The creator of the internet Tim Berners-Lee has started his own blog. In his first entry he talks about the first Web browser WorldWideWeb later to be renamed as Nexus. The post provides a link to a short tutorial of the browser.

Oops, I forgot to send my list off to Santa year. Actually it's not really a list, it's a simple 2 item request: I want "an official Red Ryder carbine action two-hundred shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time..." and an XBox 360. I know, I know.. "You'll shoot your eye out kid" (if Santa only knew what kind of weapons these console games have now days). With two more days left until Christmas I'm pretty sure if I sent off my request via snail-mail it's not going to make it in time. Thank God for technology, I've found a few links that will get the list off quickly through email or instant messages:

If you get this post in time you can email and get a reply within 2 days from here.

You can email and get an INSTANT reply from Ol' Saint Nick here.

You can "Instant Message" Santa here.

Not sure if your request will be granted? Check the naughty and nice list.

What? You sent your list already? If you're bored and waiting for your special delivery you can waste some time out at NorthPole.com. They have a ton of Christmasy things to do to help pass the time:

*Send holiday postcards
*Stories to read & color
*Santa's Birthday Cards
*Games to play
*Christmas Karaoke
*Holiday recipes
*Northpole Wallpaper
*Puzzles & Activities
*Good Deed Calendar
*Visit Elf Pal Academy
*Educational Activities
*Q&A with Santa
*Find the hidden stories
*Naughty or Nice List

Before you know it, Santa and his elves will be packing the big gift bag Christmas Eve day. As Christmas Eve draws in on us make sure and track Santa's progress as he makes his way around the world using NORAD and CONAD. Even better, track him with more precision (within a few feet) using GPS and Google Earth. Don't get too caught up in the tracking, make sure you give yourself plenty of time to set out those cookies & milk and crawl into bed to ensure you're asleep before he arrives.

When it's all said and done you'll need to write a Thank You letter to Santa. Now, if we could only do that online... Does anybody know a site I can do that on?

Are you or your test team missing JavaScript errors while testing Web applications? Now days, the errors aren't so in your face like they used to be. You have to know where to look for them. If I had a quarter for every time I had to ask a tester who was testing browser compatibility on Netscape or FireFox "Where's your JavaScript console?" I'd have....well at least a few dollars. When the question was asked, sometimes the reply would be "How do I get to that"? Ouch...Uhm, yeah, could you retest that? Sometimes what I consider the basics I guess aren't so basic. I guess this is a perfect training opportunity for me. Here's how you do it my friends:

How to view Javascript errors in Internet Explorer 7
By default the popup window with script errors do not display in IE. In order to receive the actual error (when it occurs) you'll need to enable the following setting: Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Browsing: Display a notification about every script error

How to view Javascript errors in Internet Explorer 6
By default the popup window with script errors do not display in IE. In order to receive the actual error (when it occurs) you'll need to enable the following setting: Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Browsing: Display a notification about every script error

With or without this option selected you'll always receive an error icon in the bottom-left of the browser window. Double clicking the error icon will display the error window. The icon can be easy to miss though. So IMHO you should enable the "Display a notification about every script error" setting to avoid missing errors.

How to view Javascript errors in FireFox 1.x and Netscape 8.x
Script errors are hidden. In order to see the errors you'll need to use the JavaScript console. This can be viewed two ways:
1. Type the text "JavaScript:" in the address bar and press enter.
2. Navigate to Tools > JavaScript Console

How to view Javascript errors in FireFox 2,x
Script errors are hidden. In order to see the errors you'll need to use the JavaScript console. This can be viewed two ways:
1. Type the text "JavaScript:" in the address bar and press enter.
2. Navigate to Tools > Error Console

How to view Javascript errors in Netscape 4.x
Script errors are hidden. In order to see the errors you'll need to use the JavaScript console. This can be done by:
1. Type the text "JavaScript:" in the address bar and press enter.

