Monthly Archives: May 2011

Thoughts on mobile technologies and tele-repair

Uncategorized, , , , , Chinmoy Panda

Innovation doesn’t always mean creating new things. Using existing things in new ways is also innovation. Innovation does not have to be big-bang, it can also be soft and silent steps which make an impact. Innovative application of current, boring and existing technologies could itself make the most trivial jobs better! A small example follows.

I noticed a service-person last week working on the water filter in our office. He was speaking on the phone and explaining something animatedly to the person at other end of the connection. The water filter was open showing its innards and he was fiddling with wires of many colors. Some eavesdropping revealed that he was explaining something about the wires – presumably to a person with more expertise – their layout, condition, color and so on. There was some heat and argument as our man was getting impatient with the expert – because the expert couldn’t get the exact status as he was explaining it.

He was on a mobile, they spent 15 minutes trying to get each other to understand the physical status as it was and should be – using mobile phones. Tele-repair? Yes. Could this be improved? You bet – a picture is worth a thousand words 😉

The visual aspect was the biggest missing piece. Without getting into 3G and live-video-enabled phones, a still-photo mechanism using the ancient MMS would also do the job while being economically viable. The guy at the other end just needed to see the damn pieces once!

Ideally, I would visualize a flex-cord (one of those twisty things that retain shape after you twist them) connected camera mounted on the mobile phone, which you can twist and point at areas of interest. With a speakerphone and the camera streaming visuals of the situation, field service personnel can “show and tell”, and effectively carry out instructions relayed by the expert at the other end.

This wouldn’t be big to do nor would it cost much. However, what is also important is the linkage among these. You may have the tools individually but not the mind unless someone has told you. You may have a mobile, a camera in it, MMS capability in it or GPRS/3G email capability in it, even dedicated software and flex-cord dedicated camera hardware – but can every service mechanic put these pieces together?

So what we are looking at for field service using mobile phones as enablers is a combination of equipment (hardware/software) and training to achieve the end result. And bang! – you have the ability to distribute deep knowledge and abilities of a limited number of experts over a large number of field service personnel and customer incidents – the ability to scale up your service abilities without corresponding rise in expert manpower. And it is not restricted to something as mundane as economics – having experts help on more repair incidents thereby reducing cost-per-repair. It is simply that you can create only so many experts in so much time.

This ability to distribute expertise over distance and scale up efficiency is the premise of tele-medicine, and can be equally well translated to tele-repair. Tele-repair of high-end and delicate equipment would still justify bringing in the experts, but for equipment like household goods or white goods repair, sundry electronics repair such as on TV sets, on-site repair can be tremendously enhanced using new technology. Happier people, faster and more accurate repair activities, happier customers – it is happiness all around.

Much of above is possible with existing technologies today. Making a customized system might make it more usable and beneficial, but the core pieces already exist!

How much would it cost to set up a mobile phone with dedicated flex-cord camera and a software application that integrates streaming videos into an “environment” that is easy to use? Perhaps the next thing to chew on for our embedded and mobile-computing guys 😉

Author – Chinmoy Panda

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I AM A BUG

Software Quality, , , Shailly Tiwari

BugHello folks ! Today I am going to tell you a story of three friends …. Yes you guessed it right, one of them is me . All three of us were a gang of notorious beings – blocking a code here, hiding a window there, disabling a button for the poor user or crashing the application a few times ! But we were living happily in our world until came in the big monster ‘The Tester’. Oh what a sweet fellow to begin with. He entered out territory with a gentle smile, its only later did we realize that he captured every corner of our house. He specially looked for the crevices and deep holes. God ! …. how difficult our survival became. Every morning when he came, we tried to hide ourselves and pray for the evening to come so that he would leave for the day. But how long could we, the tiny creatures survive this big bad monster and one day the inevitable happened and our lives changed forever.

