From the online manual for Presentation and relevant sections of the main Docs manual  we can harvest about 36 declarations of features which are mostly Functions in Product Elements:
and so fill in some other details of the Product Elements:

• Structure: and Operations: Presentations is delivered as a online service (SaaS) and there is no physical product.
• Platform: Google's platform is used for (at least) storage, authn, authz, search, revision control, machine translation, document format conversions,  and application delivery.
• Data: Presentations reads in and writes out in multiple well-documented formats and also has an internal format.

We can also fill in some information about possible Operational Quality Criteria.

• Compatibility: Presentations reads and writes multiple file formats besides it's native data format.
• Compatibility: Presentations is sensitive to web browser feature levels.
  
• Installability criteria may not be applicable since Presentation is delivered as a service
  
• Security in Presentations is implemented with features of Google hosting services and may not be directly testable.
  
• Capability: A serious failure or lack of any of the features bragged about in the manual will strongly impact quality

Tags: assignment, bbst, test design
Current Mood: aggravated

Unfortunately the next assignment is repelling me forcefully. Even after a few flybys as I try to actually dig into it it's not passing my "this is dumb" filters and is being rejected by a voice in my head yelling about how dumb it is and telling me to run or find something productive to do.

To help us learn how to digest and actually get useful information from specs and other complex documents the lectures and reading explain active reading techniques and emphasize the use of mind-mapping software. The assignment is to use a mind mapping application to make a map of a specification and answer some questions about the results. If you haven't got or aren't familiar with the mind mapping tool you are encouraged to snag it and start in early in the assigned time for this assignment , and I did yesterday with mixed results.

Here's where it gets choppy: I haven't met a mind mapping program that I can actually use effectively, though I have tried a few a few times. Much as no note-taking application is faster or more versatile for me than scribbles on paper (alas I would this were not true, see recent /. discussion for ample discourse. tl;dr use a pen and paper) I have to whiteboard or pen sketch flowcharts, timelines, swimlanes and especially formal maps (at work) before trying to fight them into a computer. So this assignment's technique is unlikely to work well for me however awesome it is. And confirmation bias as it may, I had enough trouble inputting the skeleton into the mapper yesterday that I'm pretty convinced it's a net-loss for efficiency and don't want to use it again, certainly not for inputting data.

But the real problem is that the specification document we are supposed to analyze isn't a spec. It's the bleedin' online manual and is mostly full of marketing and fluff. I haven't seen any numbers in the parts I have tried to skim and if there's a section of fluff about interoperability I haven't been able to find it yet.

I think I could have surmounted (kludged) one of these two problems but with both staring me down I'm locking up. I should be able to analyze this app from the fluffy manual and using it, but I won't have anyhting in 3-4 hours but a headache and a wall-white board full of scribble which it would take me a couple hours to clean up and get into the mapper (Or faster into Visio, Omnigraffle, Inkscape in order of speed and cost).

I've either got to learn to type quickly or the computers need to learn to understand my scribble and/or when I yell at them .. but this shouldn't have anything to do with how to analyze a spec or mock the thing they gave you in the specification folder.

I guess I should try and active read through the spec, taking notes as best I can (still no study skills to speak of) and ignore the map for the remaining 2-3 hours and try and come up with something. It either that or I'll drawn a moderately useful map and need another couple hours to get it into the shiny metal box on my table here. Argh.

ETA: a snip from the assignment to demonstrate the gulf between these techniques and anything that will actually work for me:

Every sentence of a specification should be telling you what the product is (Product Elements), in what way it is good or bad or needs to get better (Quality Criteria), or how it will be built and the context in which it will be built (Project Environment). As you find information about the product, note it under one of the topics or subtopics under these main headings.

This sounds like something best accomplished with printouts, scissors, and maybe a bunch of index cards. Then once you have something maybe you can put it in a computer. Am I really so far out on this? How can anyone actually organize a bunch of random crap on a computer?

ETA: Pics or it didn't ...

Tags: assignment, bbst, complaining, testdesign

I worked through the lab assignment's questions and now need to covert this into a list of risks for other to critique. This was so much fun to write I wanted to hang onto it anyway even as an intermediate product. My actual submission for class is below the cut.

1) The variable of lastname is input (optionally) in the wizard that runs on first program execution of OOo applications, modified in the Options dialogue of any OOo application, and used in every facet of the office suite.