How to view Javascript errors in Netscape 6.x
Script errors are hidden. In order to see the errors you'll need to use the JavaScript console. This can be viewed two ways
1. Type the text "JavaScript:" in the address bar and press enter.
2. Tasks > Tools > JavaScript Console

How to view Javascript errors in Netscape 7.x
Script errors are hidden. In order to see the errors you'll need to use the JavaScript console. This can be viewed two ways
1. Type the text "JavaScript:" in the address bar and press enter.
2. Tools > Web Development > JavaScript Console

How to view Javascript errors in Opera 8.x
Script errors are hidden. In order to see the errors you'll need to use the JavaScript console. This can be done by:
1. Tools > Advanced > JavaScript console

With Netscape, FireFox and Opera I advise you to leave the JavaScript console open at all times and in plain view so that when the event/error occurs you know what page you were on and what you were doing to cause the error. This can be painful when running at a small resolution because you end up trying to fit two windows into the display. It doesn't rank high on the usability or convenience charts, but how often is testing convenient?! Wouldn't that be a nice testing enhancement if they integrated the console INTO the browser window?

Get in the habit, keep that console open and find those JavaScript errors. No seriously, I'm sick of seeing them when I visit your site... ;)

Support for Internet Explorer on the Mac will end at the end of this year according to Mactopia:

"Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates.

Additionally, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac will no longer be available for download from Mactopia. It is recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari."

It's interesting and nice of Microsoft to suggest the replacement of Safari. Seems to make sense, why would they promote their biggst threat FireFox?

Over time the end of support will naturally cause the 2% IE/Mac share to migrate over to the other popular browsers available for the Mac... Safari and FireFox.

Everybody around me is using Google Analytics to track visitors and site activity on their blogs.

After looking over shoulders for a while now, I thought it would be pretty cool to install it and take a look at what is going on with QAInsight.net. So I go out to Google Analytics and attempt to sign up. Only to receive the depressing message:

"Google Analytics has experienced extremely strong demand, and as a result, we have temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. In the meantime, please submit your name and email address and we will notify you as soon as we are ready to add new accounts. Thank you for your patience."

Dang, Google limiting users? Unbelievable! What's next? Limited supplies of XBOX 360s from Microsoft? Oh wait...

No literally, "WAIT".

User Agent Switcher is an extension for FireFox, written by Chris Pederick that allows you to switch the user agent string in FireFox. This is handy for Web testing when you need to masquerade as another browser. For example, when testing Intelligent Authentication, in order to cause the secondary authentication to occur I come into the site (which looks at my user agent string) using FireFox 1.5, after I have some FireFox history built up with Intelligent Authentication I then change the user agent string using User Agent Switcher to Opera 5 which causes IA to ask for secondary authentication. Or another example of its use for testing is when browser sniffing code has been put in place and the result of the sniff is that you are redirected to a certain page or message. With User Agent Switcher you can simply change the user agent string to the desired browser and then masquerade as that browser in order to get to the intended page or message. Pretty spiffy eh? No need to install a ton of different browsers just to see one message. Note: when I say "page" I'm not implying that you are testing this page for browser compatibility; FireFox will still render the page.

Within the extension the list of user agent strings can be modified (which is great because there are 100s of user agent strings). You can modify the list three different ways.

1. Use the extension "Options" section to input an agent manually.
2. Use the extensions "Options" section to import a list of agents from an XML file.
3. Modify the Prefs.js file yourself found in your FireFox profile. The directory should look something like: C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ogrevxiy.default

User Agent Switcher installs with only a few user agents. This didn't cut it for my testing, so I created this XML file to extend the user agents.

It's a great FireFox extension that has real value for Web application testing. Give it a try!

Today Blake Ross points me off to an article about how much more secure FireFox is than Internet Explorer (here):

"Without question, Firefox should be your Web browser. Firefox is safer and more secure, for a start. A Web browser is one of the many doors and windows that viruses and other malicious software exploit to gain access to your PC, which is why security is an intimate part of Firefox's underlying architecture.

The world should switch to Firefox for its security features, but you'll want to switch for all of its creature-comforts."

But then I flip over to BetaNews and see this:

"Proof of concept exploit code for an unpatched security flaw in the newly released Firefox 1.5 was publicly posted Wednesday by Packetstorm Security . The problem involves Firefox's history database, which cannot handle extremely long page topics. A malicious Web page could cause a buffer overflow that crashes Firefox each time it is started."

I'm so confused... :) The propaganda is really getting annoying. It's obviously helping the FireFox numbers though. Don't get me wrong, I love FireFox, I'm just really tired of the "FireFox is more Secure" marketing.

"There is no security on this earth. Only opportunity." (Douglas MacArthur).

