Road from Rated to Gold Tester Part#5

I remember a feeling and drive when I was getting higher in my test rating on uTest. Watching my bugs being approved and most of bugs I have submitted were getting higher and higher value pay out.It such pleasure  and feeling of proud yourself that you can actually be useful, your ideas and work can worth something. Thinking this way and keep working  with more caution on each cycle not only improved my bug, test case reporting but also pushed me to the next level of being a Silver Rated Tester. Each level was giving me more confidence in my abilities and I have noticed that when a person see that he/she excels, it let's their inner feeling and passion just open up and start working like a clock for non-stop. And I liked that feeling, everyday waking up and checking for new Test Cycle invitations, new experience on Mobile, Desktop and Web Applications. Getting in every possible hole of the app and getting those bugs was drive for me. Not After a long time, may be 3, 4 weeks, and I remember this day, it was May 14th, 2012 when I officially became Gold Rated Tester. I was feeling like, now I roll for real and will do even more work as I never did before, hell yeaaaah!!!! And also, I didnt forget that the higher the rating the higher the pay out is for testers :D

As of today, I have been keeping up with uTest almost for 4 months on full-time basis, where I spend most of time performing different kind of Testing. Such as Functional, Localization, Performance, etc. I would not complain and say that Testing is not fun or hard but at some point I have noticed and felt that by watching all these App developers sheets and test plans being developed by other people. Each App's Development model, which I really liked and actually is driven by that. I realized that I want to get on developer side now and do develop my own Apps and start applying my Software Testing skill and learn more about development at the same time. When I say Development, I mean Mobile, Web Application development. In the near future, I am about to come one step close to my dream where I want to stand. 

Looking forward for more blogs and sharing my experience. Again, I want to thank uTest community for a great opportunity for most new and experience testers to come close on uTest platform and share each others experience.

Best Regards,

Mirshad Ozuturk

Road from Rated to Gold Tester Part#4

It is a great feeling to be one of the top players in a team. Where team, can be any team from soccer players, basketball, baseball and also testers. I am Gold Rated Tester now and I am glad that I can bring my skills and experience into the community of Tester where we can learn and share from each other.I always think back that time when I was the beginner in uTest community and think of my steps and actions I took to become the Gold Rated Tester. I believe that if I keep my will and passion on the same level, I can reach and learn more. And also make more money. But if I keep my level a bit higher and use my curiosity more, I believe I can go beyond the limits. That's exactly what I am looking towards to do :D Pushing the limits.
     I cant forget those moments, where I used to check my Ranking status every week on Mondays. I wanted to see that Golden badge under my name and be proud so much. I was accepting every single Test cycle possible and just Test, Test and Test. Being a Proven Rated Tester those days made my mind just look for every single opportunity to test and grow ranking. After couple weeks I became Bronze Rated Tester. I was and I still do count every single Test cycle that I accept and participate. But as my Ranking was growing, I have noticed that my report quality was getting better and better. And ofcourse as a new Testers, I used to chase the Quantity of the bugs rather than Quality. By the time I have learnt that quality is a MUST be first priority of any Tester. Because High quality bug/defect can give developers App changing ideas and thus High Pay Rate for Tester. I keep changing my Testing methodology and looking for more "Sensitive" areas of each App that I was Testing. Since then I started to keep a record of my High valued Bug/Defects that I reported. 
      I keep learning and improving my Software Testing skill set and also sharing it with my fellow Testers all around the world. Many Thanks to uTest Community and I wish best of luck to my friends and testers.


