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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent intro and reference to beginner/imtermediate QA.
Review: As a Software QA Engineer with only 2 years experience (who's just recently been transitioned into web-based application testing from a web-client background) and, might I add, an employee of the largest competitor to Lydia's parent company, I was pleasantly surprised that she was non-biased and thorough in her comparison of different browsers (though a tad brief in other areas).Okay, enough with the background. Things this book does effectively; begins to get you thinking about security testcases (via malformed CGI/http requests, extended-char inputs, etc), but also covers a great deal broadly on automation, performance, static/dynamic HTML, and a few scattered topics such as form controls. She does seem to go overboard on character sets (both in security sections and in testing sections), though perhaps my experience in the 'real-world' at my company hasn't touched on this enough, I don't know. She does great on helping you formulate the browser matrixes, with all their resolution types, and she even differentiates between screen resolution and what she calls 'canvas size' (I refer to this as the viewport, but they're identical). This book is a fabulous introduction to the metholodies, and what a beginner or intermediate tester would expect to find in the real world. Bug cycles, templates, project cycles, roles, best practices, scheduling, bug severities and the like are all described in sufficient detail. Now for the single disappointment. I was disappointed with her Test Planning and Design chapter, which is shy of 20 pages. This may or may not sound comprehensive enough, but to me it was terribly under-developed. She does break this chapter down and describe the different kinds of testcases/plans, but doesn't really show any templates, which I was expecting. To be fair, this is probably the hardest to encapsulate in a book, as each company (sometimes even each team) formats their test documentation differently (some to ISO standards, some in Word format, some in HTML, some in Excel spreadsheets, even). Buy it for an excellent introduction to the subject, a good reference for HTTP error codes, characters sets, best practices, but for advanced security/performance/automation, I'd probably buy a book that specifices in those topics.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent web testing reference
Review: I came across this book in the bookstore and was so impressed I dropped the $$$ on it there. I have referred to it at least weekly for test cases. It has more than paid for the purchase price through what it has done to make my job easier. Few books touch on security or performance in a practical manner, but this one digs right in and actually has information you can apply immediately to your app. I can see where the other reviewer might have been frustrated in that it didn't tell him how to write web applications. It is purely about testing them and doesn't get hung up walking you through any specific technologies. It concentrates on the information you need to test your app.
Don't take my word for it. Stickyminds gave it 4 stars. ...
Rating: 
Summary: The Insider's Guide to Microsoft-Approved Tests?
Review: I haven't read this book, but looked at it in a bookshop. I started by looking to see what was written about aspects of web testing that I think I understand fairly well. So I turned to the (extensive) index. "Validation", "validator", "validating": nothing. (Could this be because pages created by Microsoftware tend not to validate?) "W3C", "DTD": nothing. (Perhaps because MS seems only a halfhearted member of W3C.) As I flicked through the book, I saw a tolerably good example of how verbose 20th-century markup could be streamlined into tighter 20th-century markup. The whole thing could have been streamlined a lot by use of CSS. So I turned back to the index: "CSS", "Cascading": nothing. Ms Ash does say that it's important to check that your website works with the most commonly used browsers. And this, of course, primarily means MSIE. Much of what Ms Ash writes may for all I know be fine. But to interpret matters charitably, her book seems to have some extraordinary omissions.
