Why is My Computer So Slow? Four Possible Reasons

Today's computers have faster microprocessors, more memory and bigger hard drives. When you think about the differences between a Pentium 4 and 386, you have to conclude the improvement is astounding! So, why are so many of these modern day miracles running way below their potential?

In this article we will discuss four very common but often overlooked reasons why that rabbit in your PC has turned into a snail and we'll tell you what can be done to get it back up to speed.

You need more memory.

Don't overlook the obvious. Up until recently not having enough memory wasn't a problem. With the price of RAM becoming very affordable, most people were filling their computers with more than enough memory to do the job. Enter Windows Vista! Many computers built to an older spec were loaded with Vista and put on the market.

When the new owner got the computer home and took it for its first joyride it just didn't live up to expectations. The reason for this is, Vista is a resource hog. Many computers now come out of the box with Vista and 512MB of memory. With Vista you need at least 1GB of Ram. If your computer is slow and it has Vista with 512 MB of Ram you need to add more memory.

Spyware and viruses

Speaking of resource hogs. Spyware and viruses steal a lot of your computer's resources. Though it is not their main function to just make your computer run slowly, these programs can bring your computer to a screeching halt.

Of course, you do have a good Spyware/Virus remover. Don't you? Also, you do realize for them to be effective, you have to keep up to date. By up to date, it means up to the minute.

You should have your remover program set to update and run automatically overnight or at some other time you don't regularly use your computer. If you don't, spyware and viruses will eat your computer alive! Slowing down is nothing compared to what could happen to your computer's resources if you don't have a good remover program you update and run daily.

Background programs

When you install new software on your computer, often times you install it to run in the background every time you start up. Most times you do this without knowing it. Look at the bottom right hand side of your screen.

If you see several icons there, you have extra programs running and stealing resources. Right click on these and see if you have the option of closing them. Many times, you can open the program and choose an option to keep these programs from starting automatically. Many times I've seen this move get a PC back to its old fleet footed self.

Corrupted registry

Here's one problem that is mostly overlooked. Any changes you make to your computer effects and actually, corrupts your registry. So, it stands to reason, even when you do something positive; like remove spyware, you end up with a corrupted registry.

After months of corrupting your registry, albeit unintentionally, it will become good and out of whack. This will, in its early stages, cause your computer to slow down. In its advanced stages, it will freeze and crash and do more mysterious and troublesome things.

Many times, I hear people say they have scanned for spyware and viruses and found none, but still the computer runs very slowly. Most times, it isn't until the registry is cleaned out and repaired by a top-notch registry cleaner that the computer's speed is restored. Make sure to run a good registry cleaner every week or so to keep your registry in excellent working order. After all, the registry is what your operating system is made of.

So there you have it. To recap:

• 512MB is usually enough for Windows XP but not Vista.
• Keep your computer free of spyware and viruses.
• Don't let too many programs start automatically, and
• Run a good registry cleaner often.

Danger - The Hidden Costs of Spyware

Unwanted spyware running on your system can be a huge and unnecessary hassle. While the most obvious problems associated with spyware are popup windows and a slow computer, there are hidden costs that many people don't consider. Spyware can cause a huge drain on your time, money, and computer enjoyment. Let's explore some of these issues and find out what you can do to be spyware free and avoid these hidden costs.

Time

The number one hidden cost of spyware is your time. Leaving spyware unchecked on your system will only result in things getting worse as time goes on. In most cases, the worse a spyware problem is, the longer it is going to take for you to figure out what is going on and how to fix it. Like most users, you're going to be spending time searching the internet for solutions to your problems. Checking message boards, reading articles, and doing general research to figure out how to remove your spyware takes up a huge amount of time that most people don't take into consideration. Then when you find out what spyware is infecting your PC, it takes time to actually remove the spyware itself. This can sometimes consist of very long scan times and multiple reboots. If you put any value on your time, this brings us to our next item...

Money

For many people such as office workers and freelancers, the computer is directly tied to their income and spyware can deeply affect them in the pocketbook. From a slow and sluggish computer to loss of valuable work hours trying to fix the problem, unwanted spyware is causing you to waste time, work less productively and in the end is costing you money. If left unchecked, the spyware problem may get so great that you need to take your computer in for some professional help. Unfortunately most of these computer repair places charge enormous hourly rates and try to sell you repairs or upgrades that you don't even need. In some cases the cost can be so high that it would be cheaper for you to just buy a new PC! Besides being expensive, this can be very frustrating and leads to a loss of...

