special user logins

Sometimes they are necessary. They create special scenarios that don't seem to be handled very well.

These are some of the problems I have seen with them:

1) Login 1000 is reserved as the "Administrator", but not stored in the database table. What happens if I make a new login 1000 and assign it read only permission? Hopefully the application prevents that, but sometimes it does not.

2) Administrator Login still has the menu option to allow its password to be changed. It definitely should allow the default password to be changed, just make sure the old one doesn't work too. Otherwise changing the default password was pointless.

3) Administrator Login is stored in the database table, but it can be deleted or renamed. Now I lost my special user.

4) Administrator Login 1000 is enabled only when the userlogin table is empty. When a login is deleted it marks a deleted flag true so the audit history can be kept instead of deleting the row. If all users are deleted nobody can get into the software because it only checks if the table is empty instead of also checking if all users are marked deleted.

5) Some special logins have special passwords. They could be generated using a formula or some other method. Does the special password work correctly?

6) The special user uses a weak password and it cannot be changed. Why even make a special user if it will be insecure? They would be better off with no logins at all.

7) The special logins are stored separately from the regular logins; in a text file, in the Windows registry, or in an Access database.

8) New menus were added to the program, but they weren't added for the special user. Now the user is no longer an Administrator.

Running MSI on Virtual Machine and never ending message about disk space

I was running an msi on a virtual machine, but it kept displaying this message: "please wait while the installer finishes determining your disk requirements." I found an MSDN blog post that said to run the msi from the command line or restart the Windows Installer service.

VS2010 warning in Class Library for custom rules

I installed Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. They added some new features to the web tests which are really awesome. My favorite is in the Web Test results, new toolbar button that says "go to Web Test" and it takes you directly to the Request. It was hard to figure out which request caused the failure sometimes. Loops and Conditions can now be added to the web tests. Actually Web Tests were renamed to Web Performance Tests. The tests can now check response times, which looks promising.

I have a Class Library for Custom Extraction Rules and Custom Validation Rules. I got warnings when I built the Solution in 2010, but I did figure out why eventually and fixed them. The warning says that overriding RuleName and RuleDescription is now obsolete. Here is that actual message:

warning CS0672: Member 'CustomValidationExtractionRules.QueryStringExtraction.RuleName' overrides obsolete member 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.WebTesting.ExtractionRule.RuleName'. Add the Obsolete attribute to 'CustomValidationExtractionRules.QueryStringExtraction.RuleName'

I didn't know what they meant by add the obsolete attribute to RuleName (I'm not a programmer), but here's how I figured it out. Viewed the Class Library in the Object Explorer and browsed to CustomValidationExtractionRules> QueryStringExtraction> Base Types> Extraction Rule> RuleName. Under Summary it says "This method is no longer used. Use the System.ComponentModel.DisplayNameAttribute on the class to set a display name for this rule." So I looked up System.ComponentModel.DisplayNameAttribute and used the example to figure out I need to add two properties above the class definition, like this:

[Description("Demonstrates DisplayNameAttribute.")]
[DisplayName("RenamedProperty")]
public bool MisnamedProperty

Also needed to add "using System.ComponentModel;"

I'm a tester, not a programmer, but I'm learning.

change of scenery

Today I had a checkup at the eye doctor and they dialated my eyes. I still went to work, but it was pretty hard to see the monitor. I turned down the brightness. I was able to find 10 bugs that I should have seen a long time ago.

I'm being monitored for glaucoma, but so far everything is fine. I only have high pressure in my eyes. Both were 29. The doctor said I don't need medicine until something changes with my vision.

This reminded me that I need to make a better effort to see things differently. I've been training myself to find software bugs, but maybe I'm not finding enough of the obvious issues.

Here's some things to try that might help you see the software in a new way: rearrange your desk, change the monitor resolution, change the brightness, change the Windows theme, or change browser skins.

Web Service Testing

Yesterday I read about a open source project used for testing Web Services. It was a discussion thread at a LinkedIn Group. Someone asked everyone to list their favorite automated testing tools.

This utility is called soapUI. I recommend it for testing web services. Here's what I have done with it so far; create a new project, point to the WSDL, generate the test suite and mock service, edit a request, and then submit request to the endpoint URL.

It reminded me how I learned software testing. I read books, articles, forum posts, and try all kinds of tools, utilities, and scripting languages. I'm still learning all the time.

Microsoft E-Learning new for MSDN subscribers

MSDN subscribers are supposed to get free e-learning; one or two collections. I just found out about this today so I tried to sign up. It says I'm eligible for 2 collections, but wouldn't allow me to sign up for them.

The first screen says: "MSDN Premium Subscriber: Please select up to two of the listed Microsoft Learning E-Learning Collections and press the Submit button below. Note: You must select both collections at the same time. If you are not ready to make your selection now please close the browser so that you may return to this Product Selection Page via the MSDN Subscription site on a subsequent visit."

Below that is a list of products with checkboxes next to them. So I checked two items and clicked Submit and then I got this error; it said I selected the incorrect number of products:






so I tried submitting with only one checkbox selected and got the same message; incorrect number of products selected

so I tried selecting three checkboxes and got another error; the maximum allowed is two






Maybe it is going to make me wait until after the first of the year, not sure. I hope I can sign up eventually.

Unvalidated Input

I was looking at old bug reports the other day and thinking about the kinds of bugs I find. Unvalidated input has been a common source of bugs. The program doesn't check if the values entered by the user is within the expected range.

I know there isn't an easy answer for these kinds of errors, but wondered how it will be solved in the future. The only half decent answer I thought of was to stop letting users enter whatever they want. For example if they are entering their phone number only accept digits and ignore anything else. Or some type of keyboard or input system that knows which values are on the good list.

Until then I will continue entering letters in numeric fields and reporting the same type of bugs.