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Mara |
2007-10-01
, 15:43
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Posts: 1,310 |
Thanked: 820 times |
Joined on Mar 2006
@ Irving, TX
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#41
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Talking about QA... one way to improve it is to "outsource" this to "free beta testers". (Some might say that we are all free beta testers... 
) Lately more and more IT specific software has been released for testing in beta status (RTComm, Videocenter, etc...) for people to test/try. I wish also the new Firmwares would be made available as beta. I hope this method has proven beneficial tool to Nokia to improve the software quality, and they would continue and expand its usage.
) Lately more and more IT specific software has been released for testing in beta status (RTComm, Videocenter, etc...) for people to test/try. I wish also the new Firmwares would be made available as beta. I hope this method has proven beneficial tool to Nokia to improve the software quality, and they would continue and expand its usage.
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2007-10-01
, 15:59
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Posts: 11,700 |
Thanked: 10,045 times |
Joined on Jun 2006
@ North Texas, USA
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#42
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Originally Posted by PowerUser
You're missing a critical point of zerojay's, which admittedly came after the post you quoted BUT has been stated previously. Zero pointed out the in 6 months of use he's never had the card problem. Even more important, I informally tested prerelease versions (rigorously) that actually had obvious bugs and never encountered a single card failure of any sort during that time. This is why I said in another thread that simply asking for those who HAVE had the problem misses an important point: the null hypothesis (if you're involved with QA then you know of what I speak).
Really? Actually, QA is my prophecy. And as QA I have to admit that firmware 4.2007 (this one with skype) has slightly worse quality than "default" firmware (version 3.200 IIRC). Sorry but that's true, at least it's my experience. I also do not know if Nokia extensively tested SDHC support but if QA processes adjusted properly, this bug not seems to be very hard to catch in test environment. Just buy bunch of cards from different vendors and play with your n800 devices and these cards a bit. Actually I'm surprised such big corporation has failed to perform proper testing.
The fact remains that while catching such bugs is indeed incumbent upon Nokia software QA, there ARE a multitude of factors involved (the formal explanations provided so far are simplified for brevity's sake) and testing for every possible combination can be problematic. For all the complaining done, the fact also remains that once solid, detailed reports started coming into Bugzilla, Nokia had the materials required to properly analyze the problem. Yes, communications could have been a bit better-- but overall I think the process worked as it should.
Speaking of which: are you filing your numerous issues on Bugzilla?
Originally Posted by Mara
I'm with Mara on this one, but I wonder how many more complaints would arise due to bug-induced problems...
Talking about QA... one way to improve it is to "outsource" this to "free beta testers". (Some might say that we are all free beta testers...
__________________
Nokia Developer Champion
Different <> Wrong | Listen - Judgment = Progress | People + Trust = Success
My personal site: http://texrat.net
Nokia Developer Champion
Different <> Wrong | Listen - Judgment = Progress | People + Trust = Success
My personal site: http://texrat.net
Last edited by Texrat; 2007-10-01 at 16:02.
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2007-10-01
, 16:54
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Posts: 2,669 |
Thanked: 2,555 times |
Joined on Apr 2007
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#43
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Originally Posted by PowerUser
I didn't have that problem. It felt much better to me.
- Firmware with Skype detects my fingers poorly, slightly worse than 3.200 did. I'm unable to set up sensitivity to level where it detects my fingers as good as 3.200 did. Attempted to use settings slider, it did become better but still worse than in older firmware. But Nokia calls this improved screen sensitivity. Huh?
Originally Posted by PowerUser
Agreed, but the tablet doesn't run a real-time OS anyways... and neither do you at home. The problem is in the linux scheduler. I remember around the time of the first or second firmware update for the N800, I was able to listen to music as the N800 scanned for access points without my music skipping, but ever since one of those firmware updates, I get skips while scanning. Someone probably forgot to enable the kernel preemption stuff.
- Sound is sometimes getting interrupted under load. Looks like sometimes sound subsystem can't handle data in a REAL-time fashion. This even affects boot-up sound.
Originally Posted by PowerUser
I've seen this somewhat rarely. It does appear to be a regression.
- Battery indicator sometimes performs strange in recent firmware with Skype. After heavy load it can immediately drop charge from "full" to "almost empty". You thinked battery full? Nope! Surprise! :P.
Originally Posted by PowerUser
Never seen it.
- Sometimes there is strange issues with tray area. Icons behave strangely a bit. For example connection indicator may display something but not a real connction status. Very rare issue, seems to occur when changing several connections in short time.
Originally Posted by PowerUser
I've never had this problem, thankfully. It's what I use to wake me up in the morning!
- Sometimes when you're using alarm clock tablet may occasionally hang on alarm event. I was not able to reproduce this well enough but seen couple of times.
