Madam President,

Kapapanood ko lang sa TV na nag pla-plano ang MMDA ng Female Urinals, kung ako po ay tatanungin ay asikasuhin muna ang mapanghi at mababahong Male urinals bago sila mag introduce ng panibangon ikaka baho ng Merto Manila. Kung mapapadaan kayo sa Pasay-Baclaran Urinals, nangigitata ito at napaka baho. Araw Araw nalang pag dumadaan ang jeep na sinasakyan ko, napaka panghi at masakit sa ilong ang mga urinals na sa tingin ko ay walang maintenance.

Umaasa,
Rabby Calicdan

My Plans this 2010
Ah… it’s the new year! First of, thanks to Our Lord and another year he has spared us from judgement. And for giving us the gift of life every morning!

2009 was the most stressful year for me. I was assigned to the most dynamic denomination in the company. The last two quarters was the toughest. The sher volume of work and the sleepless nights made my sleeping patterns ruined. I was staying longer at the office more than at home, AND I am having a hard time sleeping and waking up every day. Before the year ended, I am aware of “some” of the projects/tasks ahead. It will be hard but I must be ready whether I like it or not.

2010 plans…
My challenge to myself is this:
“If young people (my age bracket) can make it big, how can I also?”

Well here’s my plan:
1. LEARN – I admit that I cannot demand a raise or a big salary to an employer for the skills that I have right now. Not that I do not have significant knowledge, but I really need to step up on the complicated things to make myself marketable. Learning/refreshing technical skills like SQL, Automation, and process improvement, methodologies etc.. will be my only ticket to make it big. Companies will come to me instead of me coming to them. But my problem is this, work right now is so demanding I don’t have time to do my personal stuff. As of this writing, an idea popped into my head to have time for myself to learn these things. I need to do a fast track so that 2010 will be my stepping stone to a great 2011.
2. SAVE – YES, I need to save up… I’ll just do my best to NOT use and pay up my credit card debt and save up money to finance my ambitions in the near future. Of course I am not going to be in the same company forever (unless I’d get the same benefits that I am expecting when I’m abroad). I’m planning to open up a bank account on or before my birthday.
3. HEALTH – what’s a huge paycheck, a good savings account when you’re health is deteriorating? I have to be health concious so I can do all the things I need to do to become successful. A good and healthy lifestyle will make sure the money I save up will stay there and not at the hospital cashier.
4. WORK ABROAD – yes this is the ultimate goal for me… after the LEARNING, the SAVING, the good HEALTH checkups, I am now fit to work abroad, to earn, save up so I can redo again the LEARN, SAVE, and HEALTH.

That’s it for now… I posted this to remind myself of what to do this year. I hope to finish a WBS for myself to accomplish these plans of mine and make 2010 the most productive and wealthiest year of my life and career.

Introduction:

This is my experience with Acer Philippines, I would like to share it so that you can decide for yourself if you will or will not trust this Brand. This post was not influenced by anybody; this is just me pouring out my dissatisfaction with Acer Philippines.

Barely a month ago, I was scouting for a branded desktop to replace my retired desktop. I opted to choose a branded desktop because it has neat packages and these days, the specs are at par with the assembled PC’s and since it’s branded you get the peace of mind that you get quality hardware and getting support will be a breeze because they have a name or reputation if you may, to take care of.

Well… I was WRONG

I saw this Acer Desktop, the specs were great and the package was very attractive. Long story short I bought the unit and was happy with the purchase, for me, this is a steal for the price.

