Some of the useful terms you should be knowing before thinking of similar tool are; Vulnerability: A weakness in the target system, through which penetration can successfully occur.

Exploit: Once a vulnerability is known, an attacker takes advantage of it, and breaks into the system using a code/script known as an exploit.

Payload: This is a set of tasks initiated by the attacker subsequent to an exploit, in order to maintain access to the compromised system.

I am sure that in current world, its highly important to keep your product secure. I have faced hackers on one of my associates sites recently and Metasploit really helped me to understand the issues.

Thanks to Karthik on this post which will help many users around.

Leader has to be listener – We had a long chat/call on few occasions understanding the requirements, I kept on listening/acknowledging the inputs from client while noting down the important points as and when needed. I started asking questions at the end of the sessions only. This was applaud by my Client a big way, we benefited by saving on time as 30% of my initial questions were any way answered by further inputs from client. I kept on understanding the deepest part till the last moment and finally asked question which gave a solid impression about my understanding. Have I been asking questions on every instance of doubt created during conversion, I would have failed to gain the respect which I acclaimed well before conversation ended.

Showing up on time and fulfilling the commitments – for all the meetings I was up online at-least 3-5 minutes before the meeting time, stayed well prepared. It helped me in ensuring that we value time of all participants.

In one of the instance I was supposed to provide an online demo of existing application, however the demo was not ready. I recorded a video of existing application, did tweaks on the name of products, hiding certain images (as the application was under NDA) and posted over to my site’s video player for client to watch.

I committed to show up an online application – though I failed there -  I ensured that client gets feel of what we had developed via Video. It tool almost 3 hours to generate this video to ensure that all legal matters are taken care along with facilitating this new client. This investment was highly welcomed by client and they were impressed with

1. Arranging the video in time 2. Our sense of Data security.

Client’s team started being so opened to us that we discussed various other business topics along with this project, including their hosting plan.

There are many things to share but would take over to next post.

Meanwhile there are few more tips from some one whom I read regularly, might be helpful;

11 Things Project Managers & Leaders Should Never Do by Tanmay Vora @ QAspire.com/blog

What NOT to do in Customer Service 7 Tanmay Vora @ QAspire.com/blog

The Listening Leader by Cris Witt

Let us understand few basics of Load and Performance Testing here.

Volume testing is a way to test functionality. Stress testing is a way to test reliability. Load testing is a way to test performance.

Testing an application under heavy but expected loads is known as load testing. It generally refers to the practice of modeling the expected usage of a software program by simulating multiple users accessing the system’s services concurrently. As such, load testing is most relevant for a multi-user system, often one built using a client/server model, such as a web server tested under a range of loads to determine at what point the system’s response time degrades or fails. Although you could perform a load test on a word processor by or graphics editor forcing it read in an extremely large document; on a financial package by forcing to generate a report based on several years’ worth of data, etc.

When the load placed on the system is accelerated beyond normal usage patterns, in order to test the system’s response at unusually high or peak loads, it is known as stress testing. Stress testing is often incorrectly used interchangeably with load and performance testing.

In a stress test, the load is usually so great that error conditions are the expected result, although there is a grey area between the two domains and no clear boundary exists where you could say that an activity ceases to be a load test and becomes a stress test.

There is little agreement on what the specific goals of load testing are. The term is often used synonymously with performance testing, reliability testing, and volume testing.

Performance testing is usually performed to determine how fast some aspect of a system performs under a particular workload. It can serve different purposes: to demonstrate that the system meets performance criteria; to compare two systems to find which performs better; to measure what parts of the system or workload cause the system to perform badly.

In the diagnostic case, we use tools such as profilers to measure what parts of a device or software contribute most to the poor performance. In performance testing, it is often crucial (and often difficult to arrange) for the test conditions to be similar to the expected actual use.

A reliability test determines how likely a piece of hardware (or sometimes software) is to fail. It is part of reliability theory, used originally as a tool to help nineteenth century insurance companies compute profitable rates to charge their customers. Statistical models appropriate for any of these are generically called “time-to-event” models. Death or failure is called an “event”, and the goal is to project or forecast the rate of events for a given population or probability of an event for an individual.

Volume testing is used to determine if the system under test can handle the required amounts of data, user requests, etc.

Soak testing occurs when running a system at normal to high levels of load for prolonged periods of time. A soak test would normally execute several times more transactions in an entire day than would be expected in a busy day. This should identify any performance problems that appear after a large number of transactions have been executed.

SQA forum and SQATESTER are some of the best resources to learn more on different type of performance testing concept.

- Testing is an art to investigate software application under tight constrainsts
- Learn different techniques from the available resources and keep updating your knowledge from time to time
- Based on the constraints known select one or various techniques
- Must have critical thinking and complete understanding of the application
- Need to effectively put your point across especially during the bug posting and communication phase.

A tester is more of a creator then a destroyer, its more about making the software application perfect from all means.

Being the very first post not too sure what to write. I understood from my day to day life that being positive is only way to stay alive.. stay healthy, stay active, Just be optimistic to have better life.

My Dad who has been the main source of positivity at each stage, has very strong spiritual life style. The way we were grown, we are really sure that the magic in positiveness, if incurred successfully would overlap any kind of sorrow, failure or sadness in life.

Have you had an experience of positive attitude recently… please share!!!