1. Draw up a testplan
Many testers would like to skip this step, but it is essential for structured testing. It depends of course on the size of the application (changes) you need to test, but in most cases there is no need for a large or complex document. Start with listing the changes that have been applied to the application, next detail where these changes impact and finally describe what checks are required to test all aspects of the impact.

2. Prepare test data
Make sure you use a set of data that is a good representation of real live data. For example use recently captured data for the same application or paper based data if the application is developed to move a process online.

3. Test for browser compatibility
Test the web application in all browsers/versions your application is meant to support. If the application is only used internally you can limit your testing to the standard(s) set for browsers by the company. However, when your application is meant for public access all commonly used browsers must be supported. If the application exists for considerable time backwards compatibility might be required to support browser versions that were common at the time the application was launched.

4. Screen texts
A web application, for example a form can contain a considerable amounts of text, which must be checked for:
• readability i.e. is it clear to user what is being said
• spelling and grammar errors
• legal and style requirements

5. Check mandatory fields
Test if all fields which are mandatory
• are marked with an asterisk behind the field name/label
• generate an appropriate error message when left blank

6. Check field sizes
Most fields will have a limitation for the number of characters that are allowed, for example a field that captures an Australian post code may only have up to 4 numeric positions. Check for each field if size validation is applied properly.

7. Check formatting
Sometimes values can be entered in different ways. For example some users might want to enter an ABN/ACN number or a phone number with spaces. Either your application needs to cater for this or warn users to omit spaces.
A field validation can behave differently when values are pasted in instead of entered manually. Make sure you check fields for both methods of data entry in particular memo fields for notes.

8. Check date fields
When testing date fields make sure
• no invalid dates are allowed, i.e. 30/02/2010 or 32/12/2010
• only dates that are within a valid period can be selected. For example if an applicant must enter a date of birth and must be at least 18 years old to apply, a date that is 17 years back from the current date should not be allowed.
• a date picker, if used delivers the same result as manual entry

9. Check data storage
Check for every field entered/selected if the correct value (no truncation) is stored in the appropriate field in the database table.

10. Check time-outs
Often end-users do not realise that applications accessed over the internet act differently from applications run from their local machine. For example a user might start filling in a web form, but leave it for hours before completing and submitting it. Be aware how your application behaves under these circumstances and make sure adverse effects are addressed.

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At Revium we currently recommend WordPress (for PHP websites) and Kentico (for .NET websites) because we feel that the interfaces are user friendly, the products itself offer valuable functionality and both systems are flexible enough to customise to all our clients’ needs. They are by no means the alpha and omega when it comes to CMSs and our clients’ preferences of CMSs are always driven by their specific website needs. Over the years we have implemented various CMSs for our clients and I thought it would be useful to give a brief overview of the CMSs most frequently requested by our clients, in no particular order of preference:

WordPress

“WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability[2]”.    It started as a blogging tool but over time it has evolved to be used as a full content management system which multiple plugins, widgets and personalised themes and it has now become an award-winning CMS that allows companies to build websites and other powerful online applications.

It is highly customizable and developers can extend or modify the WordPress source code to meet any client’s requirements.  It is easy to install and it has a very easy to use interface (similar to a Microsoft word document) which makes it highly suitable for non-techies who have not had a lot of exposure to website administration. 

For a full list of WordPress features visit the website here.

Screenshot from Revium WordPress

Drupal

Drupal has been developed and is supported by a huge open-source community who constantly contribute new modules to extend its core functionality.  This modularity is one of the biggest advantages of the CMS, but it also offers search engine optimisation support with super friendly URLs, a robust personalisation environment and a version control system to track the details of content updates.

Drupal can be used to “create blogs, forums, galleries, file upload and download sites, forums, collaborative authoring environments, podcasting and peer-to-peer networking sites“[3] . 

For a full list of Drupal features visit the website here.

Demo Drupal Interface

Joomla!