Two days after, I started having problems with the wireless (yes this unit has WLAN). And after some observation, I realized there was a problem and started to diagnose it. Apparently the WLAN card intermittently turns on/off when doing a cold boot. Sometimes it turns on most of the time it does not. I remembered that Windows Vista had installed several updates before this issue occurred and so I decided to remove the said updates (two days worth of updates) to isolate if the driver of the WLAN was affected by the update. Alas the WLAN was not fixed. Out of desperation and since I haven’t installed anything yet, I attempted to restore factory settings using the recovery cd (which was made during the burn test of the unit). My attempt failed. The computer restarted, then recovery ran it wiped out the OS but it did not continue. For several minutes I waited but nothing. I tried to reboot but after rebooting, it did not find any OS, in short, PC was dead. It was really a downer because for a moment I thought, just two days, my investment was gone. I called up the store which I bought this unit from (Silicon Valley) and I was advised to bring the unit over including the recovery disks. I did and I was brought to the service center luckily it’s just across the store.

I told the technician everything and the technician was able to recover my PC to its factory state. I was happy and I saw that the WLAN was working again. I went home and to my shock, after setting up, after turning on my desktop WLAN stopped working again. Can you imagine this?

This is the “smoking gun” where I really needed to contact Acer Philippines. I sent an email and 3 days after, their response was the Code 10 error in the device manager says that the device was not properly setup and possibly driver issues. It looked like a copy paste description but anyway I know what Code 10 is I already researched Google. In response to the email, I told them everything and said if Acer will still insist that this is a device driver or some conflicts between the hardware(s) I will have to blame Acer for assembling this kind of configuration which will have potential problems.

After several days no reply from Acer, I tried calling their customer service hotline but to no avail. I don’t know if the representatives are all busy or they don’t have agents who will answer and the recording is just a generic lie.

I informed Acer via email (for record purposes) that I will bring my PC to the service center for a complete diagnosis. They did not respond to my email but still I went to the service center to have my now a week old desktop for potential (hate to say it) repairs.

The technician broke the seal and opened up the case. He replaced the WLAN to another slot and tried to pull it out and put it back again, because it might be loose or something, but nothing. It did not function at all. Instead of leaving the entire desktop cpu, I just left the now defective WLAN. This is now for investigation and if proven broken will be replaced. I emailed Acer AGAIN (no reply ever since my second email) to inform them what had happened again for record purposes.

Several days have passed and I called up the service center to check on the status. I was told that the WLAN is for replacement and is unsure when the supplier can provide a replacement. That made me upset a little bit. I emailed Acer AGAIN and this time I included all Acer email addresses I can find (regardless what country and who ever person with position) to ask why is this the case? Why not just send me a replacement WLAN card immediately? This is just (now a) two week old desktop? AGAIN NOBODY from Acer responded to my email. BUT after a couple of days, I did get a call from the service center saying that my replacement WLAN has arrived and can be picked up/installed at any time. Did you think CC’ing the CEO and several other Acer Philippines personnel to my last email did the trick? I would like to assume it did you will learn later why.

I went to the store on my rest day to get my WLAN installed. The replacement WLAN is now working up to this day. This is why I think my last email got their attention. I was informed by the technician that my email was forwarded to the service center and they read my email. You see they are reading my emails and nobody is responding to it. How frustrating is that?

Lastly, a day after my “replacement” WLAN got installed a guy called and he says he’s from Acer. I really want to drop the call; they are like the police in Philippine movies where they arrive when all the tension is over. Sort of like the cleanup crew. I said I am still doing a burn test to the device and it is inconclusive to tell right away that problem is solved. He told me that he will call again tomorrow to check but guess what, he never called back.

NOW as of this writing, my Acer Mouse I believe is now BROKEN. Yeah now my mouse is broken! It continuously blinks and is unusable. I tried it to other laptops here at home and same result. I tested my old mouse via the same USB ports and it works fine.

I am really SAD and FRUSTRATED about this, it seems like hardware is breaking down one by one. I emailed Acer again using the same email thread, just changed the subject. I said WILL YOU SEND ME A MOUSE?!

If you’re asking me why I told them to send me a replacement it’s because I don’t want to go back and forth the store/service center just for this mouse. I already spent gas money, food by going to and fro the service center during the WLAN issue. If you can just imagine the burden of carrying the heavy CPU tower to the service center several times and the labor of driving. I will now end this post, with this simple question.

