Qualitative requirements can and should always be specified as clearly as possible. Most people do not know how. Everybody can learn how. Organizations should insist on quantitative clarity for all critical qualitative aspects of their project, process or product. The main concept is to define an 'operational scale of measure' for all qualitative requirements.

This is an article about how the NASA Space Shuttle software development group develops almost perfect (17 errors in last 11 versions with 420,000 lines of code each) code. It has a very interesting perspective on healthy "competition" between developers and testers to ensure the best possible product.

Requirements engineering-the elicitation, documentation and validation of requirements-is a fundamental aspect of software development. Unfortunately, and to the detriment of everyone involved, requirements engineering efforts are often shortchanged or even completely forgone in favor of "getting the code out as soon as possible, at all cost." This month I share my experiences and observations regarding requirements engineering, present several requirements engineering patterns that you should find valuable to your software development efforts, and suggest several good books that describe how to successfully engineer requirements.

A series of slides from a presentation by James Bach who is a recognized expert in the field of software testing. His focus is on the practical aspects of software testing: how to do it and why it's important. This presentation focuses on five points which help developers and testers work together effectively.

Producing a test specification, including the design of test cases, is the level of test design which has the highest degree of creative input. Furthermore, unit test specifications will usually be produced by a large number of staff with a wide range of experience, not just a few experts. This paper provides a general process for developing unit test specifications and then describes some specific design techniques for designing unit test cases. It serves as a tutorial for developers who are new to formal testing of software, and as a reminder of some finer points for experienced software testers.

This article discusses the differences between quality assurance and testing in the software realm. It focuses on the process models and activities for each.

Free online version of The Computer Desktop Encyclopedia with more than 14,000 definitions of computer terms and concepts with cross-references to related terms. It even has a random definition feature in case you just want to learn something new.

No matter what our position in an organization, we spend an average of 80 percent of each day communicating. We communicate with customers, managers, and employees on the telephone, via e-mail, in person, and in written form. Our body language communicates how we feel about a situation or an individual even when we do not utter a word. The average manager or administrator spends a minimum of 60 percent of each workday listening to customers and staff. That totals 24 hours in the 40-hour work week.

This 1998 edition of the glossary of telecommunications terms was prepared by the Public Service Division of the Office of Public Affairs of the Federal Communications Commission. It contains many words and phrases used to describe telecommunications terms which commonly appear in Commission documents and other publications or articles on telecommunication technology.

Tulsa is edging out cities like Denver and Fort Worth as they scramble for position in the global technology and telecommunications market. The size of Tulsa's high-tech employment rates the city among the top eight in the Southwest, says a new study by CorpTech Inc.

One of the biggest challenges in pulling together the individual pieces that will make a packet- and cell-based infrastructure equally adept at handling data, voice and video is simply getting everything to share vital information easily. "Integration is the key to success; you have to be able to follow information from front to back," says Brandon Thompson, senior analyst with The Yankee Group (Boston).

Sometimes it's useful to set a window to exact dimensions. Position the mouse cursor on a window edge and press the left button to see the window size in pixels. As you resize the window, the new dimensions will appear in the WinSize status window. The status window can be positioned in a fixed screen location, or next to your cursor. WinSize's window list feature makes it easy to set a window to particular dimensions.

PowerDesk is a file manager which makes an excellent replacement for Windows Explorer. Some of the features include single or dual pane file management windows, a powerful file finder, integrated zip and unzip capabilities, and full integration with QuickView, file and directory "Favorites", "quick launch" bar, and a dialog helper. [Note: This is a free version with a short (<5 seconds) "nag" screen displayed on shut down. Otherwise, it's fully functional and unobtrusive.]

TopDesk is a system tray utility that provides quick access to your desktop icons without having to move or minimize all of the open windows. In addition, it can hide all of your desktop icons (they're still available in the TopDesk menu) so that you can see your entire desktop wallpaper.

The How Stuff Works site has a wide variety of excellent articles on how some everyday (and not so commonplace) things operate. Most of the articles are written by domain experts, but they are written at a level for the everyday person (like me!) to understand. Some recent topics include such wide ranging subjects as laughter, minor league baseball, the US Customs Service, and chain saws. It may sound silly, but this site can be addictive!