Rating:
Summary: Hooray! Finally, a _PRACTICAL_ approach to testing
Review: So many testing books on the shelves these days deal with the theory and science of testing. Very few talk about the more practical aspects - how to go about actually putting the science and theories to work. This book, thankfully, falls into the latter category. The author does testing for applications that you and I (and millions of others) use on a daily basis. She shares her collection of tips, tricks, and strategies for testing commercial software thoroughly. The focus of the book is mostly on complex, multi-lingual web applications...but the vast majority of the information contained in the book is equally applicable to shrink-wrapped software. The biggest gem in the book would have to be the coverage of international testing of your application and how to properly test software destined to be ported or released in multiple languages. The extensive appendices and companion website contain a wealth of information for ensuring your software works with a variety of language inputs. Also covered in the book is how to do extensive analysis and testing of security for web-based applications...something I have not seen covered well in any other testing book to date. In some ways, the title of the book is misleading; it invokes images of how to test web sites and other similar services. However, the book is much more practical and holistic than that. It covers Testing (note, the capital-T) as a career, along with career-advice and an extensive bibliography to help Test and QA personnel grow professionally. All-in-all, a highly recommended book! Since the contents are not given here, I thought it might be helpful to list the major sections to see what is covered: Part I: Becoming a Tester
Chapter 1 - Getting Started With Testing
Chapter 2 - The Theory of Software Testing
Chapter 3 - The Practice of Software Testing
Chapter 4 - Starting on Web Testing
Part II: Client-Side Testing
Chapter 5 - Testing HTML - The Static Web
Chapter 6 - The Dynamic Web
Chapter 7 - Testing Character Sets, Code Pages, and Glyphs
Part III: Server-Side Testing
Chapter 8 - Performance Testing
Chapter 9 - Security Testing
Part IV: Being a Tester
Chapter 10 - Automation
Chapter 11 - Test Planning And Design
Chapter 12 - On Being A Professional Tester
Part V: Testing References
Appendices A-P (yes, really!)
Forms, checklists, tools, references, pointers to relevant RFCs and other standards, language mappings, Unicode and code pages, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Take the title literally
Review: This book is overshadowed by "Testing Applications on the Web: Test Planning for Mobile and Internet-Based Systems" ISBN 0471201006, which is one of the most highly regarded in the testing community. However, that does not mean this book is without merit. On the contrary, the rich content of the appendices, which comprise a significant portion of this work, make it an ideal companion to the aforementioned book. Another point in this book's favor is that it is basic enough and structured to make it an ideal text for a course on web testing. The author did an excellent job of describing good practices in web testing and covering the basics. She also provides a good deal of sage advice on careen matters, which a more technical book will overlook. I found the chapters on server-side testing accurate and clear enough for new test professionals to completely follow. The chapters on performance and security testing were reasonably complete, and the chapters on client side were as well and clearly written. I also like the author's objectivity - she works for Microsoft, but did not emphasize that company's technologies or processes over standard industry practices. As a supplement to a more technical book, such as the one I cited above, or as a text in a basic web testing course this book shines. It is not the definitive reference, but is worth reading if for no other reason than to have the appendices nearby as a ready reference during test cycles.
Rating:
Summary: Take the title literally
Review: This book is overshadowed by "Testing Applications on the Web: Test Planning for Mobile and Internet-Based Systems" ISBN 0471201006, which is one of the most highly regarded in the testing community. However, that does not mean this book is without merit. On the contrary, the rich content of the appendices, which comprise a significant portion of this work, make it an ideal companion to the aforementioned book. Another point in this book's favor is that it is basic enough and structured to make it an ideal text for a course on web testing. The author did an excellent job of describing good practices in web testing and covering the basics. She also provides a good deal of sage advice on careen matters, which a more technical book will overlook. I found the chapters on server-side testing accurate and clear enough for new test professionals to completely follow. The chapters on performance and security testing were reasonably complete, and the chapters on client side were as well and clearly written. I also like the author's objectivity - she works for Microsoft, but did not emphasize that company's technologies or processes over standard industry practices. As a supplement to a more technical book, such as the one I cited above, or as a text in a basic web testing course this book shines. It is not the definitive reference, but is worth reading if for no other reason than to have the appendices nearby as a ready reference during test cycles.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Web QA resource
Review: This is the best book I have ever seen on the testing web applications. It covers everything from unicode to Javascript, from security to the validity of the HTML. It teaches through an understanding of the technology, then covers ways to stress the technology to look for bugs. The sections on character encodings and performance testing are particularly well done. This is a must have book for QA professionals tasked with testing a web application.
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