QA Nexus

Author: Jason Alan Smith

  • When the Voices Grow Quiet

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    Jason Alan Smith
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    Time’s forward march is relentless. It doesn’t pause, negotiate, or wait for anyone. No matter who you are or what you do, the sun rises on schedule, again and again. Most days, we’re too busy to notice. The routines of work and life create the illusion that things are stable—that what exists today will still…

  • Excel Is a Gateway Drug (Part II): Rows, Columns, Values, and Why They Matter

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    Jason Alan Smith
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    In Part I of our introduction to Microsoft Excel and Pivot Tables, we transformed raw data into a proper Excel Table and created our very first Pivot Table—only to discover that, by itself, it doesn’t do much. In Part II, we finally bring that Pivot Table to life. This is where we start slicing, grouping,…

  • Let’s Be Real: No QA Team Talks Like ISTQB (But We Think Like It)

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    Jason Alan Smith
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    While studying for the ISTQB Foundation certification, I ran head-first into definitions so dense they made me stop and think: no one actually talks like this in QA—right? And yet, for a globally recognized certification body, ISTQB clearly believes this terminology matters. So the real question isn’t ”Who talks this way?”—it’s ”Why do these terms…

  • Microsoft Excel Is a Gateway Drug to Data Analysis

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    Jason Alan Smith
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    Please find the accompanying source data here: GitHub. This article assumes a modern version of Microsoft Excel running on Microsoft Windows. Part I: Creating a New Pivot Table Microsoft Excel is a technical gateway drug. Once you understand the basics—rows, columns, cells, ranges, data input, data formatting, basic formulas—Excel over time reveals its true power.…

  • Test Levels vs. Test Types: How Smart QA Teams Shift Left and Reduce Risk

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    Jason Alan Smith
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    Most Software QA professionals intuitively understand test levels and test types, yet confusion between the two can quietly undermine their effectiveness. Many testers are familiar with shift-left thinking—that the earlier issues are identified in the development cycle, the cheaper they are to fix—but fewer recognize how clearly distinguishing test levels from test types directly enables…

  • The YAML You Actually Need for CI/CD

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    Jason Alan Smith
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    Variations of YAML are commonly used to define CI/CD pipelines. At first glance, YAML can appear scary. The good news is that you don’t have to be a YAML guru to effectively use it to create your own CI/CD pipelines. There is a practical subset of the official YAML specification that is all that’s needed.…

  • A Bug’s Many Faces

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    Jason Alan Smith
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    When I started studying for the premier QA certification (ISTQB), my head performed an inelegant 360-degree spin. The book Software Testing Foundations: A Study Guide for the Certified Tester Exam by Andreas Spillner, Tilo Linz, and Hans Schaefer, 4th edition, and published by Rocky Nook (2014), requires four different terms to describe a problem in…