Will you still buy Acer products after you read my horrific after sales support?

Update: I forgot to mention.. I found this post and I think they are just joking when they said this (if it were true) http://tinyurl.com/ybmhauh

Update: 11/23/09

Acer called up this afternoon, they will be replacing my defective Acer mouse and will be delivered to the service center I went to (in ATC). They will be replacing it immediately all I have to do is to surrender the defective mouse. I wonder which of the devices will malfunction next? :(

In tune of "Bahay Kubo"

Bahay ko po

dami putik

ang pumasok doon

ay sari sari

Nalamas na karton

sirang mejas at damit

silya, basurang

mapanghe!

ONDOY parusa

binura Marikina

at saka meron pa

lumubog na Edsa!

Montalban at Pasig

Taytay at Cainta

sa paligid ligid ay

puno ng BAHA!

:((((

Foreword
I have to admit, multiple of the confirmed speakers in the conference are my officemates, (I want this to be clear early on to avoid any biases when reviewing my entry or be in an awkward position, I have no intention in anyway to use them to pick me, I may get disqualified by this but it's ok, at least I tried.. and I did not see any rules about disqualifying entries if you are a co-worker of a speaker, if there is such a rule.. I didn't see it) although I am not in close working relationship with them, what I mean by that is, I get to interact with their subordinates. I do get to email them; but enough said here's why I want to attend.

Introduction
I am a rookie SQAE (Software Quality Assurance Engineer) by profession, I check sites for the presence of tags for Analytics and SEO (page rank purposes). I got to attend a simple seminar on SEO in the company but it has been a while and it pretty much covers just the introduction of SEO. Little by little I learn the importance of Analytics and SEO/SEM as I test it again and again. After almost working 2 years in the company I am in right now, I can say, we have the World class people working in our Marketing Department.



The Reason
I want to attend this conference for 2 major reasons:

1.) Work - As I have mentioned I am a SQAE. The company I am in right now is Marketing driven. I do have a hint on how our Marketing team does their SEO/SEM. If I get to attend this conference as QA I will have more confidence in voicing out suggestions or propose other alternatives to the solution. Also as QA I want to learn in detail how search engines work as they crawl your site.

2.) Personal Growth/Gain - If selected, undoubtedly  this conference will boost my confidence and skills. I strongly believe that there are a lot of opportunities out there for this field. And aside from my current position, I can be productive outside the office and I can practice this skills learned to be a freelancer. What I am most interested about is blogging. If not for profit, as a gadget enthusiast, I want to review stuff before it's released in the market or any newly launched tech stuff. I strongly believe that having good page ranks will get the manufacturer's attention and give me a review unit!

There you go... my 2 reasons why I want to attend SemCon 2009

Contest rules are Here
More about the Conference Here

Advertisements do work huh? Day after day, on my way to work, I am seeing this mini billboard of BAR Vodka / Gin at the MRT Taft Ave Station. I am soooo curious because the endorsers are in my age-range. And I get the perception that this product is intended for long engagements or parties if you may..

First Impressions:

The presentation is simple, it’s just a long necked bottle, with a one double sided label. The hard part was opening the bottle. Boy the cap is so tight, I needed an opening tool to do it. I was surprised to see a (what I call or it’s really called that way) stopper. This is I guess to measure the amount of liquor to pour in the glass. (I don’t know I am not familiar with these). Anyways I tried to take a sip and I can say that this drink is smooth. Jinro (Korean Wine) is much rougher than this. Maybe I can consider is the San Mig Light version of Vodka.  It has a strong orange scent which I think is a big plus. The scent is a big part when tasting something so it gives you an impression that you’re just taking orange juice (with alcohol).

I got to drink 2 small glass (mixed with orange juice) and I got the “hit” after a few minutes more. I can say that this is a good drink (when mixed) and I can recommend this for all night long parties or events.

I will drink the whole thing during the weekends so I can go to bed early and rise up late! Hehe…

Anyone got to try this?

