Archive for February, 2010
February 25th, 2010
VBS.TV has released an excellent documentary of their trip to North Korea … very interesting …
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February 20th, 2010
I have mentioned previously that I have been doing some work with the Constructor Theme for WordPress. Unfortunately there is little helpful documentation out there in the form of ‘how to’ tutorials in relation to the Constructor Theme.
A common question appears to be how to get the slideshow option in the Constructor Theme to work. Here is a quick guide using the NextGen-Gallery Plugin.
- Install and activate the Constructor Theme (i.e. Constructor must be your WordPress ‘Current’ theme).
- Install and activate the NextGEN-Gallery WordPress plugin.
- Download ‘JW Image Rotator‘ to your computer and unzip.
- Copy imagerotator.swf from the unzipped ‘JW Image Rotator’ to the nextgen-gallery folder on your WordPress install/server (this will be under the ‘plugins’ folder).
Go to Options in the Gallery menu of WordPress.
Click the Slideshow tab.- Click Search now >> to the right of the ‘Path to the Imagerotator (URL):’ field.
- Wait until the path is filled for you in the ‘Path to the Imagerotator (URL):’ field. and click Save Changes at the bottom of the Window.
- Create/Add a Gallery with some images/photos (David Potter has a handy guide).
- Go to Appearance – Customize then the Slideshow tab
- Ensure the following:
- Enable Slideshow is checked
- At least one of the Options is checked (i.e. either/both and/or Show on single post).
- You click/select the Gallery you created in NextGen at the end of the Window to the right of Slideshow
- You ‘Save Changes’
Your slideshow will now appear on pages and/or posts (depending which you selected in the Constructor Theme Slideshow options.
Click the image below to enlarge and see an example of the Options used to enable a NextGen-Gallery to be used as the Constructor Theme Slideshow:
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February 14th, 2010
WordPress is awesome (yes, I am a big WordPress CMS fan). One of the huge advantages of GPL software (e.g. Moodle) is that a huge community often contributes code to the core software. In WordPress, the most common form of community contribution is in the form of Plugins and Themes.
I have been ‘playing’ recently with the Constructor theme by Anton Shevchuk. Although there are many good (and some great) WordPress themes (e.g. Theme Hybrid), the Constructor theme has immediately become one of my favorites for it’s vast array of options and ease of use/configuration.
One question about the Constructor theme that I have noticed on a few Sites is how to change the default Constructor Footer text which looks like this:
‘© 2010 [NAME] Blog is proudly powered by WordPress | Constructor Theme
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).’
Well this is how to amend the default footer text:
- Ensure that your Current Theme is set to Constructor.
- Log in to WordPress as an Administrator.
- Go to Appearance ->Customize.
- Click the Footer tab
- Enter the text you want to appear in the Footer (or just enter a space if you don’t want any Footer text)
You’ll notice that the text you entered above has replaced the default footer Text!
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Tags: Anton Shevchuk, blog, gpl, how to, hybrid, moodle, plugins, Software, WordPress, wordpress themes | 
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February 9th, 2010
The views of what encompasses software User Acceptance Testing (UAT) within various business units and roles differs greatly. UAT tends to get ‘bogged down’ in debates about scope and purpose if a common shared understanding between all stakeholders doesn’t exist. If managed correctly, the UAT process is usually extremely beneficial for all stakeholders.
The aim of this article is not to be detailed and prescriptive in nature but rather created a broad and common high-level understanding of the topic for all roles involved in software distribution and development. The article is brief in order to encourage wide readership.
What is User Acceptance Testing?
User acceptance testing (UAT) is about the user of the Configuration Item (i.e. software or hardware) testing whether the Configuration Item (CI) addresses the business requirements as documented to be met by the CI. Per the SDLC figure below, UAT (part of Acceptance Testing) tests against the Business Requirements.
UAT is also a significant indication as to whether the CI transition from one team to another is ready to occur e.g. from a vendor or project to a support team, and is therefore performed after all other testing has occurred.
What UAT is Not
UAT is not about communicating new wants and needs nor about testing against new expectations and requirements. All requirements of the CI should be documented and agreed during the Business Requirements stage. It is important that testers and other stakeholders are aware that UAT is testing against the documented business requirements.
The UAT Process
UAT is a formal and defined process as illustrated in the figure of the example acceptance testing process below.
Of specific importance is that, should certain test results differ from the expected result, the means of determining the priority and actions to occur for deviations should be defined in the test strategy or test plan. In other words, a deviation from expectation for any test does not necessarily mean that the test is a ‘failure’ or that it doesn’t meet the business objectives.
UAT Benefits
UAT is time-consuming however the benefits of UAT significantly outweigh the ‘costs’. Benefits of UAT include:
- Improved defining of business requirements (through knowledge that requirements will be tested).
- Improved solution quality (as developers, configurers etc.) are aware that users will test.
- Improved communication with users as developers, configurers etc. need to meet requirements.
- No ‘last minute’ requirements as UAT is performed against business requirements.
- Users experience the solution prior to ‘go-live’
- Handover into support of the solution is formalised and defined
- Etc.
Glossary of UAT Terms
Below are a few terms related to UAT and their explanations:
Test Cases: A set of input values, execution preconditions, expected results and execution postconditions, developed for a particular objective or test condition, such as to exercise a particular program path or to verify compliance with a specific requirement.
Test Plan: This is a detailed plan of how the UAT will be performed. This document is more detailed than the Test Strategy and more specific to the UAT for the CI to be tested.
Test Script: A document specifying a sequence of actions for the execution of a test. A test script will usually contain numerous Test Cases.
Test Strategy: The test strategy is usually a document detailing all testing to be performed on the CI (e.g. Unit Testing, System Testing, Integration Testing, UAT etc.) and how and who will perform the testing.
See http://www.astqb.org/educational-resources/glossary.php, http://www.istqb.org/downloads/glossary-1.0.pdf and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa292484%28VS.71%29.aspx for further glossaries.
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February 6th, 2010
Excellent rap video of ‘Keynes vs. Hayek’. Economic students, MBA students etc. will love this one …