The past four month’s have offered me an an incredible chance to learn, far more than any one job, classroom or book may offer. I have learned a lot; everything from the Mozilla platform to invalidation reference testing to XML User Interface Language (XUL) to reducing test-cases for crashes in the browser to even the vast assortment of brown-bag and meet-up discussions, I have learned a lot. With the knowledge gained, this internship opportunity has been far more rewarding than one could possibly imagine. There is nothing more rewarding than having the opportunity to discover and ascertain and to certainly ask many upon many questions.

Four month’s long, I worked alongside the QA (Execution & Test Dev), (that of which include Clint and Heather) team driving forth many efforts within the world of testing. Over the months, I got to tackle quite a few tricky issues that turned out to require new and unique solutions that I really enjoyed inventing and implementing. The different challenges and testing opportunities were each rewarding as they demonstrated the underlying importance of software testing.

See my parting presentation here for a complete overview (no <iframe/> in WordPress) of the major project I worked on in July/August and the test development areas I worked on in May and June .

That being said, I’m not gone yet. Despite a return to my final year of software development in school, I’ll continue to chip in to the efforts of the QA team and other projects to come, only I’ll be on IRC at a slightly different time of day.

Thanks Mozilla and in particular the friendly folks of QA for the first-rate experience!

Take care Mozilla,

Aaron

Fresh new QA Companion. This version has a revamped design of the former QAC, with functionality for running manual tests, reporting bugs, and viewing the latest QMO news. 1.0 is a vast improvement over 0.2.3!

Download the latest version here

So what is the Mozilla QA Companion (QAC)?

The Mozilla QA Companion (QAC) is a new tool that was created after discussions between the QA team and community about how to make it easier for anyone to get involved with the Mozilla project and help us test Firefox.

The QAC is meant to be an easy way to get community members involved in the QA process. It pulls testcases from Litmus and provides a response form, all within the QAC interface. The QAC also includes notifications for important QA events such as Bug Days, and keeps users up-to-date with live feeds from the QMO site and forums.

Features

• General QMO tab — updates on news, forums, etc.
• ‘Run Tests’ tab — This is the heart of the extension. It allows users to get testcases to run and to submit results from within the extension. QAC will detect most system settings and helps new users set up a Litmus account if they don’t have one already.
• ‘File Bug’ tab – File bugs by submitting a report!
• Settings/Help (Preferences) — This is for the confused or misconfigured.

Installation

You can install the QA Companion like any other Firefox add-on by visiting https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5428

Getting involved with testing and development

• Install Mozilla QA Companion 1.0
• Run test cases through QAC by interacting with Litmus
• Submit bug reports to Bugzilla through issues you find in testcases.
• Join us in #qa on irc.mozilla.org

The interface is fairly intuitive and easy to follow, but please let us know if you have any questions. Find us on IRC or post to the QMO forums. We hope you find the Mozilla QA Companion a useful tool that helps you get more involved with the Mozilla QA community!

Thanks!

- Aaron Train, on behalf of the Mozilla QA Companion revamp team

That’s incredible!

Full Screen Video, is the name of the add-on, and it adds a Full Screen option to the context menu for HTML5 videos.

Cheers, ‘design-noir’

Aaron

HOME is more than a documentary with a message, it is a magnificent movie in its own right and has an impact on anyone who sees it. It awakens in us the awareness that is needed to change the way we see the world. It embraces the major ecological issues that confront us and shows how everything on our planet is interconnected. Everything is interconnected.

How can we take this means of awakening, interconnection and global consanguinity to bring everyone together on the web? Can we accelerate an integrated worldview towards critical mass by opening a medium where people can see what happens when they are empowered by each other?

We all want to live in a better world, and many among us are working to make that world a possibility. Improvement is achieved through ideation, innovation, cultivation and application of solutions to problems. However, due to the blindingly complex nature of the problems we currently face, equally sophisticated solutions are required. These solutions are beyond the realm of any one person or small group of people. It is the globe that faces these problems and thus it is the global mind that must develop matching solutions.

There are now more links, websites, documents and files on the internet than there are synapses in a single human brain. Having reached into every attribute of human life, it is now steering the course of history.

