June 14, 2004

Let's try our very best to crash it

Crowned with two headsets I find myself wired to two PCs. Every move seems delicate and I panic when the phone rings. No, I am not being tortured – I am beta- testing version 3 of WebTrain’s webconferencing software.

Having joined the tech trial which WebTrain extended to their intimate customers I am testing, reviewing, checking, evaluating, reporting and re-testing bug fixes. Screenshot after screenshot fill pages of reports. I run the same test twice. It turns past midnight. The report is finished and sent off.

Feel free to join me to sneak into the developers workshop and to have look what de-bugging and beta-testing is all about.

And above all, let me tell you why I am a volunteer beta-tester myself.

Let's try and crash it…

Session Start (MSN - Heike:Zane Thomas): Fri Jun 18 07:16:42 2004
Zane Thomas: Gutten morgen! (?)
Heike: Guten morgen
Zane Thomas: ah
Zane Thomas: :-)
Zane Thomas: Do you have some time to host a meeting and run that voss page again?
Heike: yup
Heike: this is 1:30am your time
Heike: do you guys never sleep?
Zane Thomas: I sleep, Gary does not.
Heike: anyway we can start
Zane Thomas: great, I'll be right there
Heike: want me to open room?
Zane Thomas: yes please
Zane Thomas: and then screencast the webpage (voss) with the scrolling graphic
Heike: ok
Zane Thomas: Anyway, turn it loose!
Zane Thomas: coming in, thanks, I'll let you know when it's crashed here
Zane Thomas: if you would like to switch to that forest and back again that might hlep
Zane Thomas: help
Heike: ok
Zane Thomas: bah! seems to work fine tonight
Zane Thomas: Today I've had better luck crashing it myself! I only thought you could crash it right away like last night. I guess you can do whatever you have to do now and I'll go setup and host a meeting myself for further testing.
Zane Thomas: Thanks a lot for your help!
Heike: welcome
Heike: ARGH.....my bunny just crashed a pot on the balcony
Heike: does this help????
Zane Thomas: hahaha
Zane Thomas: dunno, does your bunny feel better now?
Heike: he seems to enjoy what he got out of it
Heike: cu
Session Close (Zane Thomas): Fri Jun 18 07:45:30 2004

BUG found: USB headsets aren’t working correctly ….

8 am the following morning, Gary is still online. Gary is CTO and chief developer. He is the mastermind. Local time 11pm. ‘R U there?’ Will send a bug fix by mail.

It is *.ocx, Version 813. USB microphones are muted upon entering the virtual room. ‘Smart sound settings' uncheck wave and un-mute volume control to ensure participants hear what is being said, when they join a conference, which uses voice over IP. This is new and promises to simplify my life. I am excited. Volume microphone is muted to avoid echoing and whistling. Now here is the bug: if this very box is checked in regular normal sound settings, USB mics are muted, even though they were working before. I replace *.ocx v809 with v813 in the systems folder. Another few hours of testing, new reports. Great improvement. USB mic does not mute anymore and the regular player mic is still checked. Well done, man. Report is finished and sent off.

So, why am I beta testing, why spend this time?

Let me explain by getting you to understand what is so unique about the early times of web-conferencing

Not many have experienced an online meeting, few people ever hosted one, there are hardly any IT specialists, almost no teachers and even less independent consultants. There is only one Robin Good…

Totally dependent on the smooth running of our virtual classrooms and necessity to deal with technical problems when they arise, I wished at times I had IT specialists at hand.

This is why I am a happy volunteer beta-tester: to learn.

Why? Because....

...there aren’t any manuals nor schools…

Posted on June 14, 2004 at 06:55 AM

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