unless you’re willing to invest in the expense and headaches involved with running a Microsoft Exchange Server.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could use MS-Outlook to coordinate meeting across multiple peoples’ calendars, share tasks and delegate project responsibilities right from Outlook even if you were working from the road? How about managing discussion groups, sharing documents, synchronizing updates and even creating an organization-wide shared contact list?
These are the kind of advantages that Fortune 2000 employees have at their fingertips every day and take for granted. But those less fortunate small business owners end up taking notes and sticking them all over their monitors, playing voice mail tag writing phone message on paper airplanes which they toss at their co-workers in the next cubicle.
Software Automation Helps Increase your Bottom Line
July 8, 2007
When you own a small business, time is money. And every time a task that should be automated is handled manually, it wastes your time and your business loses money. To make matters even worse, performing these tasks manually, in front of clients or prospects, projects the wrong image.
Even though technology is readily available and even affordable, many small business owners do not take full advantage of these powerful software packages. It may be hard to believe, but only a small percentage of business owners have the technical expertise necessary to handle the automation process. The others have neither the time to learn nor the ability to hire the experts to do the job.
But one thing is certain: One way to increase your business’s bottom line is to get software that automates the tasks you do manually and consequently, inefficiently.
Something as simple as contact management software is so valuable. First and foremost, searching for contact information is never more than a few mouse clicks away. Some software will even allow you to access this data while away from you office.
New Web-Based HR Tool is Max From NAS, Hannibal, and InfoLink
July 7, 2007
Three highly respected names in Human Resources have joined forces to provide companies with a revolutionary blend of services that make the hiring process more efficient and effective. The partnership joins three companies: NAS Recruitment Communications, a recognized leader in the specialized field of human resource communications, Hannibal, Inc., a software development firm specializing in recruiting automation solutions, and InfoLink Screening Services, Inc., a nationwide leader in employment background screening, drug testing and physical exam services.
The three companies’ services, each of which may be utilized separately, are now available through NAS’s new web-based recruiting tool called “Max.” Max makes it easier for HR departments to source, match, screen and hire quality employees. One of the primary benefits of Max is the ease with which recruitment ads can be placed and tracked.
“Companies of every size can count on Max for the simplest and most efficient recruiting assistance in the industry,” stated Don Sabatino, Vice President of NAS Recruitment Communications. “Max is not a typical applicant tracking system (ATS). Unlike the traditional ATS approach, which can take months to fully set-up and integrate, Max will be up and running in a matter of days.”