I can't stop laughing when I translated my recent post in english via Google.. enough commercials here's the translation.... (shout out for Jeric Cabuyao.. hahahah!)

Original Article Here


I was bored po nung sometimes take me to MRT. I am a regular mananakay the MRT, the heavy and jostle natitiis I was able to enter and get home early. Pero nung once you are bored I was. It is the late, more passengers and the long interval of the train. Is the Shaw Blvd. Station, a train passing in the middle, not the specific reason this is the minimum of all the passengers more south. Filled with too much platform, too many people in the decision together that we wag nalang mag MRT and bus nalang. Back me Ticketing station for a refund or pass because I used the incoming ticket. Laking surprise and irritation ko nung sabihin sakin ng nag bebenta the ticket with a reduction of the P10 appears to me same station. Boarding fee if daw hindi ako nag kakamali.

Sa tagal kong sumasakay the MRT just now I found it. No information on post with this kind of system. And another very unfair because it did not used or napakinabangan the fare. I think that should remove this extrang charges. Not just not pay napakinabangan.

Isa pa po, would increase the guard platform, only dadalawa and incorrect ratio of the number of passengers on the 2 guard. and marshals would have the peak hours to sasaway in the tutulakan and sisiksikan. yung mga naka uniform dun sa office nila dun much for leisure.

Thank you!

If you have complaints you can sort of email PGMA @ op.gov.ph

I just sent a message concerning MRT. Below is the transcript:


Madam President,

Ako po ay nainis nung minsan ay sumakay ako sa MRT. Ako ay isang regular na mananakay sa MRT, yung siksikan at tulakan ay natitiis ko para lang maka pasok at makauwi ng maaga. Pero nung isang beses po ay ako ay nainis. Ito ay bandang gabi na, madaming pasahero at matagal ang interval ng tren. Ito ay sa Shaw Blvd. Station, may dumaan na tren sa gitna, sa di tiyak na kadahilanan ay ito ay nag baba ng lahat ng pasahero pa south. Napuno ng sobra ang platform, sa sobrang daming tao ay ang pasya kaming magkakasama na wag nalang mag MRT at mag bus nalang. Bumalik ako sa ticketing station para humingi ng refund or pass dahil nagamit ko na ang ticket papasok. Laking gulat at inis ko nung sabihin sakin ng nag bebenta ng ticket na may bawas na P10 pag lalabas ako sa same station. Boarding fee daw ito kung hindi ako nag kakamali.

Sa tagal kong sumasakay sa MRT ngayon ko lang ito nalaman. Walang impormasyon na naka paskil na may ganitong klaseng sistema. At isa pa napaka unfair ito dahil hindi naman nagamit o napakinabangan ang pamasahe. Sa tingin ko dapat tanggalin na ang extrang singil na ito. Hindi naman makatarungan bayaran ang hindi napakinabangan.

Isa pa po, sana dagdagan ang guard sa platform, dadalawa lang ito at hindi tama sa ratio ng dami ng pasahero sa 2 guard. at magka marshals sana pag peak hours para mag sasaway sa mga nag tutulakan at nag sisiksikan. yung mga naka uniporme dun sa office ang dami nila dun parang walang ginagawa.

Maraming salamat po!

Posted on October 10, 2007 by msumrell

More and more companies are either switching to agile practices or talking about switching to them.  Agile development highlights high-quality software delivery and yet the testing community seems to be the most resistant to adopting agile.  Have the qualities that make us great software testers become our own worst enemy when it comes to adopting agile practices?

 

I recently attended the Agile2007 conference in Washington DC.  I went to almost all of the testing focused talks and tutorials and as the week wore on, I came to an interesting yet disturbing realization.  After listening to dozens of testers ask questions during presentations, I realized that Software Testers, QA analysts, QA engineers, or whatever your team calls them have become their own worst enemy.  What gives me the right to say this?  I am a software tester and have been one for over 10 years.  I know how testers think and why we are the way we are. 