Testing Web sites all day that require credentials can get really annoying (user: test, password: password). Over the course of the day a tester can achieve a good 100 logons easy. (100 logons) x (5 seconds) = 8.33 minutes a day, (8.33 minutes) x (5 days) = 41.66 minutes a week. You can get those 41 minutes a week back by using the tool RoboForm!

RoboForm provides automated logons from your Web browser toolbar (Internet Explorer, FireFox, & Netscape) and makes logging in effortless (1 click). As a tester it also saves you a lot of time by auto-filling forms for you; this is really nice when you don't actually care about testing the form but the pages that follow the form. I even use RoboForm at home to store all my site credentials. Sounds a bit insecure right? It's not insecure, the credentials are encrypted on the disk, require a master password to access, and the way the auto-login feature works it will actually prevent you from being phished.

In a nutshell, the main features include:

• AutoSave passwords in browser.
• AutoFill passwords to login form.
• Click Login button for you.
• Fill personal info into online forms.
• Save offline passwords & notes.
• Generate Secure Random Passwords.
• Encrypt passwords and personal data using AES, Blowfish, RC6, 3-DES or 1-DES algorithms.
• All personal info is stored on your computer only.
• Take RoboForm with you on USB disk for ultimate portability.
• Sync your passwords and notes to Palm or Pocket PC .
• Backup & Restore , Print your passwords.
• It is well-behaved : NO ADWARE , NO SPYWARE .
• Works under Windows as an add-on to IE-based browsers .
• Works with Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox under Windows.

Download RoboForm here. "It's free to try, $29.99 to buy". Some features are disabled after 30 days (it will limit the number of Passcards you save).

Also, if you're interested in keeping your credentials stored on a USB drive instead of the disk you should take a look at Pass2Go (Portable RoboForm).

My friend and co-worker Mark ran into this the other day while purchasing some software online. Download Insurance? Now, if I understand correctly... You want me to pay $3.95 to hold a copy of MY software on your servers? This just seems wrong to me. First off, if they're going to do this for the customer they shouldn't be charging them.

Why? Here's the reality of it: Your copy is most likely everybody else's copy too. It's not like they're going to archive a special version for you. Don't get me wrong, this is a good idea. It just seems wrong to give the customer the impression that you're doing an extra service for them when the reality of it (if done properly) is that they aren't really doing anything extra, but merely keeping the download version for 18 months along with your key (again, they most likely already do this).

I'm looking forward to seeing how this "Download Insurance" evolves. I don't download music (MP3s) because of the fear of losing the music and not having the source to get it back from. I'm still buying CDs and ripping them. If my hard drive dies I can still re-rip them from CD. If I had FREE "Download Insurance" at ITunes or Napster my problem would be solved and I'd start buying my music online.

PCWorld has done a browser face-off between Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1, Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 1, and Opera 9 Preview 1.

In a nutshell, they have recognized the changes as:

Internet Explorer 7: Tabs, RSS, phishing support, integrated search, easy method to clear personal data, security

FireFox 1.5: Auto-update

Opera 9: No more ads in the free browser and support for widgets.

PCWorld is making the changes sound so minimal and boring. Internet Explorer, FireFox and Opera have done so much more... We've got a lot of cool stuff in these new browsers!

See the unofficial comprehensive FireFox 1.5 changes here.
See the Internet Explorer 7 technology overview here.
See the Opera 9 changes here.

Let the browser wars begin, this should be much more interesting than the war of the 90's. Can we get IE usage down to 60%? Whose side are you on? Before you pick sides you better take a look at Flock too.

I've broken down and done it...my own personal blog. Don't get me wrong, blogging is not new to me, I've been blogging for my son Jace at JaceDaniel.com for a year now, but QAInsight.net will be from my perspective and will be more on the technical side (JaceDaniel.com is 1st person from Jace's perspective).

I'm really excited to share some of my thoughts with you on Software Quality Assurance and whatever else that may cross my path. Who am I? What do I have to share that is so important? "hello world" I'm Brent Strange. I'm a Quality Assurance Engineer who is currently employed at Corillian Corporation and have been here for almost 5 years. Prior to that I worked at Intel, and before that PCTest. History with these companies has given me experience with both software and hardware QA. I've tested applications as unique as Barbie Horse Adventure and apps as cool and new as Intelligent Authentication that runs on .NET Web Services. I've got a lot of QA thoughts and experience busting at the seams so listen up world!