Continue reading I AM A BUG →

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Attending Asia’s Biggest Software Testing Conference

Software Quality, , ,

Software Testing ConferenceThis was really a nice opportunity for me to attend a ‘International Software Testing Conference’. As a ‘Software Tester’ this is really great forum to meet to all great software testing experts and muster knowledge and expertise from them. This is really a huge canvas to expand our network for knowledge concerns. We came across this international event, & finally two of us were selected for the conference.

We zipped our baggage and flew to Bangalore on 11th May 2011 to attend the conference on 12th and 13th May 2011. On 12th May 2011 we had reached the conference spot with vibrant curiosity which was at ‘Hotel The Chancery Pavilion, Residency Road, Bangalore, INDIA’ for the quest of knowledge.

Attending The Software Testing Conference

We completed the registration process successfully and entered the conference hall. At 9 AM the conference just started with a welcome note. After the welcome note we were given with some highlights of the events for that day.

So this way the conference just started with a huge a surprise. On 12th first event was a KEYNOTE by Rob Lambert, Software Testing Club, UK. “Narrowing the Gap between Requirements and Testing: Feedback Loops, Agile and Communication”. Rob was explaining about the Agile process, and gap between requirements and testing. In normal testing life cycle we follow certain standards about writing testcase and executing the testcases in real time. Which takes a lot of time. But Rob explained that we don’t need
to bother about writing all the test cases where we can make a checklist and only need to check them while testing in agile process. Well some debates were there on this concept but at last we were able to understand to the importance of the process which was explained by Rob. I spoke to Rob about this concept and got some concepts cleared about agile software testing and methodology in real time testing.

The second event was “Define and Build Enterprise Automation Framework”, Speaker(s): JayaKrishnan Sashikumar & Preeth K P, Infosys. In this event they explained their own enterprise automation framework. Which was a requirement in of their projects. They were just explaining the architecture and model of the framework.

“Delivering Business Value through Test Automation” Speaker: Maruthi Sivakumar, AppLabs was the third event. Where MR Marithi Sivakumar was explaining about benefits of Test Automation and how test automation can help manual testers to do their job in better way so that the repetitive task can be done within less human interaction.

After three consecutive events we had a small energy break. And after the energy break the fourth eventjust started.

The fourth event was a KEYNOTE by Julian Harty, eBay, UK. “Pushing the boundaries of User Experience Test Automation”. Julian was explaining about the user experience test automation. Now a days usability is the most important factor for all kinds of application. So Julian was explaining about the ‘User Experience’, and ‘Usability’. How to automate Usability testing while observing the user experience. I had a long discussion with Julian about the ‘User Experience’, ‘Usability’, and ‘User Interface’. In the end I got my doubts clarified by Julian.
The fifth event was “Test Automation Rule Radial Hybrid Framework” Speaker: Velu S. P, IBM. Mr Velu has created his own Framework for test automation for his current project testing. After this there was a lunch break.

The sixth event was “Accelerating Regression Test Automation using Ready-to-use Test Automation Framework” Speaker(s): Chandrashekar S, Pallavi Jain & Vidyadhara C.A, Infosys. In this event the speaker has illustrated how test automation helps in regression testing. The seventh event was “Robust Automation Framework using Database for Test Data” Speaker(s): Sriharirao
Kuchi and Merral Crasto, IBM. In this event the speakers has shown how to use database for data driven testing. Instead of using a flat file or excel sheet for data driven testing they have just explained how database can be used for this purpose and how it is helps as compared to the other file formats which is very very dynamic in nature.

After this we had a small tea break. And after the break we had a Plenary Session by Pradeep Soundararajan, Moolya Software Testing, India “Achieving Personal Excellence as a Tester”. This session was really interesting where Pradeep was explaining what should be the true nature of a software tester. How a ‘Software Tester’ should be in ideal form. How to gain knowledge in Software Testing, and how to communicate with other testers and software testing experts all around the globe. Pradeep has suggested the ideal approach for testing and test management.

“Data Driven Automation Testing of Web Application using Selenium” Speaker(s): Navaraj Javvaji, Anand Sathiyaseelan, UmaMaheswari Selvan, AVA Corp was the eighth session. In this session the speakers were explaining about the selenium tool and how to use it for data driven testing.