Joomla! is another popular choice amongst website designers/developers which comes with an integrated WYSIWYG editor.  As with the other CMSs discussed here, Joomla! can be extended beyond its original purpose thanks to the use of plugins.  You can add features such as “blogging tools, calendars, directory services, email newsletter, e-commerce and shopping cart engines,  image and multimedia galleries, forums and chat software, banner advertising systems, business and organizational directories and dynamic form builders”[4] .

Joomla! requires that your web server runs Apache and has PHP and MySQL installed.

For a comprehensive overview of its features visit the website here.

Demo Joomla Dashboard

Kentico

Kentico is a asp.net solution which offers “a user-friendly interface, WYSIWYG editor and 13 built-in modules at an affordable price”[5] .  It allows developers full control over HTML code and it is possible to customise the design according to user needs. 

Features include but are not limited to[6] :

• Easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor
• Workflow and versioning
• Multiple languages
• Page templates
• Granular security
• Easy Deployment and Content Staging
• Friendly URLs and SEO
• Web analytics
• Reporting
• Media Library
• Blogs
• Forums
• Message Boards
• E-commerce
• Event calendar and Booking System
• Newsletters
• Image gallery
• On-line forms
• Polls

Read more about its feature here. 

Demo Kentico Interface

References

 [1] Unknown. (). Web content management system. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_content_management_system. Last accessed 21/06/2010.  

[2] Unknown. (). WordPress. Available: http://wordpress.org/. Last accessed 21/06/2010.

[3] Christopher Heng. (2010). Free Content Management (CMS) PHP Scripts. Available: http://www.thefreecountry.com/php/contentmanagement.shtml. Last accessed 21/06/2010.

[4] Christopher Heng. (2010). Free Content Management (CMS) PHP Scripts. Available: http://www.thefreecountry.com/php/contentmanagement.shtml. Last accessed 21/06/2010.

[5] Unknown. (2010). Kentco. Available: http://www.kentico.com/home.aspx. Last accessed 21/06/2010.

[6] Unknown. (2010). Kentco. Available: http://www.kentico.com/free-cms-asp-net.aspx. Last accessed 21/06/2010.

Other resources

http://wordpress.org/about/features/
http://drupal.org/features
http://demo.joomla.org/1.5/administrator/index.php
http://www.kentico.com/free-cms-asp-net.aspx
http://www.kenticolab.com/Web046757/cmsdesk/default.aspx
http://www.kentico.com/Demo/VirtualLab.aspx
http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/details.php?scriptid=191
http://blog.webdistortion.com/2008/05/17/13-free-cms-options-for-web-design-professionals/
http://www.miracletutorials.com/wordpress-vs-joomla-review/

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Okay some may say, what’s wrong with you, just drop [HandleError] and rely on the web.config and Application_Error error handling. That doesn’t sound a bad idea, but I don’t particularly like it. Why? Because of 2 things:

• [HandleError] is a formal Microsoft way to handle exceptions in ASP.NET MVC
• [HandleError] allows you to have separate error views for every controller (or just for some plus a generic one)

After some research I realised that it does seem to be an unfortunate oversight from Microsoft ASP.NET team, that a default [HandleError] filter doesn’t really allow you to track errors. With some Google help I have found a few suggestions how to overcome the issue, but none of them looked really simple and elegant. I didn’t want to copy/paste/modify/test some large code just to track .NET exceptions.

I reckon I have come up with a better and much simpler solution. All you need to do is to insert a code snippet into your error.aspx file and that code snippet will do logging or whatever else is required:

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I needed some more space for our large SQL files and decided to take advantage of remaining 35GB of storage on that drive. Sounds pretty straightforward doesn’t it? It wasn’t that straightforward in reality unfortunately. When I increased that VM storage size in vSphere from 100Gb to 130Gb (the VM was off) and clicked Okay, I was unpleasantly surprised to find out that I cannot start this VM anymore. Now it keeps giving this error message: “Insufficient space on datastore”.

