Focusing on selling Software Testing eBook again.

Few years back, I had written an eBook "Software Testing and QTP Automation" for sharing my knowledge about Software Testing especially Test Automation using QTP (Quick Test Professional)

 I sold this eBook thro' our website, and it was selling good. So, I had decided to publish it thro Amazon kindle. Few months back I had published the Print edition also.

After start selling this Book thro' Amazon,  I haven't focused much on selling eBook from our website.

Few days back I have noticed the below review comments from the Buyer who bought this Book from Amazon UK site.

The terminology used by the author is very simple and easy to understand. The book contains screen shots of the steps, not many though. Only downside is it took ages to get it delivered but it was worth the wait.

From this review comments, I came to know that Amazon is taking more time to deliver the Book. And, I have noticed that "Used" book price is more than the "New" book price because of increasing demand for this Book.

 So, I have decided to focus more on selling eBook version of this Book. And therefore, I have created a sales page at our QTPbook.com for selling the eBook.

You can buy this eBook from here.

I have announced a Offer price for boosting the eBook Sales. This Offer will be available for few days only. I am planning to start running PPC campaigns for promoting this eBook  in few days. I may increase the eBook price to cover the ads charges. So, if you want to utilize this Offer price, buy this eBook today itself.

And, still you can freely read this Book content from  QTPbook.com

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"Software Testing and QTP Automation" Book is available Now in CreateSpace and Amazon

Few years back I had published a Kindle Version of the Book "Software Testing and QTP Automation" here.

Amazon Sales Rank for this Kindle Book is improving steadily. So, I had decided to publish paperback version of this Book.

I used Amazon's CreateSpace for publishing the PRINT version of the Book. You can buy this Book from https://www.createspace.com/4233515

I have created a Discount Code 8P2X9EWB for giving 50% Discount.

If you specify about this Book/Offer in your blog/site, forum posts, or any other social media posts, let me ( rajamanickam.a@gmail.com ) know the URL where you have specified about this Book/Offer. I will send you Special Discount Code which will give 75% Discount. i-e You will get this Book for $3 just by specifying about this Book in your blog or in your tweet or in your Facebook Status or in any other social media. Please note that I have planned to give this 75% Discount Code to ONLY 50 People. So act quickly to utilize this opportunity. Anyway, the 50% Discount will be applicable for any number of sales and it will be valid for at least one month time.

Let me know if you have any questions.

This Book covers below topics
* Importance of Software Testing
* Basics of Quality Assurance (QA) in Software Development
* Explains below Terms used in Software Testing.

• Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
• Functional & Non-functional Testing
• Testing methods (whitebox, blackbox and Greybox)
• Testing levels (Unit Testing, Integration Testing, System testing, Regression testing, Alpha Testing, Beta testing)
• esting Artifacts (Test plan, Traceability matrix, Test suite, Test case)
• Software Test life cycle
• Bug Tracking

* Writing Good Test Cases and Finding Bugs effectively
* Tips and Tricks for doing AdHoc Testing
* Best practices in Software Testing
* Importance of Software Test Automation using tools such as QTP
* Need of Domain Knowledge for Software Testers
* Software Test Automation tool evaluation
* The need for having development/programming knowledge for Software Testers
* Software Testing Questions and Answers
* Introduction to QTP
* How to Learn QTP?
* Understanding Object Repository
* Different Types of Object Repositories- Local and Shared
* Associating Repositories
* Understanding Action Iteration and Test Iteration
* Required Steps/Processes in QTP Automation
* Best Practices in QTP Automation
* Scheduling QTP Script Execution
* Basics of vbscript
* Links Useful for learning QTP
* KeyWord Driven Testing and Framework in QTP
* Descriptive Programming in QTP - Advantages and Disadvantages
* Tips for doing effective QTP script Development
* Recording Modes - Normal, Analog and Low level recording
* Run Mode- Update Run and Fast Run
* CheckPoints
* Data Tables - Global and Local Sheets
* QTP Result Window
* Recovery Scenario
* Synchronization Points
* Automation Object Model (AOM)
* Handling Passwords in QTP Scripts
* Managing Object Repositories in QTP
* Object Spy in QTP
* QTP methods and script for reading object properties
* Some Thoughts on QTP Interview
* QTP trial version installation.
* Wish list for the QTP future release
* QTP Questions and Answers

You can buy it from Amazon here.