So in this way 12th May is over and in the end I had a talk with experts for some real time problems in my early projects.

On 13th May 2011 we have reached the conference spot in the same way. After the registration the conference just started with a welcome note. After the welcome note we are given with some highlights for the events for that day.

The first session was about KEYNOTE by Sai Chintala, Applabs, India “Effective Performance Testing”. In this session Mr Sai from Applabs has explained about the basic concepts of Performance testing and how to do effective performance testing.

“Basics on Security Threats, Challenges and Countermeasures” Speaker: Narsimha Reddy, Infosys was the second session where Mr Narsimha from Infosys has explained core concepts of security threats for any application. Where in this session the discussion was for SQL injection, XSS attacks, Script inject and so on.

In the third session we had “Perform Fuzz on Application’s Web Interface”, Speaker: Aniket Kulkarni, Symantec. Mr Aniket Kulkarni works in Symantec as application security researcher. He was explaining about fuzzing techniques to test any application for security and load testing. How to fuzz any application and crash/break the application and check the logs for the crash. So in this way one can encounter about the security holes in the application. Also Aniket has explained how to capture packets transmitted
and analyze the packets for security threats. Overall this session was really nice and helpful.

“Benefits of Automated Security and Performance Testing of SAP HCM Applications” Speaker(s): Abhinav Gupta, Chandrashekar.S, Shahbaz Ali, Sharita Priya Castelino, Infosys was the fourth session. This session was all about SAP based application.

KEYNOTE by Mahesh Saptarshi, Symantec India, “Software Security – Technical Challenges”. This session was all about software security and negative testing. How can negative testing can lead to software security threat and business risk factors.

The sixth session was on “Performance Testing: A Catalyst for Swift IT” Speaker(s): Ashish Tyagi, Siddharth Joshi, Vivek Bal, Capgemini. Mr Siddharth explained about the performance testing and its implementation in web based application.

“Issues during Performance Testing and Solutions using various Tools and Tricks” Speaker: Amitabh Kaushal, IBM was the seventh session. In this session Mr Amitabh was explaining about the various tools and their usage. Some commercial and open source performance and load testing tools.

All sessions were really informative and useful. However I came across these things which I have learned and which will really add value to my current and future testing work:

• Agile methodology
• Automation testing and creating own automation framework
• User experience Test Automation
• Regression testing using automation testing
• Data driven testing using database, excel sheet, and flat file
• Data Driven Automation Testing of Web Application using Selenium
• Effective performance testing
• Application security threats, challenges, and countermeasures
• Fuzzing technique for web based interface
• Software security testing
• Various tools and tricks for performance testing of application

Likewise attending the sessions I got the prospect to meet, share, and interact with different technology experts from different other companies. We shared our views and work procedure on software testing and methodology we follow. This conference helped me in building my network in the world of Software testing,which will help me getting support and sharing opinions with these experts on different problems from time to time that we face in our day to day work life.

This conference was really a wonderful experience for me. I got to know so many new concepts, tools, techniques, and methodologies which is really going to help me in my work. In fact I have started working in the manner as we have learned from this conference. Well in this international conference I have got the exposure to real time industry experts and their views.

I feel lucky to be a part of Mindfire Solutions, not only for allowing me such a huge opportunity to explore knowledge. This is the beginning of opportunities and there is a long way to go with Mindfire on the path of success. This is really a grand experience for learning matter.

Mindfire is our company which always promotes, enables, and supports in all the initiatives for the career growth of all its employees. I feel good when I get these kind of opportunities. Well this makes me feel special in Mindire. I am also looking forward for the opportunities like this in the future to sharpen my skills and expertise in the Software QA Testing and Quality Assurance.

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The Interview

Stories, Bijit Pattanaik

The shrill tone of the alarm dragged Harish from under his blankets and his dreams, into the cold consciousness of reality. And while still trying to find equilibrium between the real and the surreal, he remembered that it was the day of his interview!

