Stephen Donner's Weblog

Cool Download Day progress widget, by Ehsan Akhgari

Many thanks to Ehsan for the awesome widget, below!

How you can help prevent [insert QA team member name here] from losing his/her mind, while all the while making Firefox 3 better

There's a voluminous amount of QA work remaining for Firefox 3--both for its beta(s?) and its 3.0 release; even though I'm immersed in it daily, I still find it hard to not only prioritize, but even to capture what work remains. I'm going to make a feeble attempt to encapsulate said work, but I'm quite positive I'll fail in some way :-P Still, here goes...

How can you help?

1. Write or clean up Litmus testcases. Although the current setup of Litmus requires Admin status to edit (add/delete) testcases, you can still write them if they're not clearly stated enough in the bug. In tandem with an "in-litmus?" flag, it can be very helpful to ensure test coverage.

Write:

List of requested testcases for Firefox 3.

In the query above, I've excised "Open" bugs simply because that *should* mean the feature/bug fix isn't yet implemented; that doesn't mean, of course, that test coverage around it isn't needed; it's just a prioritization. (Semi-colons ftw!)

Clean up:

Most-unclear testcases

Recently unclear testcases

Ready to start? Create an account!

2. Run Litmus testcases. It should be self-explanatory, but we're looking for users running nightly builds of Firefox 3 to help us track its level of quality and feature implementation. By running *any* accurate test and submitting your valuable feedback, you help us get a clearer picture of when and if something has regressed, or, in general, how stable a given feature set is (based on its tests, though, so coverage varies by each area's level of test-completeness.)

Recent test failures--there are more such links on the footer of Litmus.

3. Verify Resolved FIXED Firefox 3 bugs.

4. Flag bugs as needing Litmus testcases. In each Firefox 3 bug, there should be a flag called "in-litmus" with four states: 1) empty, 2) ?, 3) -, and 4) +.

If you think a fixed bug (including those in the "VERIFIED" state) needs a manual testcase, select "?" from the "in-litmus" dropdown. Feel free to sprinkle liberally, but please exercise common sense; in addition to bugmail spam (which is all fine and good), for those of us whom run queries and write testcases, the time spent determining whether a testcase is indeed needed should be a no-brainer.

That said, the current list we have is by no means comprehensive, and, although it takes time to parse through the current list of testcases covered and match them with the request, it's well worth it to have more comprehensive coverage.

5. Stop by #qa on irc://irc.mozilla.org if you have further questions; we'd love to have folks helping out with any of these areas!

Thanks!

The original Thunderbird bug!

I was reading some of my old entries here, and found the _original_ Thunderbird bug; i.e. the bug that began the work which eventually transformed Mozilla MailNews into what's now known as Thunderbird.

Historic.

Mozilla Web-Development QA would love your help!

Every day, I go to work for a company for which I truly enjoy working; I'd like to take a moment to relate some of my experiences, and petition you to consider applying, especially in the Web Development and QA departments.

Mozilla is described by nearly everyone within its walls as "organic," a somewhat-difficult term to digest. You immediately think "OK, sounds like there are no rules." For the large part, that's actually quite true: the mix of employees' experiences, personalities, and work style coalesces into a slow, but ever-progressively gelled set of "best work practices." We strive ardently for not repeating our mistakes; most times, we succeed; occasionally, we drop the ball. 2.0.0.8 wasn't a hot release--not to the public nor to us, individually--but it did fix over 200 issues (most of them security!), and provided somewhat limited (due to the surprise), but well-meaning, support for OS X; needless to say, we think we've really got it right this time--a noticeable Mac OS 10.5 AJAX bug aside--for 2.0.0.9, which we just shipped tonight around 4PM PST.

There's another side to Mozilla that often goes unnoticed,--until you need them--and that's the Web Development team (and, humbly, its nearly-sole QA counterpart, yours truly ATM). We're supporting Marketing and Engineering in each's drive to understanding the Firefox user-experience and making it the best it can be. Together, we're responsible for a successful launch on another platform, like Rock your Firefox, in addition to the many and increasing number of pages within the breadth of the Firefox experience (such as the new First Run, What's New, and Operation Firefox pages/compaign, respectively).

