SimonBlog

Simon P. Ditner

2008-07-29

Testing Flex Applications; is there a right way? I haven't found one yet. If you have suggestions dear reader, please let me know.

I've looked at RIATest, but unfortunately it's not free, and I have no budget. There is a Ruby-based one called FunFX, but alas, neither do I have time to learn Ruby.

What I am looking for is just something to click through this Flex application so that QA can automate the repetitive GUI testing tasks, and work on more important issues than making sure existing functionality still behaves the same.

Some research turned up more commercial software like Mercury Quick Test Pro, which led me to Wikipedia's list of gui testing tools. There are a couple of candidates on there that appeal to me, particularly the ones which will run on Linux (my desktop environment), and are also written in Python -- which fortunately I do know, and is in use for many of the non-gui components of the system I'm working on.

dogtail from RedHat holds promise: http://people.redhat.com/zcerza/dogtail/downloads.html
as does LDTP from freedesktop: http://ldtp.freedesktop.org/wiki/

Both are in Ubuntu's apt repository;

 apt-get install ldtp python-ldtp
 apt-get install python-dogtail

Hmm, the ldtp packages are pretty old; remove those and install it from source. You'll need to install some supporting libraries to compile it:

 apt-get install libxml2-dev libglib2.0-dev libatspi-dev  (libatspi will include gobs of stuff)
 ./configure && make install
 mkdir -p /usr/share/local/ldtp/glade/
 cp python/ldtpeditor.glade /usr/share/local/ldtp/glade/

I haven't had much success with LDTP's gui-based capture tool. Seems to produce scripts that throw python exceptions. Moving on to dogtail.

Hmm, dogtail isn't very easy to use either. Well, that's about all the time I have for this today, maybe figuring out Ruby would be easier.

2007-01-18

I don't know why asterisk's config script needs so many options...

 ./configure --prefix=/opt/asterisk-1.4.0 \
             --exec-prefix=/opt/asterisk-1.4.0 \
             --sysconfdir=/opt/asterisk-1.4.0/etc \
             --datarootdir=/opt/asterisk-1.4.0

2006-12-22

Saw this on another blog somewhere....

Opening Credits: Dismemberment Plan - "Memory Machine"
Waking Up: Idlewild - "In Remote, Pt. 1/Scottish Fiction"
First Day of School: Broken Social Scene - "Late 90's Bedroom Rock for the Missionaries"
Falling in Love: Schneider TM - "Cuba TM3"
Getting it on: Travis - "Quicksand"
Fight Song: Snow Patrol - "Ways and Means"
Breaking Up: Junior Boys - "Neon Rider"
Prom: Matmos - "Spondee"
Life: Alkaline Trio - "One Hundred Stories"
Mental Breakdown: Beulah - "Gravity's Bringing Us Down"
Driving: Interpol - "Next Exit"
Flashback: Eels - "Old Shit/New Shit"
Wedding: The Walkmen - "Hang on Siobhan"
Birth of Child: Beulah - "Don't Forget to Breathe"
Final Battle: The Fly Seville - "Death of a Matador"
Death Scene: Radiohead - "There There"
Funeral Song: Alkaline Trio - "Your Neck"
Closing Credits: Franz Ferdinand - "The Dark of the Matinee"

Lets see if I can fill it out myself...

Opening Credits:
Waking Up:
First Day of School:
Falling in Love:
Getting it on:
Fight Song:
Breaking Up:
Prom:
Life:
Mental Breakdown:
Driving:
Flashback:
Wedding:
Birth of Child:
Final Battle:
Death Scene:
Funeral Song:
Closing Credits:

Some others...

Mourning: Gwen Stefani - "Cool"

Chemical Brothers - "Surface To Air" Spiritualized - I think I'm in Love (Chemical Brothers Remix) Bill Murray - "More Than This" -- who's the original? Jakalope - "Tell Me Why" Pussy Cat Dolls - "Don't Cha" Len - "Steal My Sunshine" Massive Attack - "Angel" Peter, Paul, & Mary - Puff The Magic Dragon

2006-07-17

A lot has happend since my last post. I've been to China, had trademark disputes over ZoIP, got dugg/boingboing'ed, organized TAUG's LinuxWorld appearance, more talks with TAUG and GTALUG...

2006-03-10

I've got a squash game tomorrow with Robin. I wonder where my raquet is...

2006-03-08

Some aspects of working for a company suck, like proprietary technology. There are some parts of it I'd really like to talk about -- but it's our secret sauce and talking about it just invites competitors to eat our lunch. Gah. Can't we all just be friends?

This month's TAUG meeting should be interesting. We're talking with the Pulver group about holding it at VON Canada, and getting some good publicity for the open source telephony community. We're also working on something for Linux World Canada, maybe a booth, or another talk. Advocacy is fun, especially when you have a great group of people with similar beliefs to work with it on.

I recently finished reading Ronald Wright's book, "A Brief History of Progress". I should write a review of it before I forget everything. Memory is so fleeting.

2005-10-22

Charlene and I went to an interesting talk at the harbourfont literature fair (http://www.readings.org/2005_IFOA/schedule.php). Ronald Wright is quite a character.

 8:00 PM - Talk/Interview
 Bob Rae (interviewer)
 John Ralston Saul
 Ronald Wright

2005-10-09

Nat heard about my zasterisk project through Jim, and volunteered to beta test. The idea of some other people being interested in it seems to have been enough to get me going again. I did some further research into Sphinx (speech recognition), which led me to some working perl examples. I created a small dictionary with cardinal directions in it, and it seems accurate enough that it should at least be entertaining, if not functional.