2a) Undefined is a valid state for this variable and any code path that uses the variable without checking for undef or doing so incorrectly will introduce errors in its functions. Additionally, too much data in this field would also be dangerous to any of the code that uses it do the likelihood of buffer overruns and unexpected characters or encoding in this field could lead to format string errors or exceptions in library string-handling code. If you can get a non-character or non-string value into this field due to input validation failures then wholesale memory and stack corruption becomes a concern.

2b) Use of lastname as well as the companion variables first name and initials is widespread throughout the SUT applications. Beyond the dialogs which directly manipulate this value (new user wizard, Options) many other functions read this variable and incorporate it into interface displays (document properties) or include it in requests to other modules (printing). The name variables are included in various places in the document data saved to disk automatically and intentionally including the document properties. If change tracking is enabled a tag generated from name variables and dates is displayed next to each change made by a particular user and recored with version information in the document files. Perhaps most excitingly the name variables are posted to Internet servers with registration information allowing for the small possibility that an error related to this variable could affect not only systems that process the document but completely remote systems as well!

2bi) Lastname is used in (at least) many display functions in all parts of the SUT applications, change tracking functions, save/load functions, printing functions, macros, user preferences, data generating functions such as headers and footers, and online registration.

2bii) Values of lastname are displayed in numerous parts of the UI, in change-tracking feature's tags, inside saved documents (and temp/autosaved ones), and may be printed depending on settings for header/footer and cover pages.

2biii) Values of lastname are sent to the operating system as part of stored data about the user and document as well as to remote devices for printing (settings dependent) and to remote Internet servers with optional software registration. I'm unsure about how lastname values may be used in API calls and macros.

2biv) Values of lastname are sent to the operating system as part of stored dat
a about the user (registry UserProfile.xcu) and document (meta.xml).

2bv) Values are read from the registry user profile files if available and may be input into the SUT via the first-run wizard or on demand with Options dialogs.

2c) Changes to the presence or boundedness (?) of last name during program operations could lead to corrupted data in memory, on disk, and displayed to users.

2cviii) Display of user data, document data or metadata could be impacted by incorrect information about the presence (undef), values (could change), or boundedness (wrong data type) of last name.

2cix) Boundary errors on lastname could influence other variable values in document metadata, document content, or application configuration leading to problems with these unrelated variables and functions. Gross misbehaviour on the part of lastname could completely corrupt XML program and document data structures rendering the document or preferences unreadable and thus broadly disrupting document or application functionality.

2cx) There any number of cases where software errors could cause the value of lastname currently in memory and on disk in the user registry or document to become de-synched. This could lead to incorrect data being saved or printed. Some of these cases include local or remote file system errors, unaccounted for 'races' with other OOo (or alien) process running on either the SUT or the file storage device, or just faulty RAM.

2cxi) Lastname is optionally sent with registration information to remote Internet servers operated by the OOo project. A chained failure of input filtering or other unlikely occurrence could cause unexpected format, encoding, or sized lastname to be injected into the remote system and processed. It is not entirely far-fetched that this could lead to serious problems on the remote system(s) that receive and process the data such as a buffer overflow or SQL injection attack.

2cxii) Perhaps the most outlandish and unlikely risk is to the hardware of a printer that receives a document to print with malformed or corrupt lastname information in the cover page, headers, or document body. The could lead the printer to malfunction, develop sentience, or start making toast if enough failures chain together in just the right (wrong?) way.

( Risks for OOo Last Name: a continuum of failure stretching towards disasterCollapse )

Tags: bbst, bug, class, testdesign
Current Location: dungeon
Current Music: Matthew Sweet - "Dark Secret"

Comment left on threatpost story: Apple Trips Up Again on Security https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/apple-trips-again-security-110911#comment-117253

There's a pretty serious flaw in the argument presented in this article starting with the incorrect comparison between Apple's App Store policies and those of the Android Market: "The process is still light years ahead of what's in place for the Android Market, which has seen a number of malware-laced apps get through, as well as proof-of-concept apps submitted by security researchers."

This comparison is completely false because Android Market does not filter or screen applications for posting in the manner Apple purports to do. In fact this a key difference between the two services in their business models. Both systems have seen malware distribution.

If as you assert "Reviewing the apps before approval is the right idea" and Apple was able to do this flawlessly ... nevermind, Charlie proved again that this is not the case and the argument falls apart.

Apple's handling of the two vulnerabilities involved here is poor and gives strength to the arguments of their detractors that the App Store approval process is a marketing feature and not a security feature.

Tags: bug
Current Location: office

Hi everyone!