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Software Testing Services for the Success of IT Business

We might have read about importance of Software testing in many places including in our website QTPbook.com

But, still many entrepreneurs are allowing their start-up initiative to fail by ignoring the Software Testing. They are just ignoring the Software testing by thinking as it is unnecessary burden.

Recently I had done a detailed analysis about the reason for failure of Start-ups, particularly IT start-ups.

I found many reasons for the failures. Some of the obvious reasons are lack of funds, difficulty to find appropriate human resources, high competition, inefficient people management,and low market scope.

"Lack of Quality" is yet another important factor for the failures of IT Start-ups. Entrepreneurs have more control on preventing this failure factor while they have very little control on all other failure factors.

i-e We can avoid the failures related to "Low Quality" with little efforts.

We will realize this fact only if we do detailed analysis about the failures and Success of various IT Start-ups.

In summary, if we are going to create our own IT Start-up, we should have clear plan about our products, investments, market for the product, competition analysis, Human resources for developing, promoting and supporting the product, and product promotion plan. Apart from all these things "Software Testing" of your IT product become very essential as it is going to be the deciding factor of your start-up success or failure. It is difficult to realize the importance of software testing just by imagining or assuming things. But we will realize the importance of "Testing" only if we look into the Success of IT start-ups which give importance for software Testing, or look into the Failed IT start-up which ignored software Testing.


Here I use the word "Software Testing" for specifying about the all the quality-improving things for IT product, NOT about just executing test cases.

The role of software Testers will begin even before preparing business Requirements. That means Software Testers can involve in the initial discussions of framing the purpose and scope of the product. It will enable them to give proper suggestions while doing testing, and it will ultimately help to create the product which actually fulfills the purpose, in other words solve the problem of the product Buyer or User. Solving the problem of the User, is the key thing for the success of any business.

I had written many posts about the importance of possessing business knowledge and development knowledge for the Software Testers. i-e Software Testers need to act as bridge between the Business Analysts people and the Software Developers. Even they need to put them in the Role of End Users.

In summary, Software Testers are very important for the Success of IT business.

So, everyone will be thinking that just hiring a "Software Tester" will improve the quality of the product, and therefore the IT start-up will succeed.

But it is NOT True. Because the "Software Tester" should know about Software development and Business, just writing test cases and executing them is NOT enough. They should be able to co-ordinate both the Software Developers and the Business Analysts.

Now the Real problem is, finding such Software Test Engineer. I had met many Software Testers and had gone thro' profiles and Forum posts of many aspiring Software Testers. Most of them are just focusing on writing test cases and executing them and then trying to automate them (For salary hike, as the Testing Industry gives relatively more salary to Automation Test Engineers)

It is very difficult to find a Software Test Engineer who understand the overall picture of the IT business and where he fits in.

I am having more than 14 years of experience in IT industry in various roles like Software Developer, Web developer, Software Test Engineer, Test Automation Engineer, SEO executive and IT Business owner.

As a Business owner I had done lot of experiments like, doing web development projects for our clients, promoting our own websites, flipping websites, doing SEO and Social Media promotion, developing IT products like Timesheet and inventory control, running Tech News sites and selling IT products.

So, I believe that I can convert any normal "Software Test Engineer" into the "Business friendly Test Engineer" by train/manage them properly.


And, few months back I had written a blog post about easiness of recruiting Software Testers.

So, I am planning to give more preference for doing Software Testing projects than other things.