Enjoyment

What's the point of using your computer if you don't even enjoy it anymore! After one bad encounter with spyware, many people can be put off or even scared to use their computer in fear of it becoming infected again. Browsing the internet and using your computer should be a fun & educational experience. Dealing with popup windows, rogue toolbars, and unwanted software can really put a damper on things. Fortunately there is an easy way to avoid all of these issues...

Protect Yourself

Use an anti-spyware or spyware removal program regularly. Many programs can be downloaded for free and will let you scan your PC to see if you have any spyware running on your system. Regular spyware scanning and removal will keep your computer running in top shape and will help you avoid all of the hidden costs that you may face down the road.

Happy and safe computing!

Charlie K is an anti-spyware advocate and teaches others how to keep their computers running spyware free. Learn more about spyware removal programs and how to protect yourself online by visiting his website http://www.becausespywaresucks.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charlie_K

How To Connect Your Computer To Your Home Theater

These days, a computer can act a lot more like an entertainment device than ever before. You can watch online video, listen to music, view pictures and more!

But who wants to sit in their home office on a desktop computer or sit at a notebook computer to do this? "Not I, said the cat." Listening through cheap computer speakers and watching video on a computer monitor is not my idea of real entertainment; how about you?

Why not connect your computer's audio and video to your home entertainment system? You can watch TV shows, movies, and videos on your HDTV or any other TV with appropriate inputs. You can listen to music through your home stereo if it has AUX, VIDEO, or any other input using a standard RCA connection.

Connecting Computer Video to Your TV:

To connect the video, your computer must have an output for which your TV has a matching input.

Virtually every computer comes with a VGA output of some kind. The plug for this looks almost rectangular (you can see one by locating where you computer monitor connects to the back end of your desktop computer).

Another video output connection many computers may have is S-Video. This is a round connection. S-Video plugs have 4 tiny round holes (2 on each side) and a tiny rectangular hole in the bottom. S-Video cables have a round end with 4 tiny metal prongs and a tiny rectangular piece of plastic at the bottom.

However, many televisions do not have VGA inputs and only some have S-Video inputs. If yours doesn't, you'll need to make sure it at least has an RCA video input (this is a very standard connection which is used to connect record players, VCRs and CD players to other devices). If your TV came out since the early to mid 1990s it most likely has a standard RCA video input.

If your TV does have an RCA video input, simply buy a VGA to TV Converter. This will connect to your computer's VGA output and provide RCA and S-Video connections (which are standard inputs found on most TVs since the 1990s).

Make sure you have the proper cables for your TV. Depending on which type of input your TV uses, you'll need an RCA cable, an S-Video cable or a VGA cable.

Connecting Computer Sound to Your TV, Stereo or Home Theater System:

Now that the hard part is out of the way, the sound is easy. Simply buy a Y-cord. It should contain a stereo male 1/8" on one end and two RCA males on the other end. Just ask your local electronics store; this is a standard cable they will all most-likely carry in-stock.

Connect the stereo 1/8" male end to the green jack on your computer (usually on the back of desktop computers and on the front or side of notebook computers) where your speakers would normally connect.

Alternatively, you may connect the 1/8" to the headphone jack on your computer. (Note: any device with a headphone jack can connect to your home theater, such as an iPod using this same cord!)

Connect the two RCA males to the L and R input jacks on your TV, Home Theater or Stereo. And you're done! Just make sure to select the right setting (AUX, VIDEO, etc.) on your stereo or receiver.

Enjoy online content in all the glory you've enjoyed content from TV, DVD, CD, and the radio! There's already tons of online content available on major broadcasting sites, and there will be more as the future moves forward.

If you don't have a DVD player but there is a DVD drive on your computer, this setup will turn your computer into a DVD player! Once connected, call the store from whom you bought your computer and ask how to play a DVD on the computer.

The author would like you to visit CISSP, ISO/IEC 27001, DoD 8570, Information Security Training, Philadelphia Center and Register: CISSP & ISO/IEC 2700 Training: Philadelphia, New Jersey, Washington DC

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gabriel_J._Adams

Connect Your Computer To Your Xbox 360 Using Winamp Remote, Windows Media Player 11, or a Windows ME

Your Xbox 360 is an amazing piece of technology, it can play the latest games, and movies in HD, play your favorite songs from it's hard drive, download updates over the internet when it's on and off. The amount of things you can do with it is probably endless, well, endless unless Microsoft legally restricts it, like they did with mod chips. With new software coming out to support your Xbox 360 you can now connect it to your PC and stream all your music and videos from there, rather than wasting your precious hard drive space on your 360. Some software even lets you stream videos from internet sites like YouTube and AOL. If you want to do this you have three options for streaming to your Xbox 360: Windows Media Player 11, WinAmp Remote, or by using your Windows Media Center PC.

