How To Find If The MS Office Version is 32 or 64 Bit?

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Whenever we need to install a new software or tool, the most basic question one need to answer is to find the version of MS Office. So, want to find if you’re running the 32 bit or the 64 bit version of Office 2010? 
Following are the steps to  find out:
1. Open any MS Office application – Word/Excel/Power point or any other.
2. Click ‘File’ Menu.
3. Click at ‘Help’.
4. The Office version is displayed on right hand side as highlighted in red box.

ms office version
MS-Excel 32 Bit
And it’s done! Quite easy right?
The steps to find the version would be almost similar for all office applications and any windows version. 
 
Hope it helped.
 
Also check the below link for more posts related to MS Office:

Penetration Testing

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Penetration Testing is also known by the terms – Pen Testing, Security Testing, Ethical Hacking and White Hat Hacking. While all of these terms are many times used in exchange of each other, they are slightly different from each other. But for the time, let’s consider them same owing to their mostly common contents.

Definition of Penetration Testing (In my words):
Penetration testing is the process which tests the systems or websites or applications and tries to find the flaws concerning security issues and reporting the same along with possible solutions to get them corrected.
As per Wikipedia, A penetration test, or the short form pen-test, is an attack on a computer system with the intention of finding security weaknesses, potentially gaining access to it, its functionality and data.
The process involves identifying the target systems and the goal, then reviewing the information available and undertaking available means to attain the goal. A penetration test target may be a white box (where all background and system information is provided) or black box (where only basic or no information is provided except the company name). A penetration test will advise if a system is vulnerable to attack, if the defences were sufficient and which defences (if any) were defeated in the penetration test.

Removing Port Number from QC/ALM URL

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We had been struggling to get rid of the port number in qc URL. Finally, we got it done with the help of HP Support.
Below is the solution we have found to remove the port number 8080 from QC URL:

  1. Update the port number to 80 in configuration files of the application. In this case, they were ‘qcconfigfile.properties’ and ‘jetty.xml’.
  2. The ALM service would not start now as port 80 is likely to be used by other processes.
  3. Release port number 80 from all processes.
    • The command “netstat -o -n -a | findstr 0.0:80” help us find out if the port is being used or not.
    • If any website in IIS points to port 80, update the same.
  4. Start the ALM service
  5. Re-Start any other services stopped.

In this case, we stopped 3 services – World Wide Web Publishing Service, Windows Remote Management (WS-Management) Service and IIS Admin Service

Mobile Application Types – Native, Web and Hybrid

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The mobile apps are broadly classified under three categories:
  • NATIVE APPLICATION – A native application (native app) is an application program that is developed for use on a particular platform or device iPhone or iPad apps built using Objective-C, and Android application built with Java. Native apps are installed through an application store (such as Google Play or Apple’s App Store). For example, Camera+ app for Apple’s iOS devices.
    • Advantages:
      • Native apps perform faster
      • Native apps provide easy access to all native features of the device
      • Native apps generally operate in offline mode
      • Native apps are fully supported from concerned app stores
      • Because of their support, Native apps provide better security
    • Disadvantages:
      • Native apps are expensive to develop because of their platform dependency
      • Maintenance is also expensive for Native apps.
      • Different teams need to me maintained and tracked for different platforms
      • Multiple versions are often required to be maintained
      • Native apps need approval from app stores to be published and this may prove tedious and time consuming in case the app is not developed with high standards.
  • WEB APPLICATION – Web applications are webpages that look like an app. They are basically Internet-enabled apps that are accessible via the mobile device’s Web browser. Web apps are accesses via browsers are not required to be downloaded on to the device. Web apps are built using HTML5, CSS3 etc. 
    • Advantages:
      • Web apps are platform independent and can be used on all devices irrespective of operating systems.
      • Since Web apps are platform independent, deployment is easier for them
      • As web apps are not downloaded on devices, users need not worry about versions and updates released.
    • Disadvantages
      • The native API’s and device specific features are not accessible to Web apps which limit their scope of usage.
      • Since Web apps are not listed in app stores, users may find it difficult to find them
      • Security is also a concern with Web apps as it’s all internet based and come with it’s own set of vulnerabilities
      • All Web apps may not always work with multiple browsers. Thus is also adds to the cost of developing and maintenance.
      • Web apps need internet connection to operate and do not work offline
  • HYBRID APPLICATION– Native apps are part native apps, part web apps. They are installed in the same way as native apps and use the web apps technologies to perform certain functions. Actually, it’s very hard for the users to differentiate between native and hybrid apps. Hybrid app may look an easy option for websites which want to be listed in app stores without spending much and required effort to develop a native version of themselves.
    • Advantages:
      • Because most of the development is done using web technologies, hybrid apps are faster and easier to develop as compared to Native apps.
      • Hybrid app come with best of both Web and Native apps
    • Disadvantages:
      • Along with best, worst of both Native and web apps is also packaged in Hybrid apps
      • The use of native features of device is limited
      • Performance is not up to the mark when compared with Native apps
      • While most of the code is written in web technologies and is platform independent, there is some part of code which need to be designed as per the platforms of devices.

