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.
Staying focused on testing OneNote even while we use it
We talked about a key concept of our testing earlier this week and I think it is worth sharing. Let...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 12/05/2008
Reading the OneNote schema documentation helps prevent bugs
As I was working on the Calendar Page Maker powertoy for OneNote, I hit a problem at one point with...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 12/01/2008
My username in OneNote is usually not simply the text John Guin
We were performing some shared notebook testing recently and someone noticed that an outline in one...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 11/24/2008
Using HyperV to help testing in OneNote - an immediate benefit to me
So the other day I had the chance to head out and work from home. I was able to do this because I...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 11/20/2008
An "Undo" test exposed the smallest amount of time the OneNote automation system knows about
One of our automation scripts was failing last week. The test it was performing is very easy to...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 11/17/2008
Robinson Crusoe and OneNote: short term vs. long term gains when testing
I have a theory about the value of automation (and many other test tools) and the time it takes to...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 11/13/2008
OneNote Merge Testing - an example of "not a bug, it's a feature"
Last week Mike and I were performing some merge testing. "Merge" is the word we use to...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 11/10/2008
How my old Microsoft 8-bit BASIC coding skills caused me to fail a code review
I submitted some changes to an automation script a few days ago and failed my code review. Code...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 11/06/2008
OneNote Accessibility Testing update
We finally got to perform our focus week on accessibility. One of the tools we used is called...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 10/23/2008
A nice workaround to enhance searching on 64 bit Windows with OneNote
As those of you who use 64 bit versions of Windows with OneNote know, there is a limitation placed...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 10/20/2008
Designing, creating and reworking the calendar page maker for OneNote
When I was creating the calendar page maker, I focused on the date picker control and the...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 10/13/2008
Some updates to the OneNote Calendar/Planner powertoy
Well, my "well tested" calendar/planner had an easy to fix but obvious problem - it always sent the...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 10/09/2008
A Calendar/Planner powertoy for OneNote!
I was reading the newsgroups again the other night and "SubSeaGuy" made this post: "I want to create...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 10/07/2008
Rediscovering the reason we have automation in OneNote
I told the true story last October about a customer who was trying to use an internal modem outside...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 10/02/2008
OneNote Test is hiring!
We have a position open for a Software Development Engineer in Test. Check out the details at...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 09/23/2008
Using asserts to help find bugs in OneNote
Of the many different types of bugs testers find in products, "asserts" seem to be the most obvious....
Author: JohnGuin Date: 09/22/2008
A better fix for the failing OneNote automation script
I did not like my code fix for the error detection routine when trying to detect which file OneNote...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 09/15/2008
OneNote Favorites updated with user requested feature
Shu Chen updated his Favorites addin again. You can get the updated version at the bottom of this...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 09/11/2008
Investigating an automation failure
One of the automated tests we had failed last week and I got the chance to investigate the failure....
Author: JohnGuin Date: 09/08/2008
Using OMSpy to “fix” the bug with the image rotator
I wanted to show the output of OMSpy in case someone wants to get very bold and use it to update the...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 09/04/2008
This should be an interesting talk to hear in September
Remember back in June I mentioned Mark Russinovich had talked about his experience starting at...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/27/2008
Using a TRS-80 to find a bug with the image rotator in OneNote
One of my hobbies which I never have time for is playing around with my old TRS-80 Color Computer....
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/25/2008
Saying “goodbye to our intern” leads to a reason why a bug did not get fixed in Office 97
Anirudh Saraf is winding up his internship this week. He's been pretty busy while here - diving into...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/21/2008
How To Modify OneNote toolbar buttons for installed addins
Rainald Taesler, one of OneNote's MVPs, had contacted me a while back asking to have the Table of...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/18/2008
Code for image rotator and some upcoming work for test
I got a request a few days ago to see about posting the code for the image rotator powertoy. Gary...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/14/2008
The thing about leaving your office for any amount of time around here…
…is the number of people who insist on decorating it while you are gone. I came into my...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/08/2008
Using a cell phone as a modem and using OneNote in the real world again
So my "two week" navy training lasted just shy of four weeks this year. I was very busy, but can't...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 08/07/2008
I'm out until August
I've tried to keep this up to date twice a week since I started. Like most other people who run...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 07/03/2008
Sudoku Addin for OneNote beta is available
Carlos Rivera has been working feverishly over the last few weeks to polish Sudoku for OneNote...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/30/2008
Fixing the Lenovo tablet. Again.
The hard drive on my Lenovo had died. It would not even pass the BIOS level hardware test during the...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/26/2008
Office New Employee Training
I was able to attend "New Hire Training" for Office last week. At Microsoft, all newly hired people...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/23/2008
Some quick power consumption testing with a "new to me" tablet
The Lenovo I had been using has given up the ghost. The hard drive in it has physically died - it...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/19/2008
Tying up one loose end and starting another
In February 2008 I mentioned some extra functionality built into our "napkin math" system. I sent...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/16/2008
The other bug in our test code for spelling
Last Thursday I posted some snippets of the code we had been using to automate and verify spell...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/09/2008
Fixing a bug in our test code for OneNote
As hard as we have been trying to convert our test automation scripts to UI-less automation, every...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/05/2008
Testers have a different perspective on movies
Gary came by the other day and we talked a little about the mentality of testers. He had watched a...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 06/02/2008
Life in testing: more about meetings
Last week I mentioned that about 40% of my time was taken by meetings. That's probably normal for a...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/29/2008
The Most Hilarious Outlook Configuration Utility Ever
I had to log into a computer this last weekend for the reserves. I'm used to getting frequent...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/22/2008
OneNote and Education information available
Good news: Mike Tholfsen has started a "OneNote in the Education World" blog at...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/19/2008
The typical work week in OneNote Test
One of my friends was asking me about Microsoft over the weekend and wanted to know what it was...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/19/2008
A test plan for recognizing text in images luckily goes awry
I had a plan many months ago to build a photo database of images with text to use to test our OCR...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/15/2008
TWIONT is a lousy acronym no matter how you look at it
As I've mentioned before, we have been in the process of moving all of our automated tests away from...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/12/2008
Problems with syncing notebooks to SharePoint because of embedded files
The test team received this report from a person having problems with OneNote syncing notebooks on...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/08/2008
Showing the full name of an attachment in OneNote
A week or so ago in a previous entry I uploaded an image here. You can see where I used my pen to...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 05/06/2008
OneNote infiltrates the US Treasury?
Hey, check out the back of the new five dollar bill here in the USA (and yes, I'm probably breaking...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 04/28/2008
A OneNote Tips blog has started
This is great news: Jeff Cardon, the fellow who brought us the Print Manager powertoy, the CRM addin...
Author: JohnGuin Date: 04/25/2008