Using Windows Media Player 11

1. First make sure your Xbox 360 is connected to the network and can connect to Xbox Live.
2. Open up Windows Media Player 11, and click on the arrow directly below the Library tab, then click on Media Sharing.
3. A Media Sharing Window will popup, now check the "Share my media to:" box and click on your Xbox 360. Select allow and click okay.
4. Wait a little bit. You'll have to wait for the system settings to take effect and for the Xbox to show up in the network, if you've waited and nothing's happening try redoing the process or opening up the ports on your router for the 360 (a good place to do that is Port Forward) because they could be blocking it, and also make sure there isn't a firewall enabled somewhere that is causing problems.
5. After you've waited, get on your Xbox and select the Media blade, then Music or Videos, and then press X to change your source and select your computer.
6. Everything you have in your library will show up on your 360 now. Enjoy your songs and videos.

WinAmp

1. Download and Install WinAmp Remote.
2. Right click the WinAmp Remote icon in the system tray, click configure, and then media tab.
3. Add the folders that contain your music and your video files.
4. Again, you'll need to wait a little bit for the network to show up with the 360.
5. Go to your Media blade on your Xbox 360 and press X to change the source and select your PC.
6. Enjoy your media.

Windows Media Center PC

1. Go to www.xbox.com/pcsetup to download the necessary software updates for your PC.
2. On your Xbox 360 go to the Media lade, select Windows Media Center, and follow the easy, on screen instructions to complete your setup.

Each of these options are very easy to implement, and have different pros and cons. Currently, Windows Media Player is faster at streaming and buffering than WinAmp Remote, and it seems like it is more stable, but WinAmp Remote has the ability to stream online videos. And the Windows Media Center PC option is perfect if you have a Media Center PC.

Steve's Tech Guide - A blog that helps you scratch your tech itch with computer guides, informative how-tos, and important news events.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steven_Stoddard

Four Gadgets You Wish You Had

Get it? Wave? Future? Hahaha! C'mon, work with me here.

I watched a James Bond movie lately and I thought of something. James Bond always has these cool gadgets to help him out, invented by Q. Pen guns, flying cars, rocket guns, everything he needs. And futuristic movies I've seen always have cool stuff that people supposedly invented. So I've put together my list of futuristic gadgets that I would love to have.

1. Time Machine - Who wouldn't want a time machine? You can go back in time to see the dinosaurs up close (just not too close)! You could see Rome and Greece in all their past glory. Maybe even see the legendary Spartans, just to compare them to the ones in 300. Or you could use it to go back to yesterday and give your mother a present for the birthday you forgot, jerk. I wouldn't mind having one, even if it was made out of a DeLorean. Many scientists say that it is truly impossible to travel to the past and the laws of physics only allow travel to the future, but who knows? Mankind always finds a way!

2. Virtual Reality - This already exists in some form, but what I want is full-on perfect virtual reality! Just put on a helmet or glasses and you just think what you want to do, and your virtual self will do it! You can even smell scents and actually feel what you touch in that world! It would be great for the date scene since you get to date without actually being there, or you can talk and hug your loved ones from far away. You can even be the star of your own virtual adventure movie! The possibilities are endless!

3. Teleporter - I think anyone can use this. Why take the bus to work when you can just teleport there? You can even work overseas while still living in your own house! Take your time in the mornings since it's hard to be late for work if you can get there instantly. You can even take your lunch break in Paris and come back in time for the afternoon meeting! Too bad this may never happen, because there's always a chance that not all of your body parts arrive at your destination. But like I said, who knows?

4. Electronic Contact Lenses - I saw this in a movie once. You wear contact lenses that display data right in front of you. No more checking your watch for time when all you need to do is look at the digital clock in your vision! You can even have your daily planner displayed there, or even view videos or surf the net! All you have to do is think what you want to see and it'll pop up.

There you have it. Science just keeps moving forward, and one day all these gadgets may as well be real! Having gadgets makes people lazy though, but we can probably invent auto-exercise machines for that. ;) How about you? What gadgets would you like to have?

Ted is a prolific travel writer who has the amazing ability to draw out the real stories from each and every city he visits.

Browse his blog at Blue Wave Ted

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ted_Hill

Interview questions on Fiber Channel & Storage Technology

1.WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF FIBRE CHANNEL SANS?

