Development

The focus is on software quality assurance

I’m happy to announce a new member blog covering software quality assurance. The QA Focus blog is written by Greg Annen, veteran of 20+ years in software development, enterprise system support and IT Quality Assurance. So be sure to join Greg, as he focuses on the issues that impact software quality assurance.

Development can be fun again! Follow these guidelines for assuring quality in software development through excellence. Topics include QA best practices and processes, test automation frameworks, what to do about requirements – all things related to Quality Assurance in the software development life cycle. — Greg Annen

Don’t forget about fellow member Joe Coley’s blog on Custom Application Development. Joe also blogs on software quality issues. And finally, if you didn’t know, our sister site SearchSoftwareQuality.com is entirely devoted to software quality, so be sure to visit there for news and resources on every angle of software quality.

Be honest. You’ve thought about starting your own blog but never got around to it. Maybe now’s the time? We make it easy to get started blogging and we’ll help you grow a readership. You can even earn a little cash if you post on a regular basis. Simply fill out the short request a blog form to get started. Thanks!

Community Manager

Developers, developers, developers, developers!

No, that’s not an image of Jabba the Hutt. If you were a developer, you would have known that. It’s Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, and he’s just wild about developers. So are we and to prove it, we recently added a top-level tag just for Development.

So when you have a burning developer-related question, be sure to visit our new Development tag and ask for a helping hand. And if you possess the developer mojo, then please stop by and share your developer expertise with fellow members. This is what makes IT Knowledge Exchange a great place. You may need to ask for help in one area but provide help to others in another.

While I love developers as much as the next guy, admittedly, I cannot ‘bust a move’ like Steve Ballmer. So without further ado, here is a music video of Steve that you may enjoy. No developers were harmed in the making of this film.

Those of you involved in Microsoft development are probably familiar with SearchWinDevelopment.com (formerly SearchVB.com). If you’re not, then be sure to drop by the site today and see what Brian Eastwood and his team have to offer Windows developers. And be sure to visit our ITKE member blogs by fellow developers: Windows Presentation Foundation and Custom Application Development.

Community Manager

RSS feeds for IT answers

As a member and regular reader of IT Knowledge Exchange (you are a regular reader, aren’t you?!), you may already know that we offer RSS feeds. What you may not know, however, is that you can be very specific with our feeds.

I’m going to use the terms “tag” and “category” interchangeably in this post. And that’s exactly how you should think of tags; they’re just a label or category that best describes one of our IT questions. You’ll see a list of our main tags (or main “categories”) in the right sidebar when you’re on the IT Answers section of IT Knowledge Exchange.

Let’s say you’re on the main page for the tag MS Exchange. If you look in the right sidebar, you’ll see a box labeled – “Subscribe to Alerts.” That box will contain the RSS feed for the entire MS Exchange category. Grab that feed to get all Q&A tagged with MS Exchange.

Want a more specific RSS feed? Let’s assume you’re still on the MS Exchange main page but are only interested in Exchange 2003. Each main category page has a list of child categories near the top. Click the Exchange 2003 tag to restrict your view to that topic. You’ll notice the RSS feed in the “Subscribe to Alerts” box has changed to reflect your new topic. Grab that feed for all Q&A about Exchange 2003 only.

Would you like to get even more specific? Click an individual question on the Exchange 2003 page and the feed will change to that specific question. We give you the ability to be as granular as you wish – so grab the exact RSS feeds that match your interests and stay up-to-date.

Community Manager