The previous night had been hectic to say the least. Software companies these days, hire people by the dozens and most of them middle class undergraduate students who flock to these companies with dreams of making it big one day. Harish too got an opportunity to try his luck with this company and it can be said, he tried his best. But somehow by the time he returned home after the aptitude test, he felt he had missed the bus this time. And so, it was a pleasant surprise when Mr. Roy, the paan chewing, attitude throwing placement officer of his college, called to say that he had indeed cleared his test and had to have an interview the following morning.

Nine o’clock found Harish sitting on a plastic chair, his face white and hands sweating, in front of the room where his fate was to be decided that day. He looked at the people around him. While some seemed confident of facing the interviews, most of them were of the state as him. This ironically was comforting to Harish. He looked at his friend, Vivek, who gave him a comforting “don’t worry” type of smile. Harish smiled back weakly. He had hardly recovered from this state when his name was called; it was time to face the trial by fire.

An interview is never the straightforward affair it is supposed to be. Like say, if it’s a technical one, you might expect a question like “Draw a graph showing the relation between current and voltage in a diode..”, but you will most likely be asked “Can you draw the graph showing the relation between current and voltage in a diode?” To this, the most appropriate answer will probably be “Yes I can”. Harish‘s interview lasted for about twenty minutes, but quite naturally, to him it seemed a lifetime. And he came out of the room, trying to make up his mind about how he had faced his interrogator. One moment he felt that he had flopped the whole thing and the next moment he was sure he had given his best shot. Finding nothing more to do there, Harish and Vivek, whose own interview had proceeded more or less along similar lines, decided to take a break and came out of the building. They sat in a tea stall, Harish still pondering over his performance, with a dirty looking glass of piping hot tea, when his friend, who was smoking a cigarette, said “We could not have done better” and then added prophetically, “we are not going to make it.” This obviously didn’t make Harish’s condition any better.

This was by no means the end of their trials. Another round of interviews had yet to be done, and the seemingly endless wait to know if they had crossed the first hurdle, made them anxious and uneasy. Harish tried to shift through the study materials he had brought along but the strain of the endless wait was too much and he soon gave up. After what seemed to be an eternity, came the news about the selected candidates. Harish’s heart was literally leaping out of his body, when he heard his name being called. His joy was complete with the news that his friend too had been selected.

Then there was the wait for the final round. Even as the day gave way to afternoon and afternoon to evening, it didn’t seem to end. With his mind heavy and stomach empty, Harish waited. A girl came out of the room, agitated. By the time she had crossed the corridor, she had started crying herself hoarse, to the consternation of all present there. Just then (call it luck or whatever) the interviewer happened to come outside, and finding the girl weeping (much to his alarm), decided to have a retake. The whole incident lasted only a few moments but left everyone dazed. Harish went back to waiting out his turn and as darkness approached, found himself among very few candidates left waiting; and thus was immensely relived when at last his name was called. What transpired at the interview is better left alone but it must have been a pleasant affair because Harish came out looking quite satisfied.

It was raining slightly and night was approaching rapidly when Harish called it a day and went home.

The wave of expectations that were building up inside Harish was waiting to break. They would either lift him into heights of ecstasy or plunge him into depths of misery. Harish maintained a diplomatic stance throughout as all and sundry enquired about his interview but secretly, hoped for the best.

And then…

Nothing happened. No wave of ecstasy or misery broke upon him. News reached him from somewhere about other candidates who had received calls. Harish and his friend, made frantic calls to all those who could help. “If not an acceptance letter, then may be give us a rejection letter!” This enigmatic silence was really unbearable. They checked their mailboxes thoroughly and even tried in vain to contact their interviewers, but to no avail. The search was abandoned after a few days and they resigned themselves to their fate. But the whole episode, like an anticlimax after a fantastic movie, left Harish high and dry.

Life returned to the humdrum existence again.