Fibre Channel SANs are the de facto standard for storage networking in the corporate data center because they provide exceptional reliability, scalability, consolidation, and performance. Fibre Channel SANs provide significant advantages over direct-attached storage through improved storage utilization, higher data availability, reduced management costs, and highly scalable capacity and performance.


2.WHAT ENVIRONMENT IS MOST SUITABLE FOR FIBRE CHANNEL SANS?

Typically, Fibre Channel SANs are most suitable for large data centers running business-critical data, as well as applications that require high-bandwidth performance such as medical imaging, streaming media, and large databases. Fibre Channel SAN solutions can easily scale to meet the most demanding performance and availability requirements.

3.WHAT CUSTOMER PROBLEMS DO FIBRE CHANNEL SANS SOLVE?

The increased performance of Fibre Channel enables a highly effective backup and recovery approach, including LAN-free and server-free backup models. The result is a faster, more scalable, and more reliable backup and recovery solution. By providing flexible connectivity options and resource sharing, Fibre Channel SANs also greatly reduce the number of physical devices and disparate systems that must be purchased and managed, which can dramatically lower capital expenditures. Heterogeneous SAN management provides a single point of control for all devices on the SAN, lowering costs and freeing personnel to do other tasks.

4.HOW LONG HAS FIBRE CHANNEL BEEN AROUND?

Development started in 1988, ANSI standard approval occurred in 1994, and large deployments began in 1998. Fibre Channel is a mature, safe, and widely deployed solution for high-speed (1Gb, 2Gb, 4Gb) communications and is the foundation for the majority of SAN installations throughout the world.


5.WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF FIBRE CHANNEL SANS?

Fibre Channel is a well-established, widely deployed technology with a proven track record and a very large installed base, particularly in highperformance, business-critical data center environments. Fibre Channel SANs continue to grow and will be enhanced for a long time to come.The reduced costs of Fibre Channel components, the availability of SAN kits, and the next generation of Fibre Channel (4Gb) are helping to fuel that growth. In addition, the Fibre Channel roadmap includes plans to double performance every three years

6.WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF 4GB FIBRE CHANNEL?

Benefits include twice the performance with little or no price increase, investment protection with backward compatibility to 2Gb, higher reliability due to fewer SAN components (switch and HBA ports) required, and the ability to replicate, back up, and restore data more quickly. 4Gb Fibre Channel systems are ideally suited for applications that need to quickly transfer large amounts of data such as remote replication across a SAN, streaming video on demand, modeling and rendering, and large databases. 4Gb technology is shipping today.


7.HOW IS FIBRE CHANNEL DIFFERENT FROM ISCSI?

Fibre Channel and iSCSI each have a distinct place in the IT infrastructure as SAN alternatives to DAS. Fibre Channel generally provides high performance and high availability for business-critical applications, usually in the corporate data center. In contrast, iSCSI is generally used to provide SANs for business applications in smaller regional or departmental data centers.

8.WHEN SHOULD I DEPLOY FIBRE CHANNEL INSTEAD OF ISCSI?

For environments consisting of high-end servers that require high bandwidth or data center environments with business-critical data, Fibre Channel is a better fit than iSCSI. For environments consisting of many midrange or low-end servers, an IP SAN solution often delivers the most appropriate price/performance.

Network Attached Storage Introduction

What is NAS (Network Attached Storage)

In a NAS architecture, corporate information resides in a storage system that is attached to a dedicated server, which in turn is directly connected to a network, and uses a common communications protocol, such as TCP/IP. In a corporate IT infrastructure, the NAS operates as a server in a typical client/server environment. The NAS is connected to a network by standard connectivity options such as Ethernet, FDDI and ATM. In some cases, a single specialized NAS server can have up to 30 Ethernet connections.

A NAS server (a processor with an operating system) is necessary in order to transfer the data between it and the NAS storage device, and then move the data on to the corporate network. This is done via traditional file I/O protocol. The most common of these protocols are Network File System (NFS) and Common Internet File Service (CIFS).

NFS was originally developed by Sun Microsystems and is now part of the Open Network Computing (ONC) initiative. It is the most common file access protocol to access shared files in a UNIX environment. CIFS is a file access protocol designed for the Internet, and based on the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol used by the Microsoft Windows operating system. CIFS does not replace the use of NFS, but rather complements it, because of its ability to provide synchronization between client and server.