These are the lessons I learned after giving a try to all sensible options:

1. VMWare vSphere doesn’t allow you to decrease provisioned storage size. It doesn’t give you any error messages when you click Ok button, it simply doesn’t do it quietly. Not very helpful, is it?
2. When vSphere advises you on the available/taken space it only takes into account the main *.vmdk file. In reality there is a bunch of other smaller files in the VMWare VM folder which are not accounted for (especially dynamically created log files). They take space too.
3. When VMWare starts a VM it looks for some free space (not sure how much though) for its own system files which it puts on the same storage. When it doesn’t see enough space it throws this notorious message “Insufficient space on datastore ””. vSphere doesn’t seem to care much about users when it allows you to increase the allocated datastore size to the limit when it effectively kills the VM.

The only available option I could come up with was to migrate that VM to another, bigger datastore.

I guess the VMWare vSphere client could be a bit more user friendly.

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When you use Linq to SQL you need to make sure that the table has a primary key specified. Otherwise when you call SubmitChanges nothing will happen!

How painful!

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Every Friday morning at 8:00AM come rain or shine a growing group of Melbourne socialmedia enthusiasts meet at a café called Mr Tulk next to the Victoria State Library. The informal group known as Social Media Melbourne (or @socialmelb on Twitter for short) gathers around a communal table to chat about all things to do with social media whether it is the latest iPhone application, how people are using Twitter for business or special offers that are exclusively available to FourSquare users.

Being a collective of social media experts who love to share ideas and good times, it’s no surprise the group has expanded beyond coffee breakfasts into regular evening dinners. The most recent of these night gatherings was organised to coincide with a tweet-up (twitter meet up) for good cause hosted at a Wagamama noodle bars.

By using the #wntu hashtag the national Wagamama social networking event connected people from nearly all the states with gatherings happening in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, and Perth. It enabled an eclectic bunch of participants to try Wagamama’s new winter menu, costing each person only a $5 donation to the charity Save The Children who run health and wellbeing programs in Australia. The venue was a perfect fit for a socialmelb dinner because of the casual dining, communal tables and providing diners with free Wi-Fi available for the event.  Check out Flickr for photo’s of the Mebourne evening.

Founded in London, Wagamama is a global food chain company that has wholeheartedly embraced Social Media for marketing. Interestingly, they use FourSquare, Facebook and Twitter as part of an ongoing communication strategy rather than just promoting a single event such as the Tweet-Up.

Foursquare is a location based social networking website and application that allows registered users to connect with friends to share their location.  It has game aspect, as points are awarded for “checking in” at venues creating a scoreboard over the period of a week. You can also sync your Twitter and Facebook accounts which then update your stream or news feed when you check in to a venue.

Through its marketing with Foursquare, Wagamama provides access a range of real-time information about its customers including who has ‘checked in’ to its noodle bars, when they arrived, the male to female customer ratio and which times of day are more active for certain customers, who the most frequent visitors to the restaurant are etc. Once checked into, the Wagamama also offers visitors an Australia wide Foursquare promotion that provides instant offers such as complementary soup with every main meal for every 5th check in to engage new customers and keep current ones connected with the brand.

Foursquare Special

The great news is this marketing information is freely available to your business and if you’re located in Melbourne or any other large city your business may have already have been listed in Foursquare.  By the way if it isn’t already there, then simply add it to the Foursquare network by clicking “Add This Place”.  You can then fill out basic details like your address and phone number.

Foursquare offer a number of ways for foursquare users to unlock your business special:

• Mayor specials can be unlocked only by the Mayor of your venue (the user who has checked in the most in the last 60 days).
• Count-based specials are unlocked when a user checks in a certain number of times. (“… on your 10th check-in”).
• Frequency-based specials are unlocked every so many check-ins (“… every 5th check-in”).
• Wildcard specials are always unlocked, but your staff has to verify some extra conditions before awarding the special (“Free drink with purchase of an entree when you check in”).

Once you are ready to start offering specials to people on Foursquare who check-in to your business go to foursquare.com/businesses and verify you’re the manager and then you are on your way to using this geosocial application to share details about your business.

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What is frustrating is that some of the most simple methods for preventing the double click stop ASP.Net from firing the appropriate click event when the page is posted back.

A while ago Evgeny posted an article on how to prevent double clicks on buttons in ASP.Net. This solution was a little code heavy for my liking and so after a bit of playing around i came up with this simple jQuery solution.