As one such prominent example of our work, we're redesigning the user-experience of browsing, installing, and managing Add-ons for Firefox 3 (both in the client and on the web), and the changes on http://add-ons.mozilla.org will also reflect this, in a newly skinned version set to launch within 7 or so weeks. We could use your help in testing! If you've got prior familiarity with the add-ons website (or, just mad testing/coding skills in general), please shoot me an email at:

stephend@mozilla.com

Your excellent feedback will help me solidify my Test Plan.

While I'm not a web-testing newbie (having tested both my.netscape.com and my.aol.com for both divisions of AOL), there's always more to learn, and any/all help really is appreciated!

Keeping in mind, though, that its goal is to launch in about seven weeks, please try to constrain the scope of suggestions/fixes in-line with the 3.2 PRD.

Thanks for your help!

- Stephen

Call for testing help!

If you've got especially either Mac OS X 10.4 or Windows Vista, Mozilla QA would be very appreciative of and interested in any testing help you can provide for the Download Manager.

Bug 103487 has landed, which now means we *should* integrate with the various anti-virus vendors' software.

Additionally, we now have Vista Parental Controls (which can disable the download ability), and other Download Manager fixes/UI features left to land.

At present, there are ~ 250 either open or known fixed/resolved bugs.

It's daunting at first, but if you're interested in helping out, you can:
1) File/verify bugs
2) Write testcases (using Litmus)
3) Stop by in #qa of irc://irc.mozilla.org and we can help you test this and/or other components

Asking 'stephend' in #QA is the best pre-screen for Download Manager bugs, as I've probably run into most of them, or at least have read their bugs.

My testplan (work-in-progress) might get you thinking about ways in which you can help test.

Thanks in advance for your interest and help in making Firefox 3 great! (And yes, most of us hope that the "Clear / Clear All" button is returning :)

Check out these guys' amazing sets, if you like progressive trance and/or house...just click on "Downloads" using Firefox 2.0.0.6, and get what you can.

Work.

If you're one of the 2 billion folks that I need to get back to via email, phone, instant messenger, Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, or--gasp--in person, please note that I will be doing so as soon as humanly possible, given the workload I'm currently experiencing.

More Firefox 3 QA love!

Just a note to myself that, I've signed up to test:

Add-ons (Plugin Management System)
Content Handling (Download Manager updates)
Search / Tabbed Browsing / Visual Refresh (theme changes)

Mo(re)zilla!

I'm happy to announce that starting Monday, July 9th, 2007, I'll be working full-time as a Software Quality Assurance Engineer for Mozilla Corporation in Mountain View, CA.

Having been out of the professional workforce for the three years' duration while finishing up my degree, I must concede a fair amount of trepidation, but I'm pretty familiar with most aspects of Mozilla development, so it should be a manageable learning curve. I'm also excited to hopefully get back to doing some Purify work, in addition to learning and running Eggplant, among the day-to-day testcase creation/running. There's a ton to learn around Mozilla, technology-wise, so I look forward to that.

INVENTING ENGLISH: A PORTABLE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE

Fascinating excerpt from Seth Lerer on the history of the English language.

* stephend also waves goodbye to the CW network's Hidden Palms.

Trunk Win32 Tinderbox Builds of Firefox

Just a note to self (and anyone else who cares): if you need Win32 Tinderbox builds of Firefox, they can be found here. They're considerably more recent than the published-one-time-a-day-only trunk nightlies.

History of Atari and its downfall

Amazing fix for Firefox 3

Bug 342810 goes down as being one of the coolest regression fixes I've seen in a long time. Thanks to all involved!

It just makes sense...

It's not secret that a lot of companies are started in the hopes that they will be acquired.

RememberTheMilk seems like one such company, especially since it links heavily with Google web applications (both Gmail and Calendar).

Nothing wrong with that, just pointing out the obvious, I guess :-)

*stephend waves goodbye to VaxGen.

How to create a jar protocol-linked testcase to/within Bugzilla

I filed bug 383632 against Fox News' Health page rendering (probable Gecko bug).

Here's how to link to the local (and hopefully reduced) testcase, within Bugzilla.