Although a NAS with NFS can be implemented on readily available tightly-coupled server and disk storage arrays, there are actually only three (3) major vendors that currently have a large marketshare of the NAS marketspace. They are: Network Appliance (also known as NetApps), Auspex Systems, and Sun Microsystems. Both NetApps and Auspex use proprietary tightly integrated servers and storage devices. In the majority of cases, the Sun implementation uses a dedicated Sun server, and typically connected to external Sun storage; although any external storage that is certified to be connected to a Sun server can also be used. However, this is not the case with NetApps or Auspex, as additional storage requirements must be acquired from the respective NAS vendor.

The NAS server permits multiple clients to share files, since clients can access files as if they were local files, with the exception that they must be accessed over a network. In this way, common files can be maintained in a central location, and accessed by many clients, which eliminates the need for multiple copies of files on multiple client systems. In addition, this improves data integrity, data security and reduces costly duplication of files. Major applications that benefit from the use of NAS to share large amounts of information include CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing), document management, imaging as well as other similar application serving environments.


Because data travels over the network, NAS is not always suitable for applications such as data warehouses and On-Line Transaction Processing (OLTP), since these applications need to sustain high I/O data rates with little, or no degradation in response times to the clients.

- You Can Write/Contribute & Win Some COOL Stuff
- Know Basically What is Storage Area Network
- If You want a High Paying Job what should be your Strategy.
- It has more than 90 interview questions listed in this single blog
Interview questions series 1
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- Know what happens in office routine of a Storage professional
- Know what sort of job roles are there in Storage area networking
- Know what they ask in a storage job interview
- Need guidance to revamp or improve your Resume
- It has one simple storage implementation Case study
- Basic questions a Software job hunter asks
- Answers for the questions like Job Opportunities in Storage
- Want to see details of Job requirement for Storage
- U like to take a Virtual tour of Cisco Production Data Center
- Every one talks about HA or High Availability - should'nt You
- Dont forget that Career in Any field requires dedication and hard work - U can do it Dude

Storage Basics: Storage Area Networks

Many IT organizations today are scratching their heads debating whether the advantages of implementing a SAN solution justify the associated costs. Others are trying to get a handle on today's storage options and whether SAN is simply Network Attached Storage spelled backwards. In this article, I introduce the basic purpose and function of a SAN and examine its role in modern network environments. I also look at how SANs meet the network storage needs of today's organizations and answer the question, could a SAN be right for you.

Peel away the layers of even the most complex technologies and you are likely to find that they provide the most basic of functions. This is certainly true of storage area networks (SANs). Behind the acronyms and revolutionary headlines, lies a technology designed to provide a way of offering one of the oldest of network services, that of making access to data storage devices available to clients.

In very basic terms, a SAN can be anything from two servers on a network accessing a central pool of storage devices to several thousand servers accessing many millions of megabytes of storage. Conceptually, a SAN can be thought of as a separate network of storage devices physically removed from, but still connected to, the network. SANs evolved from the concept of taking storage devices, and therefore storage traffic, off the LAN and creating a separate back-end network designed specifically for data.

SANs represent the evolution of data storage technology to this point. Traditionally, on client server systems, data was stored on devices either inside or directly attached to the server. Next in the evolutionary scale came Network Attached Storage (NAS) which took the storage devices away from the server and connected them directly to the network. SANs take the principle one step further by allowing storage devices to exist on their own separate network and communicate directly with each other over very fast media. Users can gain access to these storage devices through server systems which are connected to both the LAN and the SAN.

This is in contrast to the use of a traditional LAN for providing a connection for server-storage, a strategy that limits overall network bandwidth. SANs address the bandwidth bottlenecks associated with LAN based server storage and the scalability limitations found with SCSI bus based implementations. SANs provide modular scalability, high-availability, increased fault tolerance and centralized storage management. These advantages have led to an increase in the popularity of SANs as they are quite simply better suited to address the data storage needs of today's data intensive network environments.

The advantages of SANs are numerous, but perhaps one of the best examples is that of the serverless backup (also commonly referred to as 3rd Party Copying). This system allows a disk storage device to copy data directly to a backup device across the high-speed links of the SAN without any intervention from a server. Data is kept on the SAN, which means the transfer does not pollute the LAN, and the server processing resources are still available to client systems.

SANs are most commonly implemented using a technology called Fibre channel (yes, that's fibre with an 're', not an 'er'). Fibre Channel is a set of communication standards developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). These standards define a high-performance data communications technology that supports very fast data rates (over 2Gbps). Fibre channel can be used in a point-to-point configuration between two devices, in a 'ring' type model known as an arbitrated loop, and in a fabric model.

