OneNote Testing
What it is like to be a tester on the Microsoft OneNote team and day to day life as an SDET in Office. Plus a few tips for using OneNote and an occasional powertoy.
A typical bug that only I see is plaguing my day
Each year we, like most other companies, complete a yearly review cycle. All our data is...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 09/06/2012
Getting OneNote text saved as PDF looking as expected
I heard from a user this past week who was saving OneNote pages as PDF files. When he opened them in...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/30/2012
Using OneNote to help me at a triathlon
This weekend a couple of friends and I signed up to compete in a local triathlon as a team. Helen...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/27/2012
OneNote Tip: multiple levels of Undo
Here's a neat little power user tip if you are like me and tend to make a lot of mistakes :) By...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/24/2012
A long day running setup
We have great tools to install Windows in a virtual machine. The lab folks that set this all up...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/21/2012
Getting ready for a setup pass
We have several recurring test passes that we do on a seemingly always recurring basis. One example...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/06/2012
Just as I was getting ready to test OneNote, I saw a bunch of free Microsoft ebooks
Back from vacation, I was busy catching up on email, looking over bug reports, and generally getting...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/03/2012
Back from a week off and getting up to speed
Just got back from a week off and am spending this morning and am going through the standard process...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 07/30/2012
My stupid inbox has no stupid mail items in it…
I’m frustrated right now. I had about 15 items in my inbox that I needed "to do." In the...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 07/19/2012
OneNote Tip: Tagging more than one line of text with a single tag
Tagging is a very powerful feature in OneNote and is nearly the top "How To" type of...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 07/16/2012
OneNote Tip: changing default bullet and numbering values
Last week I had to investigate an automated test that verifies the behavor of OneNote when a user...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 07/12/2012
OneNote wasn't working, but at least there were no bugs
When I got in this morning I turned to my laptop to check some OneNote pages I use to track some To...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 07/09/2012
Fixing a bug in automation with equation support in OneNote
One of our math test scripts failed last week. It was a test designed to verify this equation could...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 07/02/2012
Over 100 copies of Sergio Hernandez winning the Barrio Logan Grand Prix in my OneNote test notebook
We were looking through a test notebook I have up on Skydrive today and someone remarked on this...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/28/2012
Enabling the WebClient service in Windows
Every so often I see a report that OneNote cannot sync to SkyDrive and see the user is getting error...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/24/2012
Filling in for a tester who is out
One of the many tasks I have here is "load balancing" our work across the team. This is to...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/22/2012
Saying no to a sleep statement in our automation
Last week I had a code review come across my plate that looked like this: Section.AddPage();...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/18/2012
I did NOT hit 81 bugs in OneNote last night
We have a tool that runs whenever we kick it off to test OneNote - edit pages, adds new, etc.....
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/14/2012
OneNote code reviews with Comic Sans Serif is fun
I changed one of my system fonts (Menu, I believe) to Comic San Serif. Now when I perform code...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/11/2012
Amazing how far behind you can get in one day
I’m pretty sure I feel behind by at least a week today. Here’s what happened: I had a bug fix...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/07/2012
Insert writing space horizontally in OneNote
Today one of the testers came by needing to try a test on a tablet PC. He needed to test that he...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/31/2012
Sigh. Writing XML DOM code
I had to create a quick tool last week that had the simple task of parsing through an XML file and...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/24/2012
Adding a file to a OneNote page via extensibility
I got an email today in which a developer was interested in adding a file to a OneNote page. I...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/14/2012
Update to Onetastic powertoy for OneNote
Omer did an update to his tool to allow for the selection of only specific bits of text from an...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/10/2012
A pretty good piece on CNN about Microsoft hiring veterans
As a retired navy sailor myself, this video on CNN is incredibly spot-on:...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/07/2012
Getting a new machine is not as fun as I had expected
It has been a while since I got a new piece of hardware and today I am setting up a new HP machine....
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/07/2012
OneNote is saving me sticky notes
Two years ago I went to one of our supply rooms and picked up a pad of yellow sticky notes. I...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/03/2012
A OneNote tip I just discovered: ALT+Click to get a definition
I just noticed this and thought I would pass it along. If you hold down the ALT key while...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 04/26/2012
A little typo bug in a log file
I saw this bug much like this get filed last week: Error condition: Open one of our debugging logs...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 04/23/2012
Some verifications for the optimize test
So after getting the cache file in place with my automated test, I will invoke the optimize command....
Author: JohnGuin Date: 04/19/2012
Well, that code won’t work the way I want
I was trying to write an automated test recently that would verify our cache optimize functionality....
Author: JohnGuin Date: 04/16/2012
Just noticed my personal OneNote usage has exploded
As I was looking around earlier this week, I just happened to notice that my personal OneNote usage...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 04/12/2012
A UI based automation test is failing
Last week I had an automated test I own begin to fail. The functionality tested is our keyboard...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 04/09/2012
A little bit of a rant: don't log the word "failure" unless your are detecting a failure
I was parsing a OneNote debugging log around here recently and noticed this line in the log:...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 04/05/2012
OneNote Test: the happiest job in America!
According to Forbes, our testers here have the happiest job in America:...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 04/02/2012
OneNote Test is hiring March 2012 edition
Just wanted to call some attention to an open job we have here on the test team. Check out the...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 03/29/2012
Having far too much fun with OneNote for about a minute today
Today I had to test a feature we have in OneNote that I don't to use all that much - the ability...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 03/26/2012
Source code for the OneNote Text Highlighting Extractor Powertoy
Way back in 2009 I released a “beta” version of a toy that extracts highlighted text...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 03/22/2012
Onetastic adds support for custom styles and favorites with OneNote!
From Omer: An update to Onetastic addin for OneNote which adds two new features is now available:...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 03/15/2012
OneNote Tip: You can check TODO boxes in the Summary Pane
I was working with tags associated with a remodel project the other day and needed to search...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 03/15/2012
OneNote wins a Lifehacker poll!
Makes me blush: https://lifehacker.com/5892786/most-popular-meeting-minutes-service-microsoft-onenote...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 03/13/2012
A tiny “mini-lab” for OneNote test
As I was walking down the hallway to a coworkers office this morning, I noticed one section of the...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 03/12/2012
Learned a valuable lesson about checking meeting times
Two days ago I was invited to an automation meeting here at work. This was going to be a good...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 03/08/2012
OneNote Tip: setting ink recognition to the correct text for a single word
We were talking about ink a few days ago and I was reminded of this tip to get ink recognition to...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 03/06/2012
Sounding like a broken record?
I've been doing a few code reviews this week and think I have one common comment for all of them -...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 03/01/2012
A fun little benefit of being on OneNote
We had to send one of our program managers overseas recently. He came back with this as a treat for...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 02/27/2012
Sometimes bugs just will not "repro"
One of the most frustrating ways a bug can be resolved is "Not Repro." What this means is...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 02/23/2012