It is estimated that over 1.5 billion individuals have access to the internet with user growth ever increasing in the developing world. Classified as the most capable and sophisticated tool ever developed by mankind, the internet represents the pinnacle of thousands of years of technological development.

Accelerating at rapid growth at blazing speeds in development, it affirms rather than conflicts with human identify. In essence, it connects us in real and personal ways to other human beings. With higher potential beginning to reveal itself, an opportunity is presented to forge a network which interconnects those who improve our world. We now have the means and the wisdom to implement a system that fosters world-changing collaboration amongst the people of this planet.

We are, without question, living in the most exciting time in human history. Human potential is expanding as technology continues to bring awareness to the great realm of our knowledge and understanding, the populace of our planet are beginning to awaken, en masse, to our true inner nature and our integrated relationship with the world around us.

As the world wakens to its indissoluble oneness, we still see an escalating disarray. Fears of governmental paranoia and terrorism run amok, global economic collapse looms, and of course the earth herself is exhibiting the symptoms of feeble health.

We are now at a crossroads. Despite all the incalculable knowledge available at our fingertips, we are unable to predict the days forthcoming. There comes a point when every new and competing idea is put to a test. If that idea is to be successful it must reach a critical mass.

How can Mozilla and the internet of tomorrow work to accelerate an integrated worldview towards critical mass by opening a medium where people can see what happens when they are empowered by each other?

- AaronMT

As Firefox 3.5 is rounding the track towards the finish line, I can’t help but put my personal focus on that of HTML5 video. Firefox’s implementation of the HTML5 video API accompanied with royalty-free codecs, fundamentally progress the movement towards bringing an open video to the web.

HTML5 video truly is fascinating stuff, as Mike Beltzner explains, gone are the days of static videos played on static pages. With HTML5 video, we can treat video’s  like web pages – which makes sense in a dynamic web.

These past few weeks, I have been progressively focused – eye-to-eye with trying to dig deep and unveil any remaining issues and it has been fun.

It’s been a real treat observing the progression from design to implementation of this feature and can’t wait to see it ship with Firefox 3.5 and how it will grow in the near future.

Tomorrow is a MoCo company wide internal test of Firefox 3.5 Preview Release, let’s work together to iron out any hidden creases in HTML5 video, and across the entire board in order to bring forth the next iteration of the browser by the people for the people, they deserve it!

Cheers,

Aaron Train (AaronMT)

In particular, I have analyzed a variety of the hot listed and decided to pick up on writing invalidation reftests for the bugs that give me a starting point, in my case – a test case.

The bugs I have written invalidation reftests for this week, and, am continuing to correct and finalize include:

• bug 416073 – table repaint is funky
• bug 474201 – background-color not reset when visiting new page
• bug 437704 – SVG rendering stops
• bug 485361 – invalidation bug

Bug 437704 – SVG rendering stops, is a very easily identifiable regression that is in fact, visible in the browser between that of current Firefox 3.0.x and any recent Minefield release (as of writing, I am testing in Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.2a1pre) Gecko/20090508 Minefield/3.6a1pre. A problem exists in the layout rendering engine where an SVG graphic (Scalable Vector Graphic, an XML specification and file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and animated) does not completely render. See screenshot below.

On the top (or left depending on your screen width) we have Firefox 3.0.10 and on the bottom (or right depending on your screen width) we have a recent build of Minefield (3.6a1pre), where Minefield (1.9.2a1pre) renders correctly and Firefox 3.0.10 (1.9.0.10) does not.

The reftest would be interesting in that, despite this scenario being difficult to duplicate as a reference, one might simply use the perfect rendering as the reference for comparison to the test. The image on the left should ideally render complete and look like the image on the right. The test would pass and only pass if every pixel rendered is an exact duplicate of the reference (in this case, the perfect rendered copy).

You can in fact test it out right now, no tools necessary. If you’re on Firefox 3.0.x (1.9.0.10), simply click here – the image is supposed to display the average gasoline prices per country – but alas the image does not render properly, or in fact completely. If you’re on a newer build of Firefox 3.5 (Shiretoko)  or Minefield 3.6a1 (1.9.2a1pre) try loading the same image – the results are what you would expect.

As this week comes to a close, I look forward to next week to make any revisions in my tests and move on to other bugs.

