Stranger's TechNotes

If you import digital photos, you're going to love this tip. 1. Open the folder where you've saved your pictures. Select your first batch of pictures to rename. 2. Right-click the first picture selected and then click Rename. 3. Rename the first picture to whatever you like (for example, Boston Vacation), then click any empty space within the window to deselect the pictures. Your pictures automatically rename themselves ("Boston Vacation (1)," "Boston Vacation (2)," etc.). This tip also works to rename any collection of files. Featured tip is courtesy of the book Windows XP Killer Tips by Kleber Stephenson.

Capture/playback tools make it possible to repeat two or more tests identically and compare the results. This article focuses on capture/playback tools, which hold the largest market share of any test tool category, and on examining trouble spots in test automation, dealing with them proactively and perhaps mitigating the risks of tool abandonment. The purpose of this article is to outline the 10 major challenges that the author sees most often in organizations struggling to make effective test automation a reality. Capture/playback tools capture or record the actions performed during a test session into software-like scripts that can be replayed against the same or an updated version of the software, allowing a comparison of identical test results. A difference in test results may indicate the presence of a regression defect. For the past six years, I have been asking training and conference audiences, "How many of your organizations own some type of automated c...