Archive for March 24th, 2005
To get a better idea of what a testing environment I’m writting a letter to several companies with a short questionnaire. I now have a letter which is acceptable _and_ gets over the correct information. As I’m doing the work for one company I have get the responses back, and then present them in such a way that I don’t give out insider knowledge and give an unfair advantage to the company that I’m doing this for.
Also changed today was the questions on the questionnaire to make it more general. Then I can use the same one for both internal and external use.
Having a letter and set of questions is of no use unless I have any one to send them to. So the remainder of today was spent trying to gather around 20 companies to which I can then send the letter to. This proved a challange, it’s like trying to do maths on the spot. When you have to do it you can’t, but do it for no purpose and you can. I think I still came up with a reasonable list, so once I’ve checked the letter and questions again I shall send them.
Synergy is a piece of software that allows you to link sereral computers together over a network in order that you can use the same keyboard and mouse across them all. The computers are still independant from each other so running multiple copies of the same program is possible. It’s even cross platform!
The advantages are easy to see. With several monitors on your desk it enables you to operate several systems, not always on the same hardware or running the same operating system. The same keyboard and mouse opperates the lot which is a great space saver.
I find it very useful to use it with my main desktop and laptop. I use my laptop with a laptop stand which means that the laptop keyboard is not at the best angle for typing on. Using synergy I am able to use my desktop keyboard and mouse (which are in the best position for my hands) to operate them both.
It’s also a great way of have a development environment on one computer and a clean enviroment on the other. Putting the files on the network enable me to develop on one computer, and then with the flick of the mouse be on the different computer and testing the result.
Much cheaper than a KVM, and much more flexible.
Discovered an alternative name for what I’m looking research – testing infrastructure. This helped to pull up a few more pieces of information but not that much.
Started to work on the questionaire and came up with a several question. It’s going to be hard work thinking up questions that ask what I want to know in the right way. It’s about asking it in such a way that I don’t point at a certain answer. Those that answer the question will be filling them in in such a way that they hope it will influence the outcome of the project in their favour and not what is best for the company and testing in general. They could be doing this on purpose or subconsciously so it’s something that I have to look out for.
Last week I requested a journal from the library and yesterday the library web site showed that it had arrived. After work I went into to the library just after 6pm to collect it. The uni is now closed for Easter, unfortunatly the library seems to think that this means students will stop wanting to use the library after 5pm. So when I arrived there was not a single librarian to seen but plenty of notices saying they were closed at 5pm during the holidays. Grr 