Agile development is all the rage these days.  If your company isn’t currently trying it out in one way, shape, or form then chances are that someone is talking about it.  After attending several sessions at the agile conference (and talking to dozens of testers there), the testing community seems to be the one that is resisting agile practices the most!  What really shocks me about this is that we (the testers) have the most to gain from good agile practices!  Agile focuses on high quality.  So, why are we resisting this so much?   

Let’s start by taking a look into the mind of a tester.  Testing is not just a skill set, but it really is a way of thinking.  Some people would even go so far as to say it is a way of life.  We generally have a “guilty until proven innocent” mentality.  When we are given code to test, the first thing we want to do is to prove that it doesn’t work.  That is our job.  That is why we get a paycheck.  That is why we come to work every day.  We are hired and paid to break things.  So, it is no surprise that when a new process (Scrum, XP, etc) is introduced, our first inclination as testers is to “break” the process.  We start looking for all of the ways that the process will fail and try to find defects in it.  We immediately assume (whether we realize it or not) that we don’t trust that the process has really been unit tested well and it is therefore our job to find all of the issues and challenges with it.   

So, all of you testers out there, I challenge you to change your way of thinking for a few minutes.  Instead of immediately trying to “break” agile practices, I challenge you to first analyze the process you are using today and list out the defects with it.  Here is a quick list of the typical “defects” that testers complain about on software projects: 

1.     We are never invited to meetings early in the project to discuss requirements, design, etc.  We have no input into what is being built so we have a hard time creating test plans.

2.     By the time we start testing, the requirements have changed 10 times and no one has told us.  So, we have no idea what we are testing anymore and our test plans are not valid.

3.     We have no idea what development is doing when they are coding and code is “thrown over the wall” for us to test.

4.     We never have the amount of time we need to test.  If development delivers late, then we don’t get to push out our testing time.

5.     The code we get from developers is really hard to automate and is of poor quality.

6.     We feel the full burden of quality.  If we miss a bug, everyone will blame QA! 

How does agile solve these issues?  The beauty of agile development (when done correctly) is that it puts quality first every step of the way.  This sounds like a testers dream come true, doesn’t it? 

Let’s take a closer look at the 6 problems listed above and how good agile practices help solve these issues: 

1.     Agile is all about including the entire team in release planning, iteration planning, estimation, etc.  Testers are involved upfront and in every step of the way.  If priorities change, the entire team knows about it, including the testers.

2.     Agile promotes test first activities.  On good agile teams, the acceptance tests are written before development even starts.  The entire team sees the tests and agrees that they need to pass in order for that story to be considered “done.”   

3.     The tests are written first, so the testers always know what the developers are doing – they are writing code to make the tests pass!  The testers and developers are sitting side by side working as a team to ensure the tests are passing.  There are no walls on agile teams….just constant collaboration and communication.

4.     In agile teams, nothing is considered “done” until it has passed the acceptance tests.  Therefore, developers don’t talk about being “done” until the tests pass.  We don’t discuss design complete, coding complete, and testing complete.  Nothing is done until the tests pass and that is what matters.

5.     The developers know what the tests are before they start coding.  This encourages them to build code that can be automated easily.  Their focus is to build code that makes the tests pass.

6.     It the entire team’s responsibility to drive stories to completion with all tests passing.  The entire team carries the responsibility of producing high quality software. 

So, why do testers want agile to fail?  Why in the world would we want to stay in our waterfall world full of problems when there is clearly a better, higher quality way of building and delivering software?  What are we afraid of?  I think there are 4 main reasons that make testers resist a change to agile.  Fear, accountability, skill set, and the need to be right. 

Most testers out there are afraid of the unknown.  We may not like the delivery process we are currently in but it is comfortable and we know what to expect.  Moving into the “unknown” means a loss of control.  That isn’t a happy place for testers.  We tend to fall into the Type-A, control-freak side of the spectrum.  I know this because I am one.   