Actually, I am having good experience in Software Testing and Test Automation especially "Quick Test Professional". My ebook about software testing and QTP automation is selling well from our website as well as from Amazon Kindle Store.

So, if you are an Entrepreneur looking for improving the overall quality of your IT products by hiring Software Testing Team, You can contact me by sending email to rajamanickam.a@gmail.com

We charge affordable hourly price and we provide quality service by focusing on real success of the business.

Apart from doing Functional Testing we can do other kind of testings such as Performance Testing and Usability Testing  to make sure that the product will  be really useful to the End user. Since we have development knowledge too, we can give suggestions to improve the performance or any other suggestions useful for improving the overall quality of the IT product. And, we will be able to understand the hurdles in  development side as well as funding/business side so that we can prioritize the work and bug reports by focusing on the things that are really important for the appropriate quality of the product.

And, you can read my previous blog post explaining the importance of  having timesheet for managing Employees and Projects efficiently.

If you are in investor looking for investing in a IT Start-up, you can read my previous blog post , and if you want to advertise in our QA Site you can refer this blog post.


  



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Planning to focus on Software Testing Projects....

As specified in my previous post, we conducted a Walk-in Interview for recruiting SEO Trainees on March 1st in our Chennai Office.

I visited our chennai office on March 1st for conducting this walk-in interview (Usually I will be in our Ottapidaram (Tuticorin) Office)

I was surprised to see the Good response for our walk-in announcement in DurgaJobs.com. It seems this Job site DurgaJobs.com is growing very fast.

And, this Walk-in Interview helped me to choose appropriate candidates without spending much time and effort.

Previously, I used to spend lot of time in shortlisting the candidates by going thro' each and every resumes received in email.

And, I used to make call to the shortlisted candidates for scheduling interview for them. I had to spend lot of time for this process as some of the candidates may not be available while making call to them. So, I have to either call them again or need to contact them thro' email.

And, I will ask them to come for interview only after explaining them about our company, job location , nature of job and salary details. Almost everyone will be showing interest to attend interview. So, I will stop making calls to further candidates. But on the interview date only very few candidates will come for attending interview. So, I will be having very limited options to choose appropriate candidates. Again, the selected candidates may Not join on the joining date.

So, I had to start the process again to do the recruitment. Ultimately I will be spending lot of time and energy to do the recruitment.

This Walk-in Interview helped me in lot of ways. The first thing is, the walk-in interview attracted only the candidates who are very serious about their job search and serious about their career. So, I need not spend my time unnecessarily with the non-serious candidates.

The next thing is, since the walk-in interview was conducted in our office premises, the candidates who are not comfortable with our Office location and infrastructure didn't wait for attending the interview. So, again it helped me to avoid the unsuitable candidates.

I selected three people and asked them to join on the same day. Two persons called me on the next day and informed me that they were going to take offer from another company. Since I had number of shortlisted candidates during this Walk-in Interview, I was able to ask two other candidates to join immediately.


I would like to thank DurgaJobs.com for their help to make our recruitment task easy and effective.

In the Walk-in announcement, I mentioned that preference will be given to the candidates with Software testing knowledge. Because I thought Software Testing knowledge will help them to do SEO effectively for our Software testing related website and web pages(e.g QTPbook.com)

So, many people with Software Testing knowledge also attended this interview. And, most of them prefer to do software Testing related jobs than doing SEO.

Since personally I have good experience in Software Testing, now I am planning to focus more on Software testing projects as I came to know that it is easy to get Software Testers. (As of now, we focus on doing SEO and PHP/mysql development).

I already had a LinkedIn Discussion about the SEO vs. Software Testing. Almost all of them were suggesting to focus more on Software Testing than doing SEO. So, I think it is the right time to prepare some of our employees to be experts in Software Testing. i-e We will be ready to take Software Testing tasks also in addition to doing SEO work and web development (php/mysql/jquery/ajax/wordpress/)



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Why the Salary for "Software Testing" over takes Salary for "QTP"?

