Tidbits for today....

Tidbits from this TED talk:

Cognitive traps of happiness:

• Reluctance to admit to complexity: the word happiness is too general and applied to too many things.
• Confusion between experience and memory: being happy in your life vs being happy about/with your life.
• Focusing illusion: we cannot think about any circumstance that affects well being, without distorting its importance.

Daniel Kahneman suggests we entertain this thought experiment:
At the end of a vacation all your pictures are going to be destroyed. Would you choose the same activities?


I watched this TED talk awhile ago and it is really great. I suggest you take a look: 
http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html

Life of a Tester...tool evaluation pt. 3: Ranorex Studio

Ranorex Studio Evaluation

Released by Ranorex GmbH

Installation of Ranorex Studio was easy, smooth, and very professional looking.

After installation, I created a project named “ranorex_test1”.

Opening the project, I was able to see three different views: project window displays the hierarchy of the entire project, the module browser window displays the modules that the project contains, and the test suite window defines and organizes test cases.

Ranorex displays a screenshot of the step that was created in the recorded script.

Web testing, including cross browser

I was able to easily record and execute scripts for Admin and Enterprise Search sites via Chrome. Changing a test case to utilize a different browser is very easy. Within the Open Browser Recording Module I created a variable named “Browser” on the line with the Open Browser Action. Then, I went into the test case properties and added a SimpleDataConnector on the Data Source tab, and added each browser name to a row within the table. Finally on the Data Binding tab, I bound the newly added Browser Data Column to the Module Variable. The test case properties give me the ability to cycle through all of the listed browsers, or specify a certain number to test with.

Desktop testing

I was able to utilize Ranorex Studio to record and execute scripts for Workgroup Search.

Scripting

Ranorex Studio scripts are written in C# or VB.NET.

According to the documentation, project files are compatible with Visual Studio.

http://www.ranorex.com/test-automation-tools/ranorex-studio-automated-testing-software.html

Documentation and training; (somewhat) short learning curve

I downloaded the free trial and started using Ranorex Studio immediately as the layout is clear and concise, and the basic functionality is straight forward. I utilized the many online videos, help files, and expert forums on their site to help figure out most of my issues. I am not sure if they have any other kind of training.

Maintenance, longevity, reliability and support

The Ranorex community seems to have a lot of company support.

Error recovery

The logs are viewable within the Reports section. When I hover over a line I am able to either jump to the item within the script or open it with their add on tool named Spy. I do not know very much about Spy at this point, but will research this further.

Reporting

The reports look very professional and it is very clear to see where an error occurs.

Cost

The PREMIUM node-locked license version is $1980.00.

The PREMIUM floating license version is $3980.00.

Customizations (future proofness)

The documentation and videos available, state that Ranorex Studio has the capability to effortlessly find any elements that have been moved

Established in market

I am unable to find concrete information on how widely used Ranorex Studio is in the QA Testing field.

Integration with Rally

Unknown.

Distributed Testing

I have not evaluated this part of Ranorex Studio, but the documentation states that it can be utilized this way as long as the correct license is purchased.

Ability to run unit tests outside of environment

Unknown.