I started blogging about five years ago while I was working on Windows CE. I started the blog as a place to share my conference materials, but it quickly turned into something else. Soon, I was writing this blog to work on my writing skills – practicing...

Thanks to everyone who attended my talk today. Feel free to fire more questions here if you have them. Slides are available here .

…literally, I suppose. It’s been a hectic few weeks for me, but some big announcements may be on the horizon… In the meantime, I strongly encourage you to check out http://testing.stackexchange.com . The cool kids among my readers will know that stackexchange...

I’m excited to see that the Chinese version of HWTSAM is out (and soon to be followed by a Korean translation). You can find information here: http://www.china-pub.com/196002 and on Amazon .

We (Microsoft, M$ or however you���d like to refer to us) are trying to gather some data on how testers are using virtualization – specifically in the area of lab management of virtual machines. We’re working with independent analyst firm, voke, to conduct...

My talk’s over – I’ve received a lot of positive feedback (although the people who hate my talks never track me down). I did have fun though, so at least one person in the room had a great time. My slides (which are nothing like the slides I submitted...

I’m somewhere over California on my way to Orange County, home of movie stars, beaches, Disneyland, and a wee bit of the Microsoft mother ship. The flight is half full, and I’m using the increased elbow room to clean out some old email, work on my presentations...

I’ve run into more and more people lately who are astounded that software ships with known bugs. I’m frightened that many of these people are software testers and should know better. First, read this “old” (but good) article from Eric Sink. I doubt I...

Phil Kirkham recently posted a list of 7 Influential Books and encouraged some of his fellow bloggers to follow suit. Of course, Phil’s list overlaps mine, so instead, I’d like to present: 7 Influential Books that Phil doesn’t Mention The Feiner Points...

I have been thinking about “niche” professions – those that only appeal to a relatively small number of people in the world. Often, these professions are looked down upon by those in similar professions – or by those who don’t know much about the profession...

I took an opportunity to write some code last week. I’ll spare you the full background – short story is that the school my kids go to needed a small web app written. It ended up  being 100 lines or so of javascript and about 3 lines of html. The...

On request from Adam Goucher – another excerpt from How We Test Software at Microsoft .  BTW – Adam wrote a review of HWTSAM here – although Linda Wilkinson beat him to the clever title . This is from a section on quality in chapter 16. It’s something...

Although my anniversary is coming up, this post is about another “L” word: Leadership. “Senior” people at Microsoft (and I assume at other companies) are expected to exhibit it. This is true for managers and non-managers alike (because, of course, management...

I had a bit of a surreal experience this week. One of the groups I work with sent some mail asking me to review an internal report. They noticed an issue and had made some changes. I checked out the report, but it was incorrect. I let them know and got...

aka – The secrets of my so called success, part 23. It’s Tuesday after a long weekend, and my todo list is long. The good news is that I know exactly how long it is, since (for better or for worse), I let outlook drive my daily schedule. Since I’ve mentioned...

Heusser is sad because his heroes haven’t been blogging lately (two of those have only blogged 2-3 times in the last year , so I’m not sure what he’s missing there). The good news is that there’s plenty of great writing on test (and some great writing...

In music, the better you are at the basics, the better you are on the bandstand. Even the pro musicians I know practice almost every day. I think testers (and developers) forget the value of practice too often. In The Passionate Programmer, Chad Fowler...

My travel always comes in flurries, and October is the flurry month for this year. Immediately following a personal trip (brother in-law’s wedding), I’ll be heading to STAR . (btw – if you’re thinking of attending, you can use the promo code SKWS when...

I’ve been meaning to write a few more posts about The Passionate Programmer . So, before I forget, here is one of those posts. When I first read The Pragmatic Programmer 5 or 6 years ago, one of the many suggestions that stuck with me was the idea of...

It’s “commitment” time at Microsoft – which means that employees across the company are plotting out what they’ll be doing over the next 10 months (the weird thing about commitments is that we set them in August / September, but we review them in June...

I have a couple of stories based on a bug I was passively investigating the last few days (“passively”== an “issue” showed up on an alias I was on and I took a closer look). The lessons learned, as far as I’m concerned, come from the investigation (or...

I’m depressed this morning. That doesn’t happen often with me – especially when it comes to thoughts about software engineering and software testing. But today, I’m down in the dumps. I’m frustrated, annoyed, tired, and completely lacking luster. Why...

I’ve been reading The Passionate Programmer , and so far it’s been a great read. It often feels that parts of the book are written by a much more talented and successful version of me (the author is a pro-level saxophone player, a successful speaker,...

Those of you who follow me on twitter may have noticed I’ve been in a lot of meetings lately (actually, I don’t know if I’ve griped as much as I thought I have, so just trust me). Anyway – when I attend meetings, I try to ignore my laptop and phone and...

I had a late morning meeting today in a MS building nowhere near the one where I normally work. To cut down on wasted time driving, I went directly to the building where my meeting was, got some coffee and opened my laptop to book a conference room (there...