That is where this little jQuery script come in. When the user clicks an input with the class of ‘button’ we will apply an attribute to it so that the next time the user clicks it, the event wont fire again. Easy!

$(document).ready(function () {
    //prevent double clicks
    $(".button").click(function () {
        if ($(this).attr("dblclick") != "true")
            $(this).attr("dblclick", "true");
        else
            return false;
    });
});

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The easy way to do this is to create a new element, typically a div, with a clear attribute and add it after the container with the floated elements inside. This in theory is good, but if you need to clear a lot of items, this task can get tedious.

The easy way to clear floated elements I came across a little while ago is very straight forward. Assuming you have a div containing your floated elements (in this example we’ll use a class of container) just add the following CSS.

div.container {
	height: 100%
	overflow: auto;
}

With this method being around for a while now, there are plenty of more detailed explanations around the web if you need more information, and I would recommend giving this post a read first and see if it answers your questions, http://www.quirksmode.org/css/clearing.html.

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What I needed was to extract all the unique elements of the Array so I had some clean data to work with.
I googled ‘PHP unique array’ and found what I thought I was looking for.

Unfortunately I found that the array_unique function only works on Integers and Strings! Luckily for me, someone had the exact same issue and wrote a custom function to extract unique elements on Multi-Dimensional Arrays:

function super_unique($array)
{
  $result = array_map("unserialize", array_unique(array_map("serialize", $array)));

  foreach ($result as $key => $value)
  {
    if ( is_array($value) )
    {
      $result[$key] = super_unique($value);
    }
  }

  return $result;
}

Using this function, I was able to filter my Multi-Dimensional Array to return only unique elements and work with the clean data I needed to finish the application.

Hopefully this helps some other developers out there!

References:
http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-unique.php

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There are two key methods for building up organic traffic to your website:
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Social Media Markting

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO sends traffic to your website by making it easy for people to find your website when they search via major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo for keywords or key phrases relevant to your products/services. Due to the fact that search engines are a predominant tool that people use to find information, SEO is critical in building a website’s online presence.

The power of search engine traffic lies in the fact that it’s highly targeted, resulting from people who are actively entering specific keywords to find information relating to a certain need they have – this is the type of traffic that can be easily turned into leads and potentially sales.

Given that 80% of people reportedly do not look past the first page of the search results, SEO is all about pushing your website to appear within the top rankings listed for specific keywords.

In order to implement effective SEO, the following two factors need to be carefully considered:

• On-page factors (accounting for less than 20% of SEO result): This is the process to make a webpage “search-engine friendly” and keyword-relevant.

• Off-page factors (accounting for more than 80% of the SEO result): This is essentially about building links on other websites that point back to your website, making it appear more relevant for chosen keywords in the eyes of search engines.

Social Media Marketing

When we observer the way in which information is shared, transferred and discovered via web communities and virtual social platforms, it becomes evident that social media sites can be a great tool to get your website in front of a targeted audience.

Social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon and Digg receive millions of active users at any given time of the day. User-generated content rapidly spread across these platforms each second. Social media have become an integral aspect in the daily lives of millions of people around the world, literally transforming the way in which people communicate. The impact this phenomenon has on Internet Marketing simply cannot be ignored.

Perhaps the best part of social media marketing is that it can work just as well for small businesses as it can for major corporations. On one end of the scale, there are established brands such as Dell who reportedly generated more than $6.5 million using Twitter; on the other hand small businesses like Kogi BBQ are generating loyal customers with social media as their primary marketing avenue.

Although the subject matter of this article is website traffic, something else to keep in mind is that the benefits of social media are not limited to generating traffic. When used correctly, social media marketing can be a great way to communicate, interact and build long-term relationships with customers.

References

• Adam Ostrow, (2010), Available: http://mashable.com/2009/12/08/dell-twitter-sales/.
• Guy Kawasaki, (2010), Available: http://blogs.webex.com/webex_interactions/2010/05/guy-kawasaki-part-three-sell-like-delloutlet-and-kogi-bbq-use-twitter.html

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