Welcome to the September issue of the STAR Tester. This month brings with it the EuroSTAR 2008 Early Bird Deadline on Friday, September 19th! Don’t miss your chance to save €250 on conference fees - Register Today!
Group Discounts are also available so why not bring your entire test team. Book 5 people and get a 6th place for FREE. Have a larger team - not a problem! Call Kevin today on +353 91 514477 and we will customize a package to suit your needs!
I am delighted to announce the date for our upcoming EuroSTAR Webinar. On Wednesday, October 15th James Lyndsay has kindly offered to give us a sneak preview of his Keynote, ‘Becoming Agile- Reshaping Testing for an Agile Team’. James will present this Keynote in full at EuroSTAR 2008. See more details and link to register below.
To coincide with the Early Bird Deadline of September 19th we are giving YOU the chance to win a FREE conference place at EuroSTAR 2008! Enter our competition today and you could be joining us in The Hague this November for Europe’s premier software testing conference. Win a FREE conference place now!
On September 22nd we bring some world class software testing minds to Malmö for the second in our series of EuroSTAR Tutorials. We are offering two full day courses which run from 9am - 5.30pm.
A: Test Management: Roles, Organisation and Processes - Lee Copeland, Software Quality Engineering, USA
B: Establishing an Effective Test Metrics Program - John Fodeh, Hewlett Packard, Denmark
Places are limited so we recommended that you book early. Group & SAST discounts available! Full details and booking form are available here
Please also note October 17th in your calendar as the closing date for nominations for the 2008 European Testing Excellence Award. This year’s award is quite significant as it marks its 10th anniversary. If there is someone who you feel deserves this 
honour then it is your responsibility to put their name forward!
For full details of how to nominate – see our website.
Kind regards,
Susan McAndrew
Editor
Tom De Marco, one of the testing gurus, once said: “If you don’t measure you’re left with only one reason to believe you’re in control – hysterical optimism.” Continuous monitoring how the test is progressing compared to the plan is necessary to stay in control. If we don’t control the test project, it will control us – and that is not a nice experience. We need to collect information about facts, compare these with the estimates, and analyze the findings. If there is a discrepancy we need to take action to keep in control and we need to inform the stakeholders.
Software or Information Security is a very interesting, hugely exciting and fast growing area in software development. Consequences of neglecting security are far too serious; damaged or unreliable financial systems and lack of individual or national security are just a few of many. Unfortunately these consequences are still not being taken seriously enough. Not only threats to financial systems and national security, but also industrial espionage, identity theft, sabotage, vandalism and fraud have become much easier as IT progresses in every aspect of our lives. As the technology grows in complexity the ways of misusing it are also getting more and more complex.