We're pleased to bring you technical editors who are well respected in their fields. Get their take on everything that relates to the industry, technically speaking. In this issue, find out why our guest editor thinks he's found the bug that will once again bring testers to the forefront—a bug that dwarfs Y2K and could put big, rich software companies out of business.

Today's business world relies heavily on transactions conducted through the web. Because of this, brand image and how a web site is rendered to customers has become increasingly important. A poorly functioning web site poses significant risk for web-based companies. This presentation discusses the challenges involved when testing to ensure the quality of your company's web site and to ensure that the components of the site function properly. With the ever-increasing web complexity, specific tools and processes are required to manage these challenges.

• Discover ways to ensure that your web site reflects your privacy policy
• Learn how to manage your web sites's links to ensure that they remain current and unbroken, and ensure that web content is accessible to users
• Learn about specific tools and processes to test and manage your web site

Security QA testing is still in its infancy, yet the number of vulnerabilities found in applications is increasing-up by 75 percent in 2001 according to Gartner Group. Although software teams are learning about the types of coding and configuration errors that expose vulnerabilities in an application, a comprehensive QA methodology must be applied to reduce security risk. This means testers need a security policy that can serve as the basis for automated tests. Security experts can define these policies, but testers need to know how to effectively run the security tests in an automated environment to locate vulnerabilities, evaluate their results, and enter bugs for failed tests in a defect tracking system. By automating security tests, organizations can significantly reduce risk and maximize existing resource productivity.

• Reduce the cost of development by finding security holes early in the cycle, before release

You've been assigned the task of evaluating automated testing tools for your organization. Whether it's your first experience or you're looking to make a change, selecting the "best" automated testing tool can be a daunting task. With so many toolsets available, we sometimes make decisions that don't provide appropriate functionality. This presentation takes you through a number of steps that should be understood--and addressed--prior to acquiring any regression or performance-based toolset.

• Learn to correlate your organization's requirements and existing framework with the toolsets available
• Examine how integrated components help to identify potential problems
• Determine what to ask/require from each vendor before committing to a purchase