Cheers,

Aaron

Having worked three days at Mozilla (building K) is surreal. As mentioned on the wiki, I have been ‘splashed’ with the Mozilla hose! From bewilderment to clarity and astonishment to excitement, my last three days can relate to a unique roller coaster ride.

Mozilla is unlike any office I have envisioned or have worked in before. From the surprisingly large bottom floor open area with the sectional couches, lawn chairs, bean bag chairs and projector screen to the open area conference rooms and work stations, Mozilla truly understands what being open is all about. The openness and split from the ‘norm’ definitely brings forth a true sense of comfort. When I sit on the large sectional couches, I cant help but envision sitting in a friend’s basement and I understand why – it brings about the most interesting ideas, discussions and topics.

The people I have met so far are all truly passionate about their work and it definitely shows when the opportunity arises through weekly meetings. Having attended three meetings, I have heard the thoughts of many unique individuals speak passionately about the work they do. Of the three, from platform discussion to weekly QA to last Monday’s ‘all hands’, each a one-of-a-kind event.

They call it Mozilla because they are about openness and difference and it demonstrates – they really are a workplace like no other. I am happy to contribute through my internship this summer.

On a more technical note, I am working on writing tests for bugs that bring forth rendering issues in the layout engine caused by invalidation. The type of tests are considered reference tests or reftests. They traditionally work by taking a snapshot of the entire window at the end of the test and comparing that to a snapshot of the reference page.

However, there’s a fairly large class of bugs classified as “invalidation bugs” — they only show up when you redraw part of a page, and when you draw the whole page everything’s fine. This is where the new form testing comes in that I am currently focusing on.

An example of a bug I picked, is bug 449362 – where in the past, simple HTML table borders have been rendered incorrectly when table cell sizes changes due as a result of running JavaScript.

Only three days in and lots more to come so stay tuned – I know at least one is waiting

Cheers,
Aaron

As many of you know, I am doing an summer internship with Mozilla Corporation.

The Mozilla Corporation (abbreviated MoCo) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Mozilla Firefox web browser and the Mozilla Thunderbird email client by the growing global community of open-source developers, only some of whom are employed by the corporation itself.

At Mozilla, I will be coordinating with QA Engineers, interns and other colleagues within the QA Team. We will be rolling up our sleeves and getting our hands messy in creating and working with tests and testing utilities, all in the pursuit of inching towards a Firefox 3.5 release down the road.

Over the course of the summer, I will conclude each week with a reflection via a posting -  each tagged  ‘internship’.

My next posting will focus on what I have accomplished in my first week.

Cheers,

Aaron

One’s first path of assistance would venture down the realm of speech-to-text, but really how viable is this solution?

Nuance’s Dragon software line is the epitome of speech-to-text software. They have legal, medical and various other industry customized solutions, but what about a software line that was tailored to Microsoft’s Visual Studio?

Imagine a customized solution for such an IDE. It could leverage Intellisense to work through the various commands as you go and when you want to use a variable (something that is NOT a predefined word in the intellisense dictionary that Dragon could use to match all words against) you could give a command like ‘UDV – variable’sName’ either spelled out or trained.

Being able to bind to Intellisense for all possible voice commands would seem to make it a much easier task and then with break words that you would say first then followed by an IDE command like “Compile – No Debug”, etc…

I can’t see why this isn’t possible.

For the sake of comedy, look at this for programming with voice recognition that exists today:

In my opinion, speech-to-text as a solution for programmers who are physically disabled has a long way to go. With the delicate syntax of languages and the perfection of the software interpreter taking our voice and transcribing it as intended is an aspiration. Simply put, as the video above demonstrates – what should be simple, becomes a tedious ache.

Surely there must be folks out there considering the necessity to expand, improve and work to solution. If so, please reply, I’d be interested in the results.

As for the open source helping hand, one project I have stumbled upon is CMUSphinx: The Carnegie Mellon Sphinx Group Open Source Speech Recognition Engine.

This group of individuals are working together in an open environment in order to stimulate the creation of speech-using tools and applications, and to advance the state of the art both directly in speech recognition, as well as in related areas including dialog systems and speech synthesis.

It would be interesting to see the world of open source development work first hand on such a huge issue since we have yet to see any big-name speech-to-text companies provide a viable solution.

Cheers,
– Aaron