What is Mobile Application or Mobile App

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With the advancement of technology, the mobile phone has advanced at rapid fast speed. There was a time when we were surprised that we could take pictures and videos from mobile phone. Before people could digest it properly, came a device that makes calls, plays videos, takes pictures, and receive/send email, more. All this with a regular phone! They are definitely smart – Smartphone. Carrying a small phone is almost equivalent to carrying a pocket-sized personal computer. They have an operating system of their own such as Google’s Android or Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.

Mobile Application or Mobile App
As per Wikipedia, A mobile app is a computer program designed to run on smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices.
Anyone who uses a smartphone/tablet most probably uses apps. There is hardly any task which cannot be done on a smartphone/tablet as compared to traditional desktops/laptops. There are thousands of apps available for all operating systems. Name a thing or game, and we have a mobile app for it – News, Weather, chatting, Facebook, email, moves, trains, flights, everything.
While most applications function independently, but some of them integrate with tools in other media. For example, some websites have a different user interface for mobile and desktop version, while others have a separate app for the same – like Facebook. There are some apps which use location-based features  – like maps, weather etc.
How to download and use an app
Straight answer would be – A mobile app is used on a smartphone like iphone, Samsung S2/3/4 etx series, HTC mobiles etc or a tablet like – iPad, tab etc. It is to be noted that all apps do not work on all devices. It depends on the operating systems – ios, Android etc. For example, there is an app called iTunes – which works only on ios devices – iPhone/iPad.
The app needs to be downloaded on the device to use. All operating systems have their online app-stores from where, the users can search and download and install the apps. Some of the apps are free for use while some of them may charge the users. For example, the Facebook app is free for use on all devices and operating systems while the ‘what’s app’ charges ios users a one-time fees and is free for other operating systems (not sure if that’s updated now).

Types of Mobile Applications:
1. Native App
2. Web App
3. Hybrid App

Save a powerpoint presentation as a template

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Many times, we choose a presentation template and apply some changes to suit our need. In fact, most of the companies have a predefined template for presentations to be used. This is achieved by creating customized templates and saving them as template files. A template file (.potx/.pot) saves all the customizations made to slide masters, slide layouts, and themes to reuse in other presentations.

When we create a presentation, and then save it as a Power Point Template (.pot) file, can be reused more than once. Thus saving the presentation as a template offers the following advantages:
  • The exact slide layout can be used in other presentations
  • The template can also be to existing presentations to quickly update the way they look.
  • The template can be used to quickly create a new presentation.
  • The template file can be shared with friends and colleagues.


To save the presentation as a template:
  1. On the File menu, click Save As.
  2. In the File name box, type a name for the template.
  3. In the Save as type list, click PowerPoint Template (.potx/.pot). As soon as the type is changed to power point template, the default location(might be different for different windows and office versions) “C:UsersName>AppDataRoamingMicrosoftTemplates”. Copy and save the path somewhere for future, in case the template does not appear by default in the list while creating new templates.
  4. Click Save.

