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Welcome to the April issue of the STAR Tester, which marks our newsletter’s first birthday! I would like to thank all our readers who have subscribed over the past 12 months. It is your loyalty that has encouraged us to bring you innovative and original articles from the world of testing!
This month the Programme Chair and Committee will visit Galway to meet up with the EuroSTAR Team and put some plans in place for this year’s event in Stockholm. I would like to wish both Stuart and his committee a pleasant journey and look forward to welcoming them to the west of Ireland.
Make sure to watch out for next month’s issue as our Programme Chair will announce the official EuroSTAR 2007 Programme. For those of you who have submitted to the Call for Papers, I wish you luck and can guarantee this year’s programme will have some interesting surprises!
I would also like to take a moment to ask for your help to increase awareness for our Student of the Year award. More information is available on our website, please forward details to anyone you know who is eligible to submit. We are committed to incorporating students into the testing community but cannot do it without your help.
In this month’s issue i have incuded an article which is slightly longer then usual. As I believe the content will be of great interest to subscribers, I have displayed it in its entirety. Please click on the printer friendly version at the end of the article if you would prefer to print and read. 
I wish you all a Happy Easter.
Kind regards,
Susan McAndrew
Editor
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Testing The Heathrow Terminal 5 Baggage Handling System –
Before It Is Built
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by Roger Derksen – Vanderlande Industries, Transfer Solutions
Huub van der Wouden - Vanderlande Industries, Transfer Solutions
Paul Heath – British Airports Authority, Process Simulations Ltd
 London Heathrow Terminal 5 will open in March 2008. This new core terminal building and two satellites will handle 30 million passengers a year, and all of these passengers will expect their baggage to accompany them on their flights. To achieve this, a new baggage handling system is being constructed that will handle more than 70,000 bags a day. Maintaining customer confidence in the reliability of the baggage handling system is vital to the successful delivery of the project.
The challenge for the baggage control system designers was how best to integrate and test the software systems of such a large and complex system within a limited time to test the software in its actual site environment.
This article explains the vital role that software emulation testing techniques played in factory integration testing. The advantages and limitations of these techniques are covered along with explanations of what can (and cannot) be achieved in the factory environment.
Read more »
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EuroSTAR Takes To The Road – Mini-Event Time Again!
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Nieuwegein, Netherlands: 6pm, May 23rd 
Kista, Skalholtsgatan 9, Sweden: 1pm, May 31st
The much anticipated EuroSTAR 2007 programme will be announced next month. To coincide with the programme launch we are once again bringing EuroSTAR mini-events to the Netherlands and Sweden. This is a series of FREE events, organized and run in conjunction with our partners in the local software testing organizations, TestNet and SAST. Don't miss this opportunity to hear expert presenters at a venue near you! Attendance is free, but places are limited - so do register promptly to avoid disappointment!
TO REGISTER for Dutch event (23rd May)
TO REGISTER for the Swedish event (31st May)
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Don’t Let A Bottleneck Ruin Your Web Project
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by Andy Buchanan, Empirix, UK
Most major web projects usually involve some form of unforeseen delay that causes a slippage in the planned timescale. Unfortunately the same projects tend to have deadlines that can’t slip. The net result is that time becomes a very precious and limited commodity, a scenario that quality assurance and testing specialists are all too familiar with.
A common approach when faced with time constraints is to keep things simple. On the eve of opening day, the operators of a new sports stadium in the US tested the plumbing by getting the entire workforce together for a synchronised flushing of the toilets. Although an example from the offline world, this simple and labour intensive approach is often used to load-test new Web applications, with lots of people asked to log-in simultaneously.
While the best testing should be quick and simple, it also needs to be thorough. This is where Rapid Bottleneck Identification (RBI) comes in.
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Testing Excellence Award Winner - Geoff Quentin
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by Geoff Quentin, Qbit, UK
Geoff Quentin, Founder Chairman of BCS Sigist, Industry Pioneer for Software Testing Events, Visionary behind Professional Tester Magazine, Trainer of over 20,000 Testers.
It was an extraordinary and wonderful surprise to receive the award. I had no idea until more than halfway through the announcement during the EuroSTAR gala dinner and then it dawned on me what was happening.
The award made a perfect ending to a working career in testing and the many kind things that were written were wonderful.
Read more »
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Why Sogeti, No.1 Specialist In Testing Chooses EuroSTAR
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 Sogeti chose last year's EuroSTAR conference to launch TMAP NEXT. Hear what they had to say about their experience...
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EuroSTAR 2007 Paper Submissions!
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Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit your proposed talks for EuroSTAR 2007. We had a huge number of submissions for a limited number of places!
The Review Team and Programme Committee are currently reading through and scoring all proposals and we look forward to announcing the official programme next month. Again, thanks for taking the time to submit, and if you are not successful this year please do try again in the future.
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