Originally Posted by PowerUser
I'd be happy with the built-in player if it could play a few more formats (WMV) and if some of the relatively simple bugs piling up on Bugzilla would be fixed.
- Built in player is slow as jerk in decoding and handles very few video formats. Mplayer is a way faster in video decoding and eats much more videos. Are there worse players on market? Nokia's players are crap, both in phones and n800 as well.
Originally Posted by PowerUser
It sure can. Library -> Video. Your clips are all right there.
- And no, you can't just "File -> Open" in player and play desired video file. You have to use File Manager instead (surprise, yep, video player can't open video on it's own). What a ***** logic. Nokia's player imho one of the worst I ever seen.
Originally Posted by PowerUser
It's not too bad for me, but sure, I would like to see it faster.
- File manager may take a while to navigate on card with bug directory tree with lots of files.Imagine 20 folders, each with 500 photos, some subdirs, etc. Now try to browse it. What? It's so s-l-o-w in file manager!
Originally Posted by PowerUser
Never had this happen to me. The only time I ever really have instability is when attempting to use the camera application.
- When you're about to view info on memory use on such card via control panel, info dialog uses CPU and RAM extensively while scanning card. Then all crashes to the hell due to out of RAM. At very best only according app crashes. But due to global RAM outage sometimes whole system may become unstable...
I don't think it's fair to say that Nokia's QA should have caught the bug. It's a rare set of circumstances without any obvious errors. I've used my tablet for 4-10 hours a day, 7 days a week for about 5 or 6 months. If someone that's as heavy a user of the tablet as me never even once had this problem, how can you expect QA to easily find it? Answer: you don't.
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2007-10-01
, 17:34
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Posts: 2,669 |
Thanked: 2,555 times |
Joined on Apr 2007
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#44
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Originally Posted by Mara
I'd like that, but it's clear that a lot of customers don't seem to understand the concept of beta and instead do nothing but ***** and moan about the unfinished state of the software instead of being constructive and filing bugs.
Talking about QA... one way to improve it is to "outsource" this to "free beta testers". (Some might say that we are all free beta testers...
What I think would be best is to have Mr. Gil gather up a few people who have been productive on Bugzilla and seeing if they wouldn't mind being private beta testers. Would also be good for the next generation of tablets as well.
It's a win-win situation. Those people who are active on Bugzilla are the types that would be most interested in continuing to file bugs and in playing with the beta software. A reward for their efforts, so to speak. In turn, Nokia gets some free beta testing with real-world users (and real-world use cases) and it keeps them from looking bad when the less educated/less understanding users complain about beta software publically.
Of course, public beta testers are good, but can never be a replacement for a solid QA team, but a nice supplement to it.
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2007-10-01
, 19:07
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Posts: 11,700 |
Thanked: 10,045 times |
Joined on Jun 2006
@ North Texas, USA
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#45
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^ fully agreed with that zero.
__________________
Nokia Developer Champion
Different <> Wrong | Listen - Judgment = Progress | People + Trust = Success
My personal site: http://texrat.net
Nokia Developer Champion
Different <> Wrong | Listen - Judgment = Progress | People + Trust = Success
My personal site: http://texrat.net
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2007-10-01
, 19:33
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Posts: 1,463 |
Thanked: 81 times |
Joined on Oct 2005
@ UK
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#46
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Agreed as well, it's a natural tendency for those who don't know what they're doing to try and install beta software. This is a good thing: bugs aren't just found by power users. Unfortunately, it requires a level of sophistication to raise good bug reports that not everyone has.
However, I'd strongly discourage Nokia from starting any new closed system, with a clique of power users beta testing; potentially waving their knowledge and access under the noses of "lesser" users.
Ubuntu manages a well produced system with open betas, and we've already established numerous times that multi-platform end-user desktop OSes are "harder" than IT OS releases for two (well, one supported) hardware configurations. If Canonical can organise this in an open fashion, and deal with the end-user complaints about it "not being ready", why couldn't Nokia?
I suspect one of the key differentiators is managing expectations. Ubuntu has a clear roadmap with predictable releases every six months. There's a nebulous roadmap for Maemo, nothing for IT OS and no predictable IT OS releases.
The glib answer from Nokia (or the fanboys and girls - indeed, it's not just Apple (shock))) is "competitive advantage" or, depending on the phase of the moon, "we're trying harder and you can't expect a big organisation to change overnight" ;-)
However, I'd strongly discourage Nokia from starting any new closed system, with a clique of power users beta testing; potentially waving their knowledge and access under the noses of "lesser" users.
Ubuntu manages a well produced system with open betas, and we've already established numerous times that multi-platform end-user desktop OSes are "harder" than IT OS releases for two (well, one supported) hardware configurations. If Canonical can organise this in an open fashion, and deal with the end-user complaints about it "not being ready", why couldn't Nokia?