Our current waterfall process gives us something to blame when we miss bugs that go into production.  We can always say, “I didn’t have enough time” or “the requirements changed and I didn’t know it” or “I couldn’t automate the tests so we didn’t have time to run them more than once.”   

We are also comfortable with our current skill set, especially if we are manual testers.  Agile testing relies heavily on test automation to be successful.  Therefore, when teams start discussing a change to agile, we hesitate to get on board because we are scared that we won’t provide value on those teams with our current skill set.  When you think about this, it is really a double standard for developers and testers.  As technology changes, we expect our developers to learn new languages, architectures, etc.  Why should we as testers be allowed to stay stagnant in our technologies and skill set?  We should constantly work to increase our skill sets to match the changing needs of the software industry, too!  Testing on an agile team is very different then testing on a waterfall team, especially if all of your testing has been manual.  Adopting good agile practices may require new skills, tools, and techniques.  Instead of pushing back, I challenge you to look at this an opportunity to beef up your skill set and learn new things.  Get engaged!     

Testers do not like to be wrong.  It is our job to ensure that what we are testing is “right.”  I believe that many testers worry that if they start championing agile practices, they will be looked at as having been “wrong” with their former processes.  I argue that learning a new process or skill doesn’t mean that the old one was wrong.  That is just as crazy as saying that old development languages were “wrong” and everyone that used them were wrong.  In reality, we were all doing what we knew to be the best at that time.  Processes and technologies improve and evolve over time.  Testers need to embrace this as much as the development community does. 

As testers, we are champions of quality at our organizations.  If you are a tester that is currently resisting a change to agile practices, I ask you to take an honest look as to why.  If you can truly say that your process has no room for quality improvement, then I would love to hear what you are doing.  You must sleep very well at night J  If not, then push yourself out of your comfort zone and take that first step.  Stop trying to “break” agile and start practicing it.

Source: http://megansumrell.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/software-testers-have-we-become-our-own-worst-enemy/

Written by: Lisa Crispin
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 6:41 AM

Some leaders in the testing industry continue to maintain that test teams are “gatekeepers”, the watchguards for quality. This makes me sad. I’ve spent many years now in development organizations where everyone—programmers, architects, DBAs, system administrators, analysts, customers as well as testers—takes responsibility for quality. These teams have delivered software whose quality is many levels of magnitude beyond teams where the testers were the quality gatekeepers.

One argument I hear from people who advocate separate, “independent” test teams is that testers who work together with developers (especially those who report to the same manager as the programmers) are vulnerable to a programmer suggesting that their “minor” change (“It was just one line of code”) doesn’t warrant any testing. This implies that the programmers don’t care if they introduce defects into the software.

Crummy programmers influencing gullible testers isn’t an issue to be solved by separating them into different, siloed teams. What we need to do is: 1) hire people who care about doing a good job, and 2) give them the time and training they need to do a good job.  It’s not an organizational issue, it’s a management issue.

All the good testers I know are independent thinkers. If a programmer tells them, “I only changed one line of code, you don’t need to test anything,” they’ll analyze the situation and decide for themselves what testing is warranted. If there’s a time crunch, they’ll provide the customer with information about the risk of not doing all the testing they think is needed, and let the customer make the decision.

My independent streak doesn’t change when I report to the development manager instead of to the QA manager. There was a time when I was proud to be the “Quality Boss” and hold the keys to production. Back when I did that, the quality of the software we released was average at best, and our product wasn’t competitive. Seeing the results of the “whole team” approach to quality has convinced me that more collaboration and communication, not less, is the way to go.

Don’t worry about whether your test team is separate or not. If you’re a tester, get up now and go start talking to the programmers. See how you can help them. See how they can help you. If you’re a manager, start hiring the best people you possibly can, and start training the people you have to care about quality and learn how to deliver high-quality software.

Source:
http://blogs.stickyminds.com/Blogs/tabid/91/EntryId/93/Independent-Testers-Or-Independent-Thinkers.aspx