Regards,
Mirshad Ozuturk

Road From Rated to Gold Tester - Part#3

It has been such a great experience in learning and applying software testing knowledge on real life for Desktop and Mobile applications, web-sites. After doing some more research about Software Testing field, I have found many useful website and blogs who has same passion as I do. Every Tester has a unique methodology in approaching each software/application/website. I have been reading  couple blogs of well known experts of the field such as James Bach, Cem Caner, Rex Black. By reading their blogs, I understand that every Tester is unique and always has own point of view to the problem.
     After participating in couple more Test Cycle and seeing that my Rank started growing by weekly, I have realized that I am on my right way. Accepting more projects and reporting as many valuable bugs as possible. I have read couple posts on uTest forum regarding getting own Rank up to Gold Rated Tester. Forum did thought and gave very useful hints in reporting the Defects and Test cases. By following suggestions and defect reports of Gold Tester, I have improved my own reports which made me Proven Rated Tester after successfully completing couple more Test Cycles. 
     I kept and still keep learning from the best in the field and try to challenge them. I started to analyze my each step after each report I make. I am planning to have special Note Book to record my style/method of approach for each specific Test cycle, may be specific steps that led me to valuable defects and also watch other tester's valuable reports, steps they have followed and methodology.
     And again, I want to thank uTest community for this great opportunity for testers to learn and share their knowledge. Especially in productive way, where each tester can make $$$$$  from valuable reports. I wish all the best to my fellow testers and Happy Testing.


Regards,
Mirshad Ozuturk

Road From Rated to Gold Tester - Part#2

I have never thought I would find Software Testing field to be so interesting and challenging. It gives so much to learn and apply on real life applications. From my personal experience, theory knowledge is important but applying that theory into real life experience makes learning even better and sharpen the skills.
I have been the part of uTest community since February 23, 2012 and everyday I tried and still trying to get as many Test cycles as I can. After successfully completing my trial Test Cycle, I was invited to my second Client-Server Application Test cycle. Honestly I didn't know much about Professional Functional Exploratory Testing. I had a bit of fear that I would not do well or submit any defects as required. But deeply in my heart I knew that I want to try and do my best to explore for my self and experience it. After giving a thought, I accepted the invitation for Test cycle and started testing. My first feeling, I was lost in requirements and I was even afraid to ask any extra questions to Project Managers or Test team leads just NOT to seem dumb :DDD
But after all, I kept following my intuition and started exploring the Application and requirements. I kept searching and looking for hints and after half a day of playing around with the Application, I understood how it works. And also not be wrong in defect submission, I checked fellow tester's defect reports and analyzed them. It gave me more confidence in Testing/Reporting and I started my BUG hunting. It was amazing hunt, where I have submitted about 10-15 defects and all of them were APPROVED and I started to getting paid for my good work. It was a great feeling to do something you like to do and getting paid. The best of all was my new learning experience for Functional Exploratory Testing. I have told my self that I will practice and do more Tests and just practice, practice and practice. I never put MONEY above my own goals, family, friends, relationships with others. I respect the MONEY I earn with my knowledge and skills that I have, it gives me even more drive to learn stuff that I like. I always keep this saying to my self: "Knowledge is the POWER" which never can be taken away from any person's mind. Even though my first pay was NOT high, I was very satisfied by my self that I can actually do something worth money and my time of learning and applying it.
     And again I would like to thank uTest community for giving this opportunity to people who likes and passionate about Software Testing field. I wish best of luck to fellow testers and looking forward to get more Test cycles and learn/share my knowledge and skill with anyone who strive to learn/explore/share.