I suspect one of the key differentiators is managing expectations. Ubuntu has a clear roadmap with predictable releases every six months. There's a nebulous roadmap for Maemo, nothing for IT OS and no predictable IT OS releases.
The glib answer from Nokia (or the fanboys and girls - indeed, it's not just Apple (shock))) is "competitive advantage" or, depending on the phase of the moon, "we're trying harder and you can't expect a big organisation to change overnight" ;-)
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2007-10-01
, 19:49
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Posts: 2,669 |
Thanked: 2,555 times |
Joined on Apr 2007
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#47
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Originally Posted by aflegg
End users of Ubuntu are generally more knowledgable about Linux than the average (intended) end user of the tablets. Just that alone changes a lot of things. I'm not against having fully open betas though - it would be ideal.... but Nokia wouldn't go for that for firmware images. Individual apps, sure.
However, I'd strongly discourage Nokia from starting any new closed system, with a clique of power users beta testing; potentially waving their knowledge and access under the noses of "lesser" users.
If Canonical can organise this in an open fashion, and deal with the end-user complaints about it "not being ready", why couldn't Nokia?
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2007-10-01
, 22:01
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Posts: 57 |
Thanked: 4 times |
Joined on Feb 2006
@ Canada
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#48
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Originally Posted by Moonshine
As the 2nd of October is only a few hours away, perhaps already here for some folks, are we likely to see the firmware update tomorrow, Tuesday October 2nd?
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Further information about the bug has been posted by Nokia including an Oct 2nd release date for the fix:
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1204
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2007-10-01
, 23:14
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Posts: 11,700 |
Thanked: 10,045 times |
Joined on Jun 2006
@ North Texas, USA
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#49
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Originally Posted by aflegg
No glib answer here... but lest we forget, unique proprietary hardware is involved and that complicates things. As we see with the SD cards, damage from bugs can be very real. A power user will be irritated but at the same time understand the complexity and participate in solutions; "lesser" users will rant and little more (not saying it isn't their right, but...). So I can understand why Nokia would open betas for browsers and other separable apps and keep firmware testing limited. Like zero noted.
However, I'd strongly discourage Nokia from starting any new closed system, with a clique of power users beta testing; potentially waving their knowledge and access under the noses of "lesser" users.
Ubuntu manages a well produced system with open betas, and we've already established numerous times that multi-platform end-user desktop OSes are "harder" than IT OS releases for two (well, one supported) hardware configurations. If Canonical can organise this in an open fashion, and deal with the end-user complaints about it "not being ready", why couldn't Nokia?
__________________
Nokia Developer Champion
Different <> Wrong | Listen - Judgment = Progress | People + Trust = Success
My personal site: http://texrat.net
Nokia Developer Champion
Different <> Wrong | Listen - Judgment = Progress | People + Trust = Success
My personal site: http://texrat.net
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2007-10-01
, 23:52
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Posts: 5,795 |
Thanked: 3,151 times |
Joined on Feb 2007
@ Agoura Hills Calif
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#50
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An interesting thread! I would like to add one corrective point. For those who say something like 'I've been using the N800 for 8 months with no problems, so how can you expect QA to find this?` The critic of QA said that they should have bought a big variety of cards and they would easily find the problem. Now, if those of you who made this comment bought a big variety of cards and played with them constantly for eight months, you have a good point there. But if you just have used a few cards that worked fine for eight months, it is not surprising that you didn't encounter the problem. If QAers are relying on experiences with only a few cards, they aren't doing things right.
But I think that a card that can be destroyed beyond reformattability just because someone does something suboptimal with it, is an unreliable, dangerous card. A lot of the SD cards seem to be in that category.
And on the subject of Bugzilla:
I ran a tech support group for about eight years. We learned a lot from user reports in the form of email messages. We had bug-tracking software, but that was mainly used only by the QA professionals. When I filed a bug report, I often just posted it in email and if there was some information I left out, someone would ask me.
I don't see why it is essential that such information from users can be responded to only if it is put into something called Bugzilla. The same information in any form should be usable.
But I think that a card that can be destroyed beyond reformattability just because someone does something suboptimal with it, is an unreliable, dangerous card. A lot of the SD cards seem to be in that category.
And on the subject of Bugzilla:
I ran a tech support group for about eight years. We learned a lot from user reports in the form of email messages. We had bug-tracking software, but that was mainly used only by the QA professionals. When I filed a bug report, I often just posted it in email and if there was some information I left out, someone would ask me.
I don't see why it is essential that such information from users can be responded to only if it is put into something called Bugzilla. The same information in any form should be usable.