NB: Remember the girl who wept? Well she got the job. Last heard, Harish was trying to learn “How to weep at an interview”.
(Based on a true story :))

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talking cars

Talking and Tweeting Cars: Future Belongs To Intelligent Vehicles

Software,

90% of innovation in automobile industry is driven by electronics and software according to IEEE New York Monitor. It is not talking carssurprising to find that all leading software giant,IBM, Microsoft,Google and Cisco have plunged headlong into the automotive sector. The major development seems to be centered around the concept of ECS – Electronics and Control Software to make commutation less hazardous and free of traffic snarls. Although GPS-based navigation systems,smartphone apps with real-time traffic updates are already in use,traffic congestion haven’t decreased. In fact, a study reports that an average American spent 34 hours in traffic,costing $808 in 2009, the total loss caused by gridlock was placed at $115 billion!

Although the study cited above was conducted in the USA,the finding can be related to other countries too,which explains why automobile companies are going for complex software to make cars safer and more efficient. Automobiles that can be managed with the help of smartphone apps (such as Chevrolet Volt whose energy level can be monitored by a smartphone app ) are already in use. Microsoft and Toyota are collaborating to network Toyota cars with Microft’s Azure cloud computing platform to bring telecommunications and GPS data, multimedia content and battery management capabilities. If features like streaming music and infotainment in general are introduced, can social networking be far ? Especially after the success of location-based social apps like Foursquare and Latitude which are really helpful when you are in a new city and chances are, when you are entering a new city, you would be in your own car. Apps that quickly find your places of interest or locate your friends and create best routes to reach them would be cool.

As a matter of fact, Ford did test run a tweeting car, a Ford Fiesta with cloud connectivity to explore how car safety and efficiency can be enhanced with cloud connectivity. The cloud-based car apps on a road trip labeled “American Journey 2.0 was able to to tweet, use Foursquare to locate nearby restaurants, gas stations and parks and even auto-blog (pun strongly intended).

Audi Autonomous TTS
Audi Autonomous TTS LA

However the latest frontier is that of vehicular communication or cars that “talk” to each other and with the grid and autonomous/ semi-autonomous cars. Many automobile companies are at various stages, developing these “autonomous cars”. German researchers have developed a car that can be controlled by thought while Virginia University students have developed a car that the blind can drive. Audi show cased its autonomous vehicle technology by letting its robotic car TTS successfuly complete a race to a peak through a rough terrain and of course, without a driver at the wheels.Volvo’s S60have been part of the first successful road train or platooning setup where the semi-autonomous cars have been programmed to follow the lead car by monitoring its speed,direction and distance.  Google’s autonomous cars that use artificial intelligence software to mimic human behavior have accumulated 14000 miles and are some of the best examples self-driving cars.

But large scale implementation seems more likely to be  on the lines of the Ford model that uses wi-fi signals to talk with other cars and has shown crash avoidance system using wi-fi signals,emitted 10 times a second and GPS data to communicate with the other car 900 feet away. In contrast to the current crash avoidance systems that use radar and require a a straight line to detect hazards,wi-fi and GPS mechanism provide a 360-degree visibility and are hence considerably advanced.  With the ability to communicate with other vehicles as well as  surrounding infrastructure, these “intelligent cars” can make commutation far more safer and efficient by sharing real-time data on traffic,speed,weather condition etc.  In fact the US Department  of  Transportation believes that that vehicle-to-vehicle communication has “potential to save a lot of lives” and has launched the Connected Vehicle Technology Challenge.

Of course, every new technology brings with it, its scope of being misused or exploited. How well the security measures are implemented would be crucial not just from the individual/ owner’s perspective but  from the social perspective also. Last year we saw attack on real time systems in the form of the worm called Stuxnet. One of the most sophisticated cyber-attacks in the history of computing, the Stuxnet worm was successful in sabotaging one of Iran’s nuclear plants and was one of the first instances of such a sophisticated  attack targeting industrial software. Though not identical, parallels can be drawn between the systems on the role software plays in both and the damage that can be caused by subverting it.  Apart from that, there are also threats of rogue hackers breaking into networks and causing havoc. In March 2010, more than 100 of drivers found their cars unusable or honking after a disgruntled former employee thought of taking revenge by abusing the web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments.  This was just an example, a terrorist or a psychopath is unlikely to be contented with that, the likely scenario is nightmarish.

