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Increased demand for test expertise has generated interest in testing-specific professional certifications. Alyn Wambeke sorts through certification options for testers.

In comparing himself today to his younger self, Steve Smith says, "I've changed. The work that interests me wouldn't interest Young Steve. Although Young Steve would outdo me technically, I could compete in that arena: Young Steve couldn't compete with me in my new mission."

Brian Marick uses two bugs to illustrate a small, but valuable, test design tip: Try the next thing that a user would try.

Change is the watchword of life in the software world--perhaps no field has grown and transformed itself as quickly as our industry. To survive and succeed in this business we must truly be masters of change; those who have been the most successful are the ones who have been able to use change as a tool and catalyst. Maureen O'Hara describes how change can be an agent for growth.

Margaret Ramsey looks at Defect Management with Soffront's TRACK Defects. She concludes: "If this tool meets your requirements and its pricing isn't out of your ballpark, it's definitely worth considering. With its customizability and ease of use, TRACK Defects is one tool that should be on your evaluation list."

For all of the effort we've made in the software field to find the best methodology, the best programming language, the best operating system, the best set of tools, even the best process maturity model—the search for the "best" is often futile. Robert L. Glass urges you to not be confined by a software approach that doesn't match your specific needs.

Collectively, problems related to resource sharing in multi-threaded, multi-processor, and distributed systems are termed "concurrency problems." Concurrency problems are further divided into several major subcategories such as deadlock, livelock, priority inversion, starvation, and race conditions. This article will focus on race conditions.