Recently Google YouTube had informed me that my Channel becomes the part of YouTube's Partner program which will allow me to earn good revenue by releasing quality, unique and useful videos on my YouTube Channel.

So, I had decided to add  lot of Tutorial Videos for Software Testing and QTP for Free. Before joining Google's YouTube partner program I thought of publishing those videos as paid content.

Today I have noticed a strange thing while preparing Tutorial video  for explaining What is QTP.

 I was trying to compare the salary of   QTP and Software Testing using indeed.com data.

The comparison of QTP Vs. Software Testing gives strange result.

From the above result graph, we can understand that the salary for QTP related jobs went down past months while the salary for "Software Testing" went high during that same period.

I am NOT sure whether really the salary for QTP got reduced or this result is due to some other reason (e.g Indeed data collection problem, search term might have changed).

You can share your thoughts thro' the comments.

And, Remember to subscribe to our Channel if you want to see our free Tutorial videos soon...

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Installation process insights - Guest Post

Information Technology has made notable changes in all walks of human life like, technologies used in business for transmitting, storing, manipulating and retrieving all kinds of data, communication, agriculture, banking, health, and education.



Information Technology is the combination of hardware and software that use to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of businesses that has led to technological change. Most businesses and companies network their computers so that information can be shared among each other and to their respective clients.

IT applications are widely prevalent in the modern business and their great benefit is the way they can lower costs and can mange the business in a more optimized manner.

While web applications are best medium of information sharing and utilizing their best services, the importance of desktop applications can’t be ignored where there is unavailability of internet and network shares. In case of a payroll system, multimedia distributions, CRMs, off line education and training resources, desktop applications play a vital role for end users. Thus, from usability and quality perspective, it becomes necessary for a user to test the installation/un-installation and verifying the compatibility of the desktop applications on multiple individual machines or network stations. Here, the need arises for Installation testing of CDs/DVDs/USBs/flash drives on which the desktop applications are commonly ported.

From QA and Testing point of view, Installation is the first interaction the user has with the product. An application needs to be installed on the system before a user can use it. It is very important to make sure that user does not face any problem while installing the application. This article describes the installation process on a windows platform. The widely used method of installation is from a CD. Instead of the traditional method of installing software from a physical CD, software can also be installed from the Internet, from a network location or can even be pushed to the end user's machine. Before starting installation, following are the checks that must be performed:

• The package that contains the application CD is not tampered and includes all the supported installation manuals/documents.
•  CD-ROM is working properly.
• The serial or License key is available before installation.
• The CD/DVD is physically un-damaged and is purchased from an authorized source.
• Sufficient memory, processor and add-on, software are available

User starts installation on the machine by inserting the CD/DVD into the supported CD/DVD player. If, auto run is enabled, then CD/DVD will start running automatically; otherwise setup has to be run from the defined path. After the CD starts, [following checks, like EULA, ], the End User License Agreement will pop up with the two options of agree or deny. User has to read through the agreement carefully before agreeing or denying it. In this scenario user can check what happens if he/she denies the agreement. Some software requires the user to enter a serial number or software key (or code) during the installation. You can usually find the number or key printed on the installer disc, disc case, in the manual, or as a certificate provided with the software. If you had downloaded the software, the key may be sent in a separate email. You should make note of the number or key before installing the software.  This is when the installation process commences. If in this process any other supportive software is needed the application should prompt the user for it; else it should guide the user through the remaining part of installation. Now user should check whether the application can be run or not. Installer now performs certain actions such as:

·         Copy files to a destination folder on a hard disk

·         Create short cuts

·         Change system files

·         Check for expiry of trial version

·         Check for application install per user option such as   default or standard etc.