 

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Something Special

UncategorizedChinmoy Panda

Building Specialized Skills…

Much has been written about recent top-level churn and executive exit at Wipro, Infosys, Mindtree and so on. One way of looking at them is as symptoms rather than the disease itself..

The disease probably is the storm clouds brewing on the horizon for Indian IT service providers. Vineet Nayar had an interesting piece on China as emerging threat – http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-10-13/india-business/28272876_1_ceo-vineet-nayar-low-labour-cost-chinese-counterpart. This was preceded by the Nasdaq listing of a Chinese IT services firm. While structural deficiencies exist among Chinese providers, these are being firmly addressed right now – and the days are not far when effects will be visible.

Interestingly, apart from the Chinese dragon, increasing off-shore and blended capabilities of MNC IT providers such as EDS, CSC, Cap Gemini, Atos Origin and of course, IBM and Accenture, point to a world of increasing competition, reduced sales ability, diminishing margins and more value to be provided to more demanding clients. Throw into this mix a rising Cognizant and protectionism, and you have all the elements for a perfect storm.

Not surprisingly, some Indian IT promoters are bailing out. Stock sales by founder-promoters and exits (such as Raju allegedly diverting money to land or Patni selling out) are indicative of a not-so-rosy future being seen by those who know more.

For senior professionals, a fast life has suddenly skidded into stagnation, on the back of a just-concluded recession. Which means the excitement of growth and an infinite universe has given way to politics, infighting and games among colleagues – given the increasing realization that the world is indeed finite. Not difficult to understand why there is churn at the top. As battle lines get drawn among groups, members get thrashed around on these waves – for every senior-most person who exits, there are aligned juniors who are suddenly clueless about their future.

While this goes on at the macro level, how does it affect individuals? As an IT professional or software engineer, what can you do to protect yourself in this muddy future? You now have to compete with eager youngsters pouring out of colleges across the world, and faceless professionals seeking equality in a flat world.

Often, you will get attracted by superficial steps to save yourself: keeping a boss happy, keeping a client happy, somehow delivering a project albeit with patches, hiding a problem you know of, and so on. You forget that all this is transient – your organization, your team, your client, your project, your manager – all are maya, illusion, transient.

The one thing that cannot be taken away from you is you. Who you are, what you can do. Focus on yourself and the rest will flow. Some suggestions are below.

First, usually nothing beats competence.
Fundamental talent, ability, skills, competence, capability, approach, attitude are timeless. They always carry value. Every bug is an opportunity to get better. Every hour is an opportunity to learn more. Every colleague is an opportunity to understand better. Every project is an opportunity to go deeper. Every question is an opportunity to widen knowledge. How many opportunities do you waste every day?

Be great at what you do. Style never goes out of fashion. Competence never goes out of demand.

Second, nothing beats specialized competence.
If the world could have commodity skills supplied by junior and an all-nations workforce, who stands out? What can you do that others cannot? The answer is specialization. Specialization along any of multiple parameters – domain or industry specialization, platform specialization, tool specialization, product specialization, technology specialization, etc.

Be not a tester. Be a healthcare tester, a Mac tester, a GUI tester, a performance tester, a Selenium tester, a Content Management System tester, and so on.

Be not a developer. Be not even a Java developer. Be a Java Struts/Hibernate developer, a Java newspaper-systems developer, a Java Web 2.0 developer, a Java JBoss MVC developer, a Java media developer, and so on. Maybe even more specialized.

Competence is ability. Specialization is expertise. Combine both and you are unbeatable.

Third, sit back, relax and enjoy the experience. This industry is here to stay, and if you know how to make your own career unbeatable – specialization makes you special – it is going to be non-stop fun 🙂

Author – Chinmoy Panda

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