I am quite excited (and nervous) to be diving into a new BBST course after how much I learned from the previous ones (and how much work they were).

I'm a security analyst in a small business unit of a really large company and before that I was in IT as a system administrator and what all else.
Cheerfully enough I live within walking distance of the office and try to take advantage of that as often as weather permits.

I use testing techniques, especially those learned in BBST courses, in a lot of non-development software work including vulnerability assessment and configuration management. I have a sneaking suspicion there is a crossover between security analysis and software testing methodologies in my future careers ...

I like testing and automation tools because they support my scientific focus on dealing with computers and users both. I demand reproducibility and hooks for automation in, well, practically everything ... and not just at work. I've been heard to cry out "It's computer science, not computer superstition!" on occasion when reboots(!) are suggested as a solution** to a problem.

Outside of work or software even I read escapist fiction and nerdy non-fiction, watch some telly, bemoan how I'm not keeping up with my foreign language studies, crafting, or martial arts lessons, and then get distracted by video games, cats, or other humans.

Greetings!

** Workaround they may be but not a solution and they destroy any hope of researching that instance of the problem...

Tags: bbst, class, testdesign
Current Location: office

lj to ebook

Starts with ljmigrate which is easy enough to use to backup your LJ (please do) to files. Mine happen to be on a webserver but that's not really important to the process...

it went something like this

pwd ##/Applications/calibre.app/Contents/MacOS export calibre=`pwd` $calibre/web2disk -d ~/Desktop/pron http://example.com/pornography/html/ $calibre/ebook-convert ~/Desktop/pron/special_index.xhtml adric_pron.epub --authors "Adric Net" --title "adric pron" --cover ~adric/pron_cover.jpg $calibre/ebook-convert ~/Desktop/eww/special_index.xhtml adric_pron.mobi --authors "Adric Net" --title "adric pron" --cover ~adric/pron_cover.jpg Then you can look the mobi over with Kindle.app or the epub with calibre's built in reader, either with open. To put it on a device just sideload. Here's a FAQ on that: http://dearauthor.com/ebooks/dear-jane-ebooks/dear-jane-how-do-i-sideload-ebooks-onto-the-kindle. Et voila!

details

Needed these regexes to get the datestamps out after adding titles by year (by hand) while working on a custom index. Everything I did was scriptable (I used TextMate) and I'll try harder if this becomes a repeat task past tonight ... ran these on the index.html with Option Command R : sort -n sed -e 's,^\+ \ ,,' sed -e 's,^....-..-.. ..:..:..: ,,' Cover image should be 600x800 they say. Gimp did fine for me there and I used some of the upics from the journal to design a cover. calibre awesomeness is well documented online but was revealed to me by this, found with keyword web convert ebook: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106869 We have some a long way from Plucker and AvantGo I'm pleased to note.

Tags: ebook, hacks, ljmigrate

Ed. note:There's been some discussion of goals and wants in various channels. Here's some scribbling that tries to take the discussion from a cosmological (or speculatively fictional) scope down towards something that might be useful.

Life is a series of decisions and their consequences. Better access to information (d/i/k/w)^data is correlated with better decisions. Better decisions are those whose consequences are desirable to the actor as in the aphorism "Nation-states, tribes, families, and individuals all act in what they perceive to be their best interest". Technology (tools) helps people make and execute decisions and can insulate them from some consequences. So, we are certainly in favour of information sharing and technology development in so far as these things are likely to benefit good decisions. Information access and technology access are key features of advanced societies noted by history for their accomplishments, sometimes called civilisations.

The root goal at the top of all others is no less than enduring human civilisation. Therefore all lesser goals and their actions should be trying further the development or preservation of civilisation or at worst should not directly oppose it. Similarly as we have found that information sharing and technology development are key to life and civilisation our work should not disrupt information flow or technological development and availability whenever possible.

Let's squint a bit as we accelerate and zoom in. A few things likely have to happen to ensure the primary goal. Colonization of other planets and star systems is a commonly cited one. Another near-trope is a unified human government (or an effective replacement). Scaling down a bit further we see more obvious and less fictional requirements: all sentients must have access to information and technology and this strongly implies their physical needs are met. So, we covering the bottom tiers of Mazlow's hierarchy^pyr becomes a planetary goal for all humans (and all sentients). Major historical documents including the Magna Carta, UN Declaration of Human Rights, French Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen, and US Declaration of Independence provide some of the framework for these ideals but the machinery (institutions) to bring about these changes is weak or absent.