Devices on the SAN are normally connected together through a special kind of switch, called a Fibre Channel switch, which performs basically the same function as a switch on an Ethernet network, in that it acts as a connectivity point for the devices. Because Fibre channel is a switched technology, it is able to provide a dedicated path between the devices in the fabric so that they can utilize the entire bandwidth for the duration of the communication.

The storage devices are connected to Fibre Channel switch using either multimode or single mode fiber optic cable. Multimode for short distances (up to 2 kilometers), single mode for longer. In the storage devices themselves, special fiber channel interfaces provide the connectivity points. These interfaces can take the form of built in adapters, which are commonly found in storage subsystems designed for SANs, or can be interface cards much like a network card, which are installed into server systems.

So, the question that remains is this. Should you be moving away from your current storage strategy and towards a SAN? The answer is not a simple one. If you have the need to centralize or streamline your data storage then a SAN may be right for you. There is, of course, one barrier between you and storage heaven, and that's money. While SANs remain the domain of big business, the price tag's of SAN equipment is likely to remain at a level outside the reach of small or even medium sized businesses. As the prices fall, however, SANs will find their way into organizations of all sizes, including, if you want, yours.

Software Testing Interview Questions for Testing Jobs

Below are some basic concepts you need to know about Software Testing.

1.What is Software Testing?
Software testing is the process of executing a software application or program to find defects,report them & get them resolved .This is to mainly remove more defects from the product & improve quality.

2.What is the difference between QA & QC , Quality Assurance & Quality Control ?

QA is focussed on removing defects in the first place
QC is focussed on finding more defects which are already in the developed product

QA is process oriented
QC is product oriented

QA tries to put in place lots of process improvements at the initial phases of development to make sure product quality is better & there are fewer bugs/defects.(Example : Code reviews,walkthroughs,inspections)

QC is at the later stages of development where QC team has a executable build to test & QC tests with the intent of finding more bugs

3.What is a defect or a bug ?

A bug or a defect is a deviation from what is expected in the functional specifications . These are problems or issues which decreases the quality of the product. A company which develops a product (Hardware or Software) wants to remove as many defects as possible (Improving the quality) before the product is released to the Customer/End User.

4.What is AUT or PUT ?
Application Under Test
Product Under Test

Software Testing Interview Questions : Top 10 Questions asked in many interviews

Below 10 Questions are frequently asked in any Testing Job Interviews :
1. How did you Test your Project "Customer Records Management"(Example project)?

2. How is your Testing process ?

3.How is your Test cycle schedule & what are the components you have been testing ?

4. If you find a bug/defect what will you do ? How is your defect management process ?

5. How does the Testing Team Interact with Development team in your Company ? When & how do you communicate with Product Development or Engineering team with regards to your Testing issues ?

6. What is a Product defect/issue and what is a Test setup defect or Test issue ?

7. How many bugs you have filed till now & mention 3 challenging bugs you filed ? Mention 2 high priority or critical bugs you filed & how were they resolved ? How did you do the root cause analysis for them (RCA) ?

8.You file a bug & developer marks it as "Not a bug" or "User Error" or "Not reproducible" & closes the bug - what will you do ?

9. How do you make sure you are giving maximum information in your bug report ? Which bug management tool do you use ? what are the different fields in your bug tracking software ?

10. How is your Testing project's configuration managent ? Which Versioning system you use ?

Testing Interview Questions & Interview experience in Symphony (continued)

1st round of Technical discussion went for more than 20-25 minutes I was able to answer satisfactorily though I could not answer some of the questions related to Quality Metrics, Traceability matrix, Testing Unix processes/daemons

I was asked to wait after the second round & I waited for another 20-25 minutes.

2nd Technical Round
This was a more rigorous round .3 guys together interviewed me in this round - where they asked me to explain each of my projects, tools I used , way I handled my testing effort & things I learned.

Questions were like :
1. Did you write Test plan , Test cases for this project ?

2.How did you create test data & what methods you followed for that ?

3.Explain 5 challenging test cases from ur project tell me how you execute them starting from preparing the test setup for them ?

4.Write test cases to test "Winamp MP3 player" Write test cases to test "Norton Antivirus" Write test cases to test "Network Management Software"?

5.How do you give estimates for your testing efforts. What factors you will list out in the estimation document ?