·         Testing of license key validation

Other methods of installation include: installation from dumps, network, online, and installation done by an administrator. In all these types of installation a particular and well defined process has to be followed. In verifying the installation it is necessary to take into account certain things which are mentioned below:

·         Type of installation being executed(i.e. how it is executed)

·         Features of OS on which the software is being installed

·         Interaction of the software being installed with other applications and tools on the system

·         Repeated installation factors like repair, modify, update

·         Entering the serial number / code correctly

·          System requirements

While installation a user might face the following obstacles:

• Space  not available
• Re-installation behavior
• Abrupt exit of installation
• Memory usage not as per specifications

These obstacles can be overcome by going through some very basic check points while carrying out installation such as:

• Verify  you have administrative access
• Going through the readme file: it contains exact instructions on how to install a program
• Messages flashed during installation process: it will typically prompt you to install the program or you may need to run a separate install before the program can be fully used.
• Close or disable other running programs while installation as it may hamper the process
• Reboot the machines after completing the installation process

 Before a user starts working with any software, he first has to install it on the computer or on network. A proper installation will allow his application to perform what it’s supposed to do. Installation verification’s main focus is verifying successful installation and un-installation of the application. It's during the installation that users get the first impression of your product. Understanding this process is very important and justifiably requires special attention and hopefully this article explained this process implementation.

Author Bio

Knowledge Sharing Team at  QA InfoTech conducts  technical research, prepares technical documents, white papers and various content on software testing, security testing and quality assurance services. QA InfoTech is currently an ISO 9001:2008 and CMMI level three company with ‘Centers of Excellence’ in India and USA. Knowledge Sharing Team has made acknowledgeable contribution in research and content work pertaining to testing solution services.

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Suggestions for improving Quality of Flippa which is a Websites Selling/Buying Market place

I am using "Flippa.Com" for selling our Websites. I found Flippa very useful for selling few of our websites (christmas site, job site, free online timesheet site, great quotes site, html5 tutorial site, etc) at appropriate prices. Anyway, the listing price and Success fee are bit high. But it seems this high listing price is required to filter out junk websites so that the potential buyers can easily choose only the best websites.

But Flippa is having some downsides also. For example, few of our websites didn't get appropriate bids even when I listed them multiple times. The thing is those listings are NOT getting enough views. i-e The potential Buyers are not seeing the listing.

Flippa is allowing us to relist the site for half of the listing price if the particular site didn't sell. But still there is some possibility for the second listing also not getting appropriate bids.

I had some analysis about why some Flippa listings are getting good views while some other listings are NOT getting enough views.

Based on my analysis, I came to know that websites which are appearing in first page of Google for the keywords are getting more views. It seems Flippa is using SEMRush data to list the Auction websites based on position of the websites in Google. And, it looks like most of the Buyers are browsing the sites thro' this list than going thro' the new listings.

So my suggestion is, we should list the site in Flippa only after the site starts appearing in first page of Google for certain keywords, otherwise it will end with less views and therefore less bids, in other words it will end as "unsold".

Flippa is allowing certain "upgrades" to increase the visibility of the Auction listing to the potential buyers. i-e The Sellers can push their Auction listing to the front page or they can choose to tweet about their Listing to the followers of the @Flippa twitter Account. But this upgrade price looks high.

I am NOT sure whether these upgrade prices are worth paying as I haven't used them much. First time I used for this Auction Listing today as my previous listing didn't meet the reserve. Let us see how it is giving results. As of now, the listing views are increasing; but it didn't get appropriate bids yet.

Right now, I am NOT an expert in using the Flippa. But I have observed some space for improvement in the Flippa Site.

For example,

1. Whenever re-listing an Auction, the previous listing is NOT getting updated with link to the latest Listing. (Anyway, it is giving link to the old listing from the relising) For example, I submitted our initial Flippa Auction listing URL in our Social Media Friends/Followers/Circles. But that URL becomes outdated as I re-listed it. I had to relist it as the previous listing didn't meet the reserve. But the visitors of that initial listing URL is not getting any link to the new listing. Even they won't get a chance to know about the existence of the re-listing.
I think Google knol is handling this situation in very nice way. i-e If you visit an outdated article (knol) from old bookmark, it will show link to the latest page.

