MERAK Systems blood donor team attended its third visit of 2012 to the blood donor clinic. We are proud to announce that to date, our team has donated a total of 22 units!

Our original goal of 30 units is extremely attainable, so we have chosen to increase our pledge to 35 units. We have approximately 3 more visits to go to the end of the year with an average of 5 individuals donating at each visit.

Why is MERAK participating?

We all know someone who needed blood for surgery or medical treatment. This is one small way our company can give back and make a life-changing difference for someone when they need it most. It takes less than an hour every 56 days but can have a huge impact on someone’s life.

How much blood does it take to save a life?

(image taken from Canadian Blood Services)

Would you like to join MERAK in Partners for Life?

Family and friends can also add to our company goal every time they donate blood and we would love to have you join us in the cause. Please contact us if you are interested.

Original Story: MERAK gives the ‘Gift of Life’ – January 1, 2012

Follow up: MERAK gives the ‘Gift of Life’: Halfway to Goal – May 3, 2012

Movember 2011

In November, many of MERAK’s employees participate in the Annual Movember cause, raising money for Prostate Cancer.  James Dyer, a creative member of our team decided to take the challenge one step further and expanded his campaign to a (yearlong) fundraising initiative supporting a number of charities.  His dedication to the cause has seen MANY donations roll in (and his mustache roll up!). Check out the progress below…

January 2012

James put the fate of his upper lip into the hands of his colleagues, family and friends. James’ goal was to raise $100 a month.  If he raised $100 the mustache stays. But here is a twist. There are people in James’ life who are not avid mustache fans – they have the ability to counter the mustache supporters.

For every dollar anti-stachers donate to a cause it reduces the impact of the pro-stachers donation on James upper lip.

Donations can be made to a charity of your choice.  James has recommended the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Send the gift notification to [email protected].  James keeps track of the donations through that email, to determine at the end of each month whether the stache stays or goes.

February 2012

What a success!  James has a very strong following of pro-stachers! By mid-January he acquired enough donations to carry the mustache through to March.

March 2012

During the month of March anti-stachers strengthened their resolve in financial donations, meaning pro-stachers would have to work harder to keep that mustache on James’ face.

Due to the success of his endeavours, James increased his fundraising goal to $200 a month.

April 2012

The stache made it through April 1st with some money left over.  James increased his fundraising goal to $300 a month. Thanks again to everyone for the donations so far.  The total raised to date is $800.01.

Update April 24, 2012

Apparently the publicity from the MERAK website was effective. James received $515 pro-stache, covering $300 for May and $300 for June.

The total raised so far is $1,350.01 of that $641.01 has been toward the Stephen Lewis foundation.

Keep checking back for updates and progress and thanks for the support!

Every 56 days a group of MERAK employees either on their lunch or after work make their way to the Canadian Blood Services located in Guelph, to participate in ‘Partners for Life’.  On May 3 the group completed their third visit of the year.  In total MERAK employees have donated 16 units, completing just over half of the company’s goal to donate 30 units by the end of the year.

If you are interested in donating you can make an appointment with Canadian Blood Services at 1.888.2.DONATE or you can join us June 28, 2012 for our next donation.

Thank you to all donors new and old.  And a special thank you to the nurses and volunteers at Canadian Blood Services who are getting to know us, making our visits quick, painless and comfortable.

Original story: MERAK gives the ‘Gift of Life’ – January 1, 2012

A full team of Quality Assurance Analysts (QAs) represented MERAK at the 2012 KWSQA Annual Targeting Quality Conference.  They felt that the conference was a great way to know what was happening in the industry and with their fellow QA colleagues.  Here are the top-five things they took away from this conference.

1. Session Based Test Management – In an Agile Sprint where the clock is ticking, testers often face the challenge of balancing requirements coverage and exploratory testing.  Session Based Testing can be an effective approach to ensuring requirements are implemented and validated while gaining the most coverage out of your test areas.  This method has the flexibility to be integrated into existing test strategies or used as an additional tool during testing.

2. Ice Cream Cone Effect – Is introduced as “anti-pattern” testing that leads to bad results.  It applies to waterfall, agile or any testing methodology.  This is not a good approach since you will be creating “inverted” pyramids of software testing that will result in “ice cream cone” testing.  If the order of testing follows unit tests, integration tests, automated GUI test and manual tests, it results in software testing anti-pattern.  Ideal software testing pyramid should follow automated unit tests, automated component tests, automated integration tests, automated API tests, automated GUI tests and manual session based tests.

3. Automation Testing – It is impossible to automate all regression test suites.  It can be easier to create a new automation test rather than maintain the old one.  Any repetitive tests should be automated.

4. Crazy Testing – Is important as it brings in a variety of factors: creativity, open mindedness, innovation and simplicity.  In order to catch the functionality it is important to ask the following questions As a…, I want…, and so that…  Using mind map strategies can help organize, ensure the right coverage and prioritize.  When the QA asks 4 – 5 why’s before they start testing, it aids in understanding the business needs more significantly.  Think outside the box and test crazy ideas, like Soap Opera testing.

5. Waterfall vs. Agile – When looking at the difference between the two most frequently used methodologies in IT today Waterfall and Agile, it is important to note that Waterfall is a very process oriented approach and Agile focuses on utilizing people’s skills and intelligence.  A good example of a difference is how metrics are used – Waterfall relies on the collection of many metrics that can be misleading, deceptive or unhelpful, Agile uses simple metrics that give a clear indication of testing.

Presented by the Kitchener Waterloo Software Association, the Targeting Quality Conference 2012 takes place April 23-24, 2012.

The Quality Assurance team at MERAK will be attending the conference to build their skills and learn from a wide range of speakers and industry experts.  Knowledge gained will benefit the rest of our staff as well as the clients we serve.

MERAK Systems has signed up to become one of the ‘Partners for Life’ with the Canadian Blood Services.

Our first team donation was on November 17, 2011.  An enthusiastic group set out to the Guelph blood donor clinic at the end of the day to give the gift of life.

Special recognition is deserved for those first-time donors who had some trouble with the needle but have bravely continued to donate several times since.

The first goal for the company is to complete 30 donations of blood over the 2012 calendar year. At our current pace, we’re on track to do much better than that.  Go team!

On September 30, 2011, MERAK staff dressed up in pink to support Terry Rendle (AKA Hairy Terry) in his quest to raise money for breast cancer.  Terry started growing his hair back in September 2010 and dyed it pink at the beginning of September 2011.  On October 2, 2011, Terry ran in the CIBC Run for the Cure and raised $3000.  Terry was also featured in a local blog recently for his fundraising effort.