2005-10-05

I got a couple of emails from Jim on Monday night, apparently the organizing committee for the ETel conference thinks it'd be good to put Zasterisk in their showcase of creative applications of open source technology. It's always nice to have your work noticed :-)

I finished To Live last night, I'll post a bit of a review soon. I'm anxious for Fan to get back from holidays so that I can pump her for more book suggestions.

2005-10-02

The other day, I found myself holding Andrew Greig's infamous Sharp Zarus in my hand, talking with the very man whose story had been the impetus which had inspired me to begin working with asterisk in the first place. Actually, I spoke very little (not that astounding), more like basked in charisma.

On Saturday, I saw a flim called Ants: Nature's Secret Power at the Planet in Focus film festival. I couldn't stop thinking about self organizing networks, scaleable infrastructures, and this book I've been reading called Turbulent Mirror, which is a soft introduction to chaos theory.

Speaking of books, I finally picked up a couple that have been waiting for me at the local TPL. Their automated phone system had been badgering me all week. The first is John Saul's book "The Uncioncious Civilization", something I read years ago, but have mostly forgotten -- the second book I picked up however, has turned out to be quite rich. I asked Fan if she could recommend some Chinese literature, and she suggested the author Yu Hua. Well, I found an english translation of To Live, and haven't been able to put it down. It's about a young pompous aristocrat who gambles away his family's fortune, and the struggles of life, having forced his entire family into abject poverty durring the civil war following WW2.

The story closely resembles a daydream I've been having for many years -- it seems odd that I daydream about struggling, but I think that I associate struggle with purpose and living a life of dignity.

2005-09-27

Lately, I've been digging into the DSP code for asterisk, and mucking about with detecting all sorts of tones, regardless of what channel type you're using.

You would be surprised how much fun it can be running samples through the test systems, and watching your code analyse it -- or picking up the phone and talking in high-pitched voices making sure that "natural" speech doesn't sound like an answering machine beep, or a honduras busy tone. My throat is getting sore from trying to talk at 450Hz!

I ran another Asterisk as an Answering Machine workshop earlier in the month at one of Bell Canada's buildings. It went rather well, but I think I'll run the next one at the Linux Caffe. It should be a large enough space for setting up 5 or 6 machines.

I've also moved the TAUG meeting to Wednesday this month, and arranged to have a speaker -- at long last! Stephan Monette from Unlimitel will be coming from Ottawa to speak about Asterisk and VoIP security. With a single email, I've had 30 people RSVP for his talk; there definitely seems to be space for this in Toronto's geek scene.

2005-08-26

Tomorrow I'm off to Ottawa for the Ottawa Rec Rowing Regatta. I'm not too excited though, I think my interest in the social side of rowing is waning.

The Toronto Asterisk Users Group is meeting again tonight. The last two fell on the Friday of a long weekend, which really hurt the turnout -- so hopefully we'll have a good showing tonight. We really need to start holding talks on Asterisk if we want to keep the group together though. I just have to find us a cheap projector I think, and we'll be able to hold meetings at the North York Civic centre, or downtown on John St.

2005-08-11

I just found out today that my friend Fan is leaving Canada to go back to China in three weeks. My heart skipped a beat, and the bottom of my stomach just dropped away when she told me.

I'll miss her -- but now I'll have someone to visit in China!

2005-06-30

YAPC wrapped up yesterday. It was a fantastic 3 day Perl extravaganza! I was a little to timid though, and I didn't ask any questions. I should also have jumped up when that free slot appeared in the time table and done a talk on Asterisk and Perl integration. It would have been really for the Asterisk community, especially here in Toronto -- I continue on my quest to break free of stage fright.

Knowing I passed up on a good opportunity, especially one that would have benefited a community more than myself, made me feel like crap. It's a strong reminder to myself that I've only got one life, and I shouldn't squander it. So I don't think that stage fright will be enough to stop me next time.

2005-05-26

It's nearly my last day at Sprint. I've been working here for over 3 1/2 years, and my mind still hasn't accepted that I'm really leaving. Being in network operations, I've worked with a lot of people from all over the company, and I'm a little sad that it's coming to an end.

But as some song probably goes, with every end there's a new beginning! After a lot of internal debate, I've chosen to go work for Direct Leap, developing VoIP communication tools for grass roots organizations. It's a company founded around altruistic intents, and with luck, we'll build something that will help level the playing field between grass roots movements, and lobbyist.

The Ontario Asterisk/VoIP group, and Toronto Asterisk group have also been booming. So, I'll continue to be heavily involved with that, and I imagine I'll see quite a few people from Sprint there. If there's one thing I've learned since moving to Toronto, it's that the IT/Telcom sector is a lot smaller than you'd think, and you end up bumping into people you know where ever you go.

2005-03-10

I started an asterisk mailing list two days ago, and the membership is growing quickly! I've also discovered there's another Toronto Asterisk group running through Meetup.com; I don't know why my instincts tell me to compete with it. I suspect it's because I don't like web-based message boards. I announced the discovery to the list though, wouldn't want to be egocentric :P

2005-03-06

A friend sent me some info from hackaday.com/forevergeek.com that speeds up firefox's performance by enabling "pipelining" (don't ask me why parallelizing something is called pipelining) under about:config

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30.
right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.
browser.turbo.enabled True

last edited July 29, 2008 — ( info ) ( diff )