... Me? I just explain things ...

^data Data->Information->Knowledge->Wisdom in order of increasing rarity, value, cost to produce, and difficultly of transmission ... as must be noted somewhere else
^pyr> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

Current Location: NOC
Current Music: Nicola Hitchcock - Moving Into a New Space

I've been buying music again in fits and starts this past year and it's getting better and better. I've taken suggestions from Amazon and Apple, and plenty more from Last.FM and humans. Most of the buying has been through Amazon MP3, which has good prices and seems to generally be a lesser evil.

( Playlists, albums, words, linksCollapse )

Tags: mcu
Current Location: NOC
Current Music: Mumford & Sons - Awake My Soul

Work and careers stuff may be moving along after a bad patch. There's some work and plenty of hard weeks ahead before anything changes, but a glimmer of light, be it train or exit, is welcome. On the other side of that optical phenomena is a great deal more work of a different sort, an entirely new job I've never done as dedicated staff before.

I'm finishing up one self-study course this month and looking at my options for study structure for the rest of the year including certifications , languages, or things to actually learn.

Work crazy will ease slightly after one of the team gets back from vacation and I take the test mentioned above. Thus, in August I will date ... someone, somehow. Offers and tips appreciated in that effort. I'm still finding people to talk to on OkCupid but haven't quite engaged step 2 of a plan. Step two no doubt involves leaving the house to go somewhere other than the office.

And now your much awaited and highly regarded media consumption update (MCU™):
Weeds has been great fun into the the beginning of season three. I have heard foreboding and will tread cautiously into further episodes, though I hold out foolish hope. The Game of Thrones show was great and renewed my interest in the books just in time for Dance. Relatedly I will not be caught up to Dresden files for the ship date of the next book there, in no small part to the outrageous prices for the antibooks from Amazon and B&N. Spice and Wolf is fun and I made some more progress on Hikaru at some point. All hail Netflix, even with the questionable new site design. I recently stumbled over a later Kushiel book (6? Has the sun princess on the cover) on clearance and romped through it in a few days and was quite pleased with the work. The Iron Man movies are good and at least one person is trying to use this as leverage to get me to consider the other comics movies coming from the vicinity of Marvel. Who, it seems are aggressively publishing old and new comics online and doing some neat work with motion comics (again, Netflix).

So, if anyone read this far, how's the summer/winter treating you?

Tags: update. mcu
Current Location: NOC
Current Music: Ghost in the Shell soundtrack, "Rise", Origa

Yesterday I slept in and then made it into office after lunch to catch up on some documentation and other back-burner projects I haven't had time to poke at during the work week. I did pretty well on those and then got pulled into a urgent matter that I had to sheep hurd for the next several hours. I got home late, finished off season 2 of Veronica Mars and crashed.

Today I only slept in a little bit, had a light lunch and then headed off to Best Buy to trade monitors with them. A few slips of plastic crossed amongst us and then I brought home my new (to me) monitor, setting aside her's to go back to her office and another for mom. And I bought milk and tried out a new sandwich at Arby's.

The hours after that until five were passed lazily poking around at various hacking projects, trying out some new music, and sifting out junk from the office and study at home. Note: OpenBSD 4.8 apparently wanted to install on IDE not SCSI and installs fine in ESXi after you make that adjustment.

I had heard some chaimu and so I decided to check work mail while I was waiting of BSD install to finish. there were only two, but one was news that they has managed to screw up yesterday's urgent work and we're doing it again.

So, I'm back in the office after packing up a few bits (Girl Scout Cookies™, netbook, extra tea) and running by Arby's for more sandwiches and a shake. Another fellow is on his way in now to start the process up and then I will be responsible for watching it crawl along and calling lots of other people if it doesn't finish up in several hours. ... The only good news here is that I have a guy coming on at midnight who I can hand off to.

Current Location: NOC
Current Music: Dr Who - Christmas Invasion

Subject: RE: [service line] mysql problems this week?

#!/bin/sh

If [ -t /sbin/is_mysql_upset ]
/usr/local/bin/nagios/libexec/nagios_mysql_mood_ring --colour black
fi
if [ -t /sbin/is_mysql_gloomy ]
/usr/local/bin/nagios/libexec/nagios_mysql_mood_ring --colour purple
fi

--

One response I received was only one word: Magenta.

Tags: colours, workcrazy
Current Location: NOC

Current Location: NOC

Earlier you rated your satisfaction with the representative who assisted you a 9. What did the representative do well to receive that rating?