6. What are these SRS,Func Specs - Explain how you translate Specs to Use cases to Test cases?

7. Which OS does your Software support ? Suppose it is supported in Windows only then you have so many configurations like :
Windows 2000 Professional
Windows 20000 Server
Windows XP Home
Windows XP Pro
Windows XP Pro with Service Pack2
Windows 2003 Standard Edition Server
Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition Server
Windows Vista Ultimate

So above 8 OS if we consider on Intel & again on AMD processors we have nearly 16 configurations multiply this with Hardware Server differences like "Dell PowerEdge Servers", "Sun microsystems - Opteron V20z Servers" , "IBM eSeries Server" you have 16 X 3 = 48 configurations - support you join a new team where you have to test all these configurations for 100 test cases how will you manage. Do you have a process in your present team to solve such a complexity

8. Explain Entry Criteria & Exit Criteria in your Test plans & How your project Test plan guides your whole testing process ?

9. Explain in detail all the tasks you do in your whole test cycle ? how much time you need for different test cases & what are the kind of issues you might face regularly? How do resolve those issues ? Have you implemented any best practices to resolve these issues in future ?

10. What are the things you have in your Performance plan for this year & how are you improving your self in this present job in terms of Technical expertise & Product knowledge?

There were many many more interview questions which I may send later. This round was the lengthiest & went for nearly 30-40 minutes. Good answers were appreciated & many a times interviewer's answered few things which I could NOT answer. It was a very learning experience for me & refreshing one too.

Symphony Services Interview Questions on Software Testing Engineer Job description

Symphony Services hires lots of Testing Engineer's frequently.One of the blog reader attended its interview last week & find below his QA job interview experience.

Rounds : 5
1. HR Interview
2. Technical Brief
3.Technical Detailed
4.Manager Discussion
5.HR Discussion including salary & joining date/notice period

HR Interview
This initial HR round was mainly to filter out NOT-So-Good candidates. They asked asked
1.Company details : Website,Contact No.s & References (May be for further background verification - not sure)
2.Organization structure & company employee strength
3.My experience details of all previous companies
4.My roles & responsibilities , Skillset/Expertise

This was about 10 to 15 minutes & the person wrote down many details in another sheet & took for records.

I had to wait another 20 minutes to go for next round ( I was glad to know they were interested to take me to next round - which I considered as the actual starting of the interview process)

1st Technical Round
The tech lead who took my interview was very serious & looked like tired of taking many interviews. Still i appreciate his patience of asking quality interview questions like
1.Explain the tasks you are responsible for in this Testing project

2.How do you manage growing features & how you keep track that testcases are also increasing to have proper coverage

3.Explain your test scenarios & what bugs you found in which scenarios

4.How were you involved in Integration testing & how were your testing efforts contributing interms of improving the quality of the product under test.

5.Explain some of the component areas you have worked till now in this company/project. Which one was most challenging & why?

6.What is regression testing? How is Regression testing done in your team ? Tell me some what is a regression bug & name 3 regression bugs you filed & what was their priority

7. When you file a bug what happens till it gets fixed? Explain all the phases & people involved in this bug detection till resolution process

8. Apart from Testing an application or Product what else you did in your whole experience ?

9. Do you know about Performance Testing can you explain how would you approach it if you had to start doing it even though you may not have much prior experience ?

10. What is End 2 End testing ? What are these FCS,RTM,GA,RC ?

Testing Interview Questions & Interview experience in Accenture

Accenture is one of the biggest & best paying companies. It has lots of projects worth millions & even billions & best part is it hires lots of Software testing professionals.

Here is one of the interview experience of Accenture.
There will be nearly 4 to 8 rounds depending on the years of experience you have & level of designation you are applying for.

Do Not attend their interview without proper preparation. They take very challenging & aggressive interview & the whole hiring process is very streamlined . So sometimes they may take a month before giving you a Job Offer. Have patience & do your best in Interview.

Some of the questions asked in Accenture Software Testing Interview are :

1. Explain Traceability matrix & how is it used in your project? Who is responsible in your team to manage it & if you were assigned that task how will you be able to manage it?

2. How was the regression testing done in your project what was the contribution of the regression test effort for the whole quality improvement?

3. Write or explain 15 testcases you executed recently with detailed descriptions ,steps to reproduce & explain what results they gave when you executed on a recent build?

4. Mention 5 testcases or a test component area which gave lots of bugs & had lots of difficulties in testing it ?

5. How is the Release Engineering process in your team? When codefreeze happens when you get a QA build & what are the factors considered before you start testing this build?

6. What are the SLA's(Service Level Agreements) Testing team has with Development team ?

7. How is the sustaining or Customer escalations team interacting with testing team ? How do you transition your projects to Sustaining team once you move to new release or new version testing?