1. Do a File | Save As and choose the "Complete"
(the resulting files will be something like "index_files" (folder) and an "index.html" (file)
2. Using WinZip or 7-Zip, make an archive out of this (name it with the .jar extension)
3. Upload to your respective bug
4. Create a link to the file you want run, like so:
jar:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=267646!/index.html
5. Fill in the URL field of your bug with that from step #4, above.

How to find the build ID of a Mozilla build

Here's how to find the build id of a given Mozilla-based build:

1. Open the Error Console and type/paste in Components.classes["@mozilla.org/xre/app-info;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsIXULAppInfo).platformBuildID
2. Click "Evaluate"

Voila!

(Actually, I just discovered that javascript: alert(navigator.buildID); yields the identical thing; bonus.)

This documentary really does have some of the scariest footage of ghosts I've seen.

Seemingly, no matter how much $$$ they pump into MySpace's budget, it doesn't translate into a concerted development effort where the goal might be to fix bugs.

The following is very nearly the most common response I get when trying to load a given MySpace page--that is, when it's not otherwise dropping my HTTP session...

Sorry! an unexpected error has occurred.

This error has been forwarded to MySpace's technical group. (It's not as bad as the travails that Friendster went through during its burgeoning days, but still!)

Godspeed, Facebook!, I say.

Just a self-reminder to check out Mere Christianity from the library, and finish reading it. From what I recall, it has some really sound, logical arguments (and is thus refreshing and intriguing).

C.S. Lewis was a great author and theologian on many accounts (although many folks have expressed bemusement at his sci-fi trilogy).

I've always been interested in WAN optimization/performance, so Citrix's client-side WANScaler captures my interest; press release. It won't debut until June, but I'm sure it'll do quite well once it does; according to their website, it "accelerate[s] application performance across wide area networks (WAN) by an average of 5x to 30x, and up to 300x at peak compression efficiency."

The season three finale of Lost was so, so lame.

(Spoilers follow.)

1. No Smokey? (Well, I guess in the form of Walt.)
2. No hint at the toe-statue? I'm sorry, but a shocking ending without precept does not make for a good cliffhanger.
3. The writing was horrible: Mikhail took a SPEARGUN to the chest, survives, and manages to detonate a grenade UNDER WATER...
4. Of course The Others weren't really going to kill Sayid, Sawyer, et al. We "need them" for future seasons (why write it in, then?)
5. Locke's actions at the end--by the radio tower--just don't make sense, unless there are some more explanations that will come later.
6. No more cool stuff with Jacob?

The whole thing just felt uneven. Last year's season finale was awesome; it had a good flow.

Keep milking it for the remaining three years, Cuse and Lindelof.

Sigh.

So long, Veronica Mars and friends, your show will be missed--by me, at least.

Wow!

Pandora's UI upgrade is sweet; it also feels like it's lighter--i.e. uses less memory--, but that could just be because I just reloaded its page, and Firefox tends to keep its MP3s in memory for quite some time.

Hearing about the activities and personified desires of "The Algorithm" is wearing me out.

Of grades and graduation...

After a harrowing semester, in which I read twenty-five books and wrote numerous papers, I have emerged--relatively unscathed--and am happy to report that everything came out superbly in the end:

Spring 2007 South Bend

ENG-L 354 AMERICAN LITERATURE SINCE 1914 3.00 A
ENG-L 390 CHILDREN'S LITERATURE 3.00 A+
ENG-L 450 SEMINAR: BRITISH & AM AUTHORS 3.00 A
ENG-W 303 WRITING POETRY 3.00 A-

I graduated last night, finally!; photos here. The ones I've posted so far are only a smattering of what my father took. The remainder will trickle in in the coming days. Enjoy! Also, a more general, nicer set of IUSB photos on Flickr.

I'm now going to take some much-needed time off, in order that I might relax and begin thinking seriously about prospective employment. Feel free to send me tantalizing positions, but don't expect any commitment on my part until at least the 25th of this month.

Thanks!

Zedo and its "pop-under" ads must die.

Currently reading--and enjoying--Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Flanders Panel.

All finished!

Last paper, ever, here.