Regards,


Mirshad Ozuturk

Road From Rated to Gold Tester - Part#1

I joined uTest community on February 23rd, 2012. It was the day when I found Software Testing very interesting and challenging field. During my study period at the University, I always wondered Where and How I can apply my Software Development and Testing skills. uTest community gave me this opportunity of deep understanding the Software Testing field.
      I have started my uTest account as Rated(Beginner) Tester. For every new Tester, uTest community provides first Test cycle as NOT- payed. By providing  this opportunity, new Testers can prove their ability to search for genuine defects and report correct Test cases as required. My first trial Test cycle was on webs-site, where I had to submit three defects and one Test case. I have completed all required steps successfully even though one of my submitted defects was REJECTED :) but I have found more defects and made sure it would not effect my Rating among other testers. If I am not mistaken, total number of testers was 100+. It was a great experience for the first live Test cycle, learning all the necessary tools to record your defects, following submission processes and writing acceptable, correct test cases. Overall, it gave me the feeling of that I love finding quality defects and reporting them accordingly, as expected and not just to listen or following exact steps of the task but thinking out of the BOX. Thinking in different ways than others, led me to find more interesting and fun defects of the given web-site. 
     Test cycle was locked after couple days and I was very inpatient to get my result of the submitted defects. As a result, all my defects were APPROVED by the customer and I was satisfied physically and mentally. My mind was flying in the skies by seeing success in my results and thinking of my time and effort I have put into that Test cycle. I was thinking of more Test cycles that I can actually take and prove not only to uTest community but to my self that I am passionate about challenges, new areas to learn/study and apply in real world applications. But the best part when you learn and share at the same time with your fellow uTesters. As I have mentioned before, there a lot of good materials on uTest forum. Crash courses from the best in the field, if not the best, I would say Tester who are very passionate about Software Testing Field and striving to learn the most and come up with new ideas for Testing. I have never seen and thought of this field to be so interesting, challenging and always evolving with different methods/techniques to Learn and Test. I am very thankful to uTest community and fellow testers who support, teach, learn and Test.
     Every day I will post one or more stuff I learned from Testing and share my thoughts/ideas. I wish the best the of luck to all fellow Testers, looking forward to have more challenges and solve them with my learn/shared skills.


Best Regards,


Mirshad Ozuturk

Last Day of Winter Semester

It was amazing winter semester at the University. A lots of challenge and interesting assignments, midterms and finals for students. I didn't attend this semester because of my personal reasons but I have found very good sides of it which actually helped me in self education and giving more of a thought about university education. I personally think that university just guides through the real world opportunities and helps to discover inner personal talent that can be used through all life. A person chooses his/her way and follows the path, pursue dreams and achieve them either with success or a failure, either way we learn the lesson.
          Through out all winter semester I have done self study and been coaching my self with online tutorial videos in programming languages like C, C++, Java and some Web programming languages such as: HTML/XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, HTML5. Another Subject that discovered which very interesting to me was Software Testing, that's actually what I am doing right now. Learning and making money from what I have learned and actually applying it on real life applications. I find it very interesting, because Normally I would think that if I need money I will go and work as in hard labor work experience for somebody. But I thought different way and said to my self that I can actually make money with my own knowledge, apply it and make even more. But my main point is not about money and earnings, its about learning experience and right moments for the opportunities and catching them on the way. I have discovered that it takes only a will and a thought and biggest one is the first step to make towards what you want to do or achieve. So far I am the part of an amazing Software Testing community called uTest. This community gives a lots of useful material for newbies to become real world Software Testing professionals. Very friendly community and has different interesting programs such uMentor, Competitions among uTesters for best BUG reports and so many other stuff. Its FREE to join and getting a membership access. I am suggesting to my fellows partners from my Computer Science classes to join and some of them actually liked it and was interested to check it out. Just for the reference here is the link for uTest main website.
          I am looking forward to see you at the uTest community and making uTest community even larger and more friendly for other fellow uTesters.
       

Intro

Dear friends,
This is my first blog and I am looking forward to keep blogging and sharing my best experiences in Software Testing. This Blog will be dedicated to Software Testing and also I will be sharing new ideas and methods to approach expert skills in this field.
          A little bit of my background, I am a third year Software Engineer student at the University of Windsor, in City of Windsor, Ontario in Canada. I am very passionate about Software Development, Web Application, Mobile Application and Systems development. I like challenges that each Development or Testing cycle brings along. I am more of a team player but also like accomplishing task on my own if it is required.
I believe this is going to be very exciting journey with a lot of success and also a bit of failure but after each failure I will learn the lesson. Like great teacher Thomas Edison said: I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. So let's not give up after any failure and let's push our limits to the MAX and give our best, because I know, I can do and own more than what I have right now, it doesn't matter materially or mentally.
As a conclusion I would like to say,I welcome you all who is right now and will join the journey in Software Testing. Have a great learning and sharing experience.

Best of Luck

Mirshad Ozuturk