Communication skills are critical for succeeding in anything you do. This is especially true for folks that work in teams that are involved in the creating and testing of software. On today’s show we’ll test talk with Damian Synadinos about his presentation Workshop: Commutication – An Exploration of Idea Transfer with Words. Damian will share ways in which you can improve your communication skills and avoid the misunderstandings that may be preventing your team from creating automation awesomeness.

I’d like to make a big announcement! It was announced late last week that Selenium 3.0 has been officially released. This is huge.

In this week’s episode, I’ll break down everything you need to know about Selenium 3, as well as give you a glimpse into Selenium’s future. After listening, you will know how Selenium 3 will impact your automation efforts, as well as some things to watch out for -- so don’t miss it!

Sure -- you might be working really hard, doing everything that is needed for testing your software, but is what you’re doing really the most efficient way to test? In this episode Melissa Tondi, head of SQE at ShopatHome.com (and one of the best-known thought leaders in the quality engineering space) breaks down the testing process and helps us identify areas that traditionally cause the highest number of inefficiencies within test teams. So listen in and hear what it takes to build a world-class testing organization.

In this episode, we’ll be test talking with Dave Cadwallader, a senior engineering manager in automation infrastructure, about a fleet of proven, open-source test automation tools developed by WalmartLabs that can help you succeed with automation.

Get ready to discover lessons learned about building and maintaining code and infrastructure that support massive- scale testing at Walmart, as well as tips for working with front end web development teams on making them successful.

Have you ever wondered how gaming companies test their video games? If so, this episode is for you. Amber Race, a senior test developer at Big Fish Games, gives us an insider’s peek at how she approaches game testing.

Amber shares some of her favorite testing techniques and tools like Postman, which helps her to leverage APIs to automate many back-end testing activities. So if you ever wanted to know what it takes to become a tester at a gaming company you won’t want to miss this episode.

Metasploit is a cool open-source framework for conducting penetration tests. Not only does it help you conduct your tests, but it has a bunch of modules that can help you scan a target system looking for vulnerabilities.

In this episode Keith Watson, author of the Introduction to Penetration Testing Using Metasploit Pluralsight course will give us a high-level overview of how to get started with Metasploit, as well as some best practices for penetration testing.

Get your white hats on and listen up!

Are you looking for an awesome mobile grid solution like Sauce Labs, but don’t yet have a budget for this type of service? Although using an existing Cloud-based service is optimal, there are times when -- and reasons why -- having your own in-house mobile grid setup can be useful.

In this episode Justin Ison, a senior software engineer at Microsoft, will walk us through the tools, best practices and pitfalls to avoid when setting up your own Selenium mobile grid.

You’ll want to listen up, because Justin works on the popular and cool app Wunderlist -- a simple task management app that can be used across loads of devices -- so he knows how to get mobile automation done.

Feeling hungry? Have you ever binged on tacos? Do you remember how the first one tasted and thought it couldn’t get much better? But by the time you got to your third and fourth you may have started to tire of the tacos. (You’ll have to listen to this show to find out how this analogy translates to testing!) In this episode, Gregory Schmidt serves up some testing tamales in the form of optimum marginal utility as applied to test value that will help you take your testing “YUM” factor all the way to 100.

Today we’ll be test talking with the founder of Performance Wisdom, Rebecca Clinard, about performance testing and the most frequent rookie mistakes folks make with performance testing. Do you have a web or mobile application you need load tested to determine its scalability limitations? Are you unsure of your tool, technology or skill set requirements? If you’re thinking about getting into performance testing or want to know how you can help your teams with performance-related tasks, you won’t want to miss this episode.

On today’s show we’ll test talk with Andy Tinkham, a software testing expert with over 20 years’ experience, about his views on modern testing. Andy will discuss how testing has evolved, what we as testers need to know, and how we are all responsible for helping to shape the future of testing. Within the philosophy of modern testing there are a series of principles that Andy has broken down into four pillars: Context First, Testers are Not Robots, Using Multiple Lenses for Test Design, and Providing Useful and Timely Information.

If you’re a tester who wants to continue being a tester in the 21st century, you’ll want to listen up! Check it out.