Category: Technical testing

Cool Watir-related gem from Tim Koopmans

Tim seems to be pretty busy now that he’s a free agent, so I’m looking forward to trying this new(ish) gem he announced recently for querying browser performance stats. I can’t believe it’s been as long as it has since I last posted.  This has mostly been because I’ve been busy preparing to become a dad.  […]

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Automating Flash, AJAX, Popups and more using Ruby, Watir and Sikuli

Jonathan Kohl pointed me at Sikuli, a Python-based tool for automating applications using image recognition.  Unlike most tools, which attempt to identify objects via public APIs, Sikuli looks at the pixels on the screen and attempts to identify objects based on how they look. This isn’t exactly a new approach, as commercial tools have had […]

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Comparing files and alternatives(?) to Diff

Continuing the ‘what tool’ theme from last week, today’s topic is ‘Diff’.   I frequently install windows versions of various Unix command line utilities via the Gnu Utilities for Win32 project.  Diff is particularly handy not just for the programming side of automation, but also for comparing output files from automation as well as database queries.  Occasionally […]

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Building regular expressions

When my testing gets technical, there are a lot of things that I only have to grapple with infrequently. Regular expressions are one of those in-again, out-again things for which my expertise varies depending on when you ask me. Today’s Ruby hacking saw me find RegExr which helps you build and test regular expressions, as […]

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