8. What is Cyclomatic complexity ? Did you ever use it in your testing efforts ?

9. What are some of the tasks that you are handling which are transitioned to you by your lead?(Mean to ask what tasks of a lead are you performing , if any) [Intention of the question is whether you will be able to rise above your limits & take bigger initiatives when required]

10. How will you manage a critical projects when
- Experienced Senior people are leaving
- There is limited time to test a lot of scenarios & configurations
- There are many hardware/infrastructure issues
- The knowledge transfer from development team is not enough
- The documentation is very minimal & the test plans are not very precise

What People are Searching for on this "Software Testing Jobs Blog" : This is very interesting

Below are the words people searched in Google & found my blog as answers & came to this blog by clicking the results in google search listing. I guess many of them have found their answers on the different pages of this blog. This is very intersting list to read & understand how people search on the google. I promise to write more to answer their search questions.Keep reading this blog daily.

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Testing Interview Questions from Accenture Software Testing Engineer Interview

First round was HR round : HR person who took my interview also asked few technical related questions apart from the usual HR general questions :

1. Explain your present role & responsibility.

2. Why are you looking for a job change ?

3. If given a chance will you lead a team & do you have any prior experience in that ?

4. What importance you think "Testing Engineer" & Testing Team plays ?

5. Were you interacting directly with the clients ? Were you required to interact with other
teams & teams spread across different geos ?

6. How were your experience in all the companies you worked previously ? What are the
achivements you can mention & are there any excellence recognition you've got so far ?

7. Present Salary , Expected Salary, Notice period - can the notice period be shortened - can I join immediately within a week if required?

8. What are my hobbies & interests ?

9. What about my family background & Do I have any difficulty in relocating ?

10.What value addition will I bring If I was offered the job ? How can I prove that I will be associated with this company for a considerably longer period of time ?

11.What are the processes our company followed ? am I familiar with CMM or Six sigma or any other maturity model ?

Basic questions asked in any Software Testing Interview

1. What is Testing ?
Testing is finding out how well something works. But the proper definition is "Testing is the process of executing a set of instructions or steps to know how well a Software application or any product adheres to the product specifications"

Testing is the process of finding defects in a software application , reporting it & making sure the defects or bugs are fixed by the development. Once the development does the fixes for the reported defects Testing team is again responsible to verfiy the fixes & making sure the new fix has not broken any previously working functionality of the product.

2. What is a Defect or a Bug or a Product issue ?
Any deviation from the specifications mentioned in the product functional specification document is a [b]Defect[/b]. A defect or a bug is a mistake in the software application or AUT[Application Under Test] considering the details mentioned in the detailed specification document.

So if some feature or functionality of a Software application is varying from what it is supposed to be[with regard to its expectations mentioned in the Specification documents] it is considered a bug or a Defect. Some companies use the term CR: Change Request for a bug.

3. What will you do when you find a Defect in the product that you are Testing ?
Different companies follow different processes or methods in this case but generally when we find a bug or defect we report it following the bug logging process or Defect Reporting . But it is also the job of a Testing Engineer to make sure it is a real product bug & not any setup or testcase issue before filing a defect report [Bug Logging]

4. How do you log a bug & what software you use for this process ?
We use Bugzilla which is an opensource software for logging bug. While logging a bug we need to give detailed information about the whole steps i've done when i encountered this bug or defect.

When we hit a defect i mean while executing some testcase if we encounter a bug , we need to inform the developers & also concerned like Program manager,Development Lead,Test Lead etc. Bug reporting is a process of such communication. The main aim of a bug report is to let the developers know the details of the failure & to help them to find a resolution for the issue . So it is very important to give detailed information so that whoever is reading the bug report or trying to reproduce the bug can do so easily . The bug report is a document that explains the gap between the expected result and the actual result and detailing on how to reproduce the scenario.

5. Describe in detail what you should do after Finding the Bug?

Write the bug report just when you are sure that you have found a bug, not after the end of test or at the end of the day. It might be possible that you might miss out on many crucial points if you are delaying the write up for bug filing . Worse, you might miss the bug itself.
Put necessary time to diagnose the defect you are reporting. Think of the possible causes. You might land up uncovering more defects if there are any . Mention your discoveries in your bug report. The programmers will only be happy seeing that you have made their job easier. Take some time off before reading your bug report. You might feel like re-writing it.

6. What are the factors you consider while writing Defect Summary or bug synopsis ?

The summary of the bug report is the readers first glance with your bug report. The fate of your bug heavily depends on how well you compress yet describe the summary of your bug report. The rule is that every bug should have a one line summary some reporting softwares call it as Bug Synopsis. A good summary will not be more than 50 to 60 characters.