ken's blog

Cross browser checks of pages behind a user name / password

Posted Wed, 01/27/2010 - 14:26 by ken

Screenshots are a great way to check your site for layout/appearance issues. You can set up a test in just a minute, let it run, then scan through the results to see if there are problems. If you see a problem, you can use the 'live test' link to launch a vnc session to the particular configuration you have the issue in, and work in a live session to correct it... Very nice, and a great workflow!

Why IE6 still matters, even if you do happen to be a cross browser testing company!

Posted Wed, 01/27/2010 - 11:25 by ken

This post should more properly be titled 'How could we be so arrogant' - read on to discover why.

First part of CrossBrowserTesting api released - automate your automatic screenshots

Posted Wed, 12/02/2009 - 14:57 by ken

Our new api allows you to automatically trigger screenshots to run when needed. For example, lets say you have a script that pushes pages into production each night. You can modify that script to automatically tell CrossBrowserTesting.com to take screenshots of that page. You can then mail the screenshots of the updated page to your QC department when the test completes so they will be able to verify the layout.

You can view the cross browser testing api documentation.

Some details:
- We are using basic authentication to authenticate access to the api

Share your test results with customers and coworkers

Posted Tue, 11/24/2009 - 16:40 by ken

Once you have found a cross browser issue with your site, you often need to communicate with others. Perhaps you need to send a screenshot of a page that renders incorrectly in IE to one of the developers or post a copy of it on twitter to see if any of your peers know a good work-around for the issue. Perhaps you need to send a link of a corrected web page to a customer.

Download your screenshots in a zipped file

Posted Tue, 11/10/2009 - 09:02 by ken

Several customers have asked us to add the capability to download all the photos from an automated screenshot test all at once. We have added a zip download link to the bottom right of the view results screen which allows you to do this. Both the windowed and the full page screenshots are included in this file, and they are named so you can tell which operating system, browser, and resolution each screenshot was taken on.
Thanks!
Ken

Wow, everything is different!

Posted Mon, 08/31/2009 - 20:06 by ken

We changed (a lot).

First, we are releasing into beta our new automated screenshot service! Secondly, we have a new look (with a shiny new logo!).

The whole site is now being driven by Drupal. We did that so we would be able to add content quickly and easily. We also added forums. We want the forums to be become useful for the community of web developers that use our site. We hope that the forums will become a place where web developers can talk either about their work or problems they are having doing cross browser testing.

New Screenshots Capability

Posted Mon, 08/31/2009 - 20:04 by ken

Crossbrowsertesting.com now has automated screenshots.

We know that other sites have screenshots too. What we feel is the "killer" feature is the linkage to a live testing session.

With our screenshots you can take a screenshot and then quickly click into a live session for that screenshot. That means if you run a set of tests and see from a screenshot there is a problem you are only one click away from being able to see that web site in a live test.

What happened to free?

Posted Mon, 08/31/2009 - 20:03 by ken

Pricing models are tough. Unfortunately, we are programmers / engineers, not marketing people (Mike has a marketing degree but we do not let him do any of that).

When we started we did not have a clue about how many people were even going to use the service. Also, we thought the inconvenience of only having a 5 minute session for free, plus having to wait in line, would be enough 'encouragement' for professionals to opt for the premium service.

Boy were we wrong.

How does the new pricing model work?

Posted Sat, 08/29/2009 - 12:44 by ken

We had a few goals when we designed the new pricing model:
- it had to be easy to understand
- it had to accommodate a wide range of users. We were particularly concerned that we still had an offering which would enable casual web developers a place to do infrequent testing at a reasonable cost.
- it should reflect our cost structure and provide the financial funding our business needs to be viable and continue to grow
- it should still provide users a chance to try our the service before committing their $

Future plans for CrossBrowserTesting.com

Posted Sat, 08/29/2009 - 12:34 by ken

With our new architecture, web site, and hardware platform, we are now positioned for some exciting new capabilities. We wanted to share with you some of our plans for the service:

Selenium testing / scripted screenshots

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