James was very helpful and cheerfully admitted when he did not the answer to some of my more technical questions.

Earlier you rated your willingness to recommend AT&T to a friend or colleague a 3. Please explain why your rating wasn't higher.

Politics and history, to wit: AT&T's corporate reputation throughout its history has been one of monopoly, abuse, customer disservice and neglect. The federal government breakup of AT&T into the Bell companies was reverted less than ten years later and I'm not convinced this was a good idea.

To quote an old SNL sketch: "We're the phone company. We don't care; we don't have to."

I mean seriously, your corporate logo is the Death Star.

Tags: att, customer service, t

If so please clue me in. I have a useless "An error has occurred" message in App Store, an Install button that no longer clicks, a code that has already been redeemed and cannot be reused, and no log messages about any of it.

This is really making a strong argument against the App Store model being useful for anything.

Posted to threads on /. and osnews.

Tags: bug, lion, mac
Current Location: NOC

Had a glass of water and cookie, and now to play a map or two of Dawn of War II.

Don't want to talk about work stuff that's bugging me and can't anyway, bleh.

No sleep yet. Prospect of talking to dentists tomorrow atop the surprises at work today and continuing drama at home have brought on internal dialogue with l'ennui.

Had a small bowl of Cheerios™, started the sleep playlist from the top (had run out) and have turned the heat back up upstairs.

Kitteh is mildly perturbed, but that's probably just because I woke her up getting up.

And you lot there? If you are planning to or have grown up, why ever for?

Tags: !sleep, insomnia
Current Location: home office
Current Music: A Fine Frenzy

ed note: replying to AC on /. again. Yeah, I know...
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1932550&cid=34747214

Software testing is an entire profession including having its own graduate programs, but there are lots of resources to help you get started from books and online, just poke around.

There are books just about testing (TCS), books about integrating testing into a development methodology(Agile and Scrum include testing), and plenty of books on specific testing technologies (JUnit, Cucumber, ...). Most modern languages/toolkits include at least some support for basic software testing (unit or functional) such as Perl, Python, Ruby or have it readily available such as JUnit for Java, NUnit for C#. For testing web applications go look at Selenium, a great package of tools for web testing that includes browser plugins.

And *plug* I've had great experiences with the online resources including low-cost online classes available from the AST, at http://www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org/ The BBST courses are very informative and quite challenging. */plug*

hth,
adric

Tags: ac, testing

I have been composing this short note over and over again in my head these last few days and it isn't getting any better. I really enjoyed the lunches we had together the weekend of Yule and hope you did too. I would like to get together for lunch or tea sometime soon, really I would, but I just cannot commit to a five pound bag (such as offered by CostCo) right now.

It not you, and it really is me. I'm so new to this idea of being with vegetables ... especially green ones ... I need to take it slow. 4 or 8 ounces at a time seems to be the most I can handle right now.

I hope you understand and aren't too upset.

Sorry,
adric

Tags: food
Current Mood: guilty

I got this working pretty quickly and it involved clevering out some arcana, including how to do math with the output of your pipes(?!). Also, if will help me reorganize the wallpaper collection. Exif is a neat tool if you don't have it.


#!/bin/bash
## print images files and their pixel sizes, for wallpaper
## might take target from first argument
## requires exif package, available in apt

for image in *.jpg; ##$1;
do
while exif --tag PixelXDimension $image 2>&1 > /dev/null ;
do
echo -n $image " "
echo -n $((`exif --tag PixelXDimension $image | grep Value | tail -1 | awk '{print $2}'`/2)) x" "
echo -n $((`exif --tag PixelYDimension $image | grep Value | tail -1 | awk '{print $2}'`/2)) y
echo;
break;
done
done

Sample output:

400177main_MilkyWayCenterComp3000.jpg 1500 x 1200 y


I'm sure none of you care much but I'm quite pleased I was able to figure this out in only a couple tries**

ETA: fixes, works well though there is still some error junk in the output, even with the 2>&1 > dev/null incantation.


**The hours wasted fighting with gem, ImageMagick, macports (sudo mv /opt/not.opt), and make last week will not be spoken of. Take one point from ruby and put it into bash's bucket.

Tags: hack
Current Location: NOC
Current Music: Bleach soundtracks

Everyone:
Poll #1651047 What do y'all want for $holidays?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 2

What do you want for Solstice little sophont?

Answers are screened by default. Let me know if you want me to publish your answer.

Cheers,
adric