Suggest Topics

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Hi Friends,
Let me try this.

Please mention your topic on Software Testing on which you would love to read more. I would try and document my knowledge or find out some relevant material and compile. Though I cannot promise, but I would definitely try to cater maximum requests.

Let’s see how it goes. wish me luck and do drop in a comment with the current Software Testing topic on your mind…:)

JIRA Query to find the list of issues updated in a month

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As a process, we need to make an effort variance report every month for all the applications tested b y our team.  We use JIRA to log the efforts for each item.

Effort Variance = (Planned Efforts-Actual Efforts)/100

Following query may be used in JIRA to help:

project = TEST AND assignee in (“abc@xyz.com”,”pqr@xyz.com”,”ijk@xyz.com”) AND updated >= “2014/06/01” and updated < “2014/07/01”

The above query would list all issues for the project ‘TEST’ having assignee among ‘abc’, ‘pqr’ or ‘ijk’ which were updated in the month of June-2014.

The query can also be modified as per needs…:)

Find the RSS Feed URL for a web page

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Well, it’s nothing new, but still, below are the steps to find the RSS feed URL of a webpage (website, blog, or any particular post/page).

1. Navigate to the website

2. Right click anywhere on the page
3. Click View Source
4. Type Control + F
5. Type “rss”in the search text box and click Next 

6. The URL highlighted in black rectangle is the rss feed URL.
7. Click on the URL or copy and paste it anywhere required.

Smoke Testing and Sanity Testing

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Apart from similar names, Smoke Test and Sanity Test, both aims at reducing testing efforts. No doubt they are confused for each other.

Smoke Testing
Smoke Testing is the very basic and initial testing activity that verifies if the application/deliverable is testable or not. I read somewhere that “Smoke testing is like General Health Check Up”. It is generally applicable during Integration Testing, System Testing and Acceptance Testing.
Only positive scenarios are validated in Smoke Testing.

Scope – The set of test cases which verifies the functionality on a high level. Some basic scenarios may include:
1. Tester is able to access the application/deliverable.
2.  Tester is able to navigate through the application.
3. The user is able to interact with user interface.

Example– Following may be the test cases for a login page:
1. ‘OK’ button is logging in the user on entering some data in user name and password.
2. Cancel button is responding entering some data in user name and password and user remains on the same page.
 Type anything in the username and password field and press the OK button, the page should change and the request should have gone to the database to confirm if it is a valid request or not.

Advantages of Smoke testing:
1. Issues that arise due to integration of modules can be found.
2. Issues are found in the early phase of testing.
3. Induces confidence to tester that fixes in the previous builds have not broken major features.


Sanity Testing
Sanity Testing is a part of Regression Testing and it is performed when we do not have enough time for doing testing. I read somewhere that “specialized health check-up”.
Sanity Testing covers both positive and negative scenarios.

Scope – The set of test cases from regression test suite which quickly verified status of the product after they have done changes in the code or there is some controlled code change in a feature to fix any critical issue. Care must be taken care to:
1. Include only critical test cases in BVT.
2. Only stable test scenarios should be included
3. Test cases included should be sufficient for application test coverage.
Example– Following may be the test cases for a login page:
1. ‘OK’ button is logging in the user on entering valid data in user name and password.
2. ‘OK’ button is not logging in the user on entering invalid data in user name and password.
2. Cancel button is responding entering some data in user name and password and user remains on the same page.
Some of the Test cases for Text editor may be:
1) Creating text file.
2) Writing something into text editor
3) Copy, cut, paste functionality of text editor
4) Opening, saving, deleting text file.

Advantages of Sanity testing:
1. Makes sure that developers have not defined conflicting or multiple functions or global variable definitions.
2. Helps to identify the dependent missing objects.
To conclude, consider purchasing a vehicle – Car or Bike.
We take it for a test ride and check basic functionalities– Smoke Test
We bring it home, ride it more and check detailed information (Mileage etc) – Sanity Testing