2. We need to upload all the attachments (Earning proofs such as AdSense Screenshot) again manually while relisting the Auction even if we relist the Auction immediately once the first listing ends unsuccessful. i-e The relisting screen is not preserving the attachments.

3. The first listing is still showing a link for negotiating with the highest bidder even after starting the re-listed auction. But I am not sure whether it will allow to proceed the negotiation.

4. I used to see "Last loggedin" data under user's profile as "4 days ago" while the user sends message few seconds before.

5. While giving feedback to the Buyer from the Seller's Screen, Flippa is incorrectly showing as "Details, to be displayed on the seller's profile:*" . i-e It is showing as "Seller's profile" instead of "Buyer's profile".

I am NOT sure whether these things need to be fixed or there are any valid reason behind such behaviour. You can share your thoughts thro' the comments.

Apart from selling our Sites Thro' Flippa Auctions, I have decided to sell few of our sites without using Auctions. i-e Interested persons can buy few of our sites at the specified price. You can see the price list here. Note that this opportunity will be available for few days only as I planned to sell most of our sites thro' Flippa Auctions soon.


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Show Direct Advertisements in highly Targeted QA Site

Few months back I had launched QTPBook.com by putting my eBook contents freely.


Within very short period, this site has started getting significant number of visitors. The Important thing is, all these visitors are highly Targeted visitors (i-e People interested in learning Software Testing and QTP Automation). You can see the 1 month Google Analytics report here.

Many people are asking me frequently, "when you will start the next QTP Training program?".
But, right now I am engaged with lot of other tasks. So, it is not possible to start the training immediately.

So, I decided to allow the other Trainers to advertise their services in our Site QTPBook.com at affordable price.

Contact me (rajamanickam.a@gmail.com) if you are interested to show your Banner ads in our QTPBook.com site.

If possible, send below details also while contacting me.

1. Your landing page.
2. Sample of your Ads.
3. Your required placement in our site.
4. Price you are willing to offer, and the minimum duration.

Please note that I won't accept any ads which are NOT relevant to our site.

And, it can be used for advertising Software Testing and QTP related Books, eBooks, Seminars, Tools and websites/Blogs.

Even Employers and Consultancies can use these Direct Advertisements to find suitable candidates.

If you are an Expert in Software Testing and related Stuff, you can write Guest Posts for the QTPBook.com. You can add your link at the end of of the article as part of the Bio-line. In this way, you can freely advertise your site while showing your expertise to large number of people.

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QTPBook.Com for Learning Software Testing and QTP Automation

Initially I used this blog "qualitypoint.blogspot.com" for sharing my knowledge and experience about Software Testing and QTP Automation. And, I released an eBook by compiling the QA related contents of this blog.

We are selling the  QTP eBook for more than a year. It is the best selling product among our products. The kindle edition is also selling good. You may refer the Amazon Best Seller Rank in various categories such as Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Reference > Education > Test Guides - Graduate & Professional > Professional and Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Education > Education Theory > Assessment

 Right now I am selling the eBook for $12 only. I think it is low comparing to other similar ebooks. But still I am receiving many emails asking me to send the eBook for free as they  couldn't afford this $12 payment. Since mostly Job Seekers are requiring this eBook, I believe their request is valid. So, Instead of increasing the price, I thought of doing some workaround to get additional income from this eBook while still allowing the people to get the content free.

I put all the contents of the eBook in QTPBook.com and added AdSense Ads. So, the people can freely read this eBook content in QTPBook.com while I am earning from AdSense Ads.

Anyway, people who don't want to get the Ads can still buy the eBook just by paying $12.

I am working on to enhance this QTPBook.com by adding lot of new stuff apart from putting content of our ebook. Right now, I added QTP Jobs and Testing News section. Still planning to improve it further. And, you can share your suggestions for improving this site.

You can start using this QTP Book Site.

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