Overview of Localization Testing and what are its focus areas.

Localization is a process of customizing a software application that was originally designed for a domestic market so that it can be released in foreign markets. Localization testing checks the quality of a product's localization for a particular target culture/locale.

Areas of focus in Localization testing
- Localization testing should focus on the areas affected by localization, such as UI and content, culture/locale-specific, language-specific, and region-specific areas.
- The localized checklist includes spelling rules, sorting rules, upper and lower case conversions, printers, size of papers, operating system, key boards, text filters, hot keys, mouse, date formats, measurements and rulers, available memory.
- Localization testing should include basic functionality tests, setup and upgrade tests run in the localized environment and plan application and hardware compatibility tests according to the product's target region.
- Availability of drivers for local hardware.
- Encryption algorithms.
- Focus on customization that could not be automated through the globalization services infrastructure.
- The quality is not usually checked during localization testing.
- Validation and verification of applications, linguistic accuracy, and consistency checks can be purchased separately.
- Localized testing can weed out potential errors, before they are localized and correcting them becomes costly.
- The advantage of localized testing is that it saves time.

Naming Schemes of Distributed file systems

Large networks often use a systematic naming scheme, such as using a location (e.g. a department) plus a purpose to generate a name for a computer. However, smaller networks will frequently use a more personalized naming scheme to keep track of the many hosts. Network naming can be hierarchical in nature, such as the Internet's Domain Name System. Indeed, the Internet employs several universally applicable naming methods: Uniform Resource Names (URN), Uniform Resource Locators (URL), and Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI).
A good naming scheme is scalable, unique, and easy to remember. The purpose of these naming schemes is to name network computers, but it can also be used to name projects, variables, streets, pets, kids, or any other project where unique names and remember able names are required.

There are three main approaches to naming files:
 
- Files are named with a combination of host and local name.
* This guarantees a unique name.
* It is neither location transparent nor location independent.
* Same naming works on local and remote files.
- Remote directories are mounted to local directories.
* A local system seems to have a coherent directory structure.  
* The remote directories must be explicitly mounted. The files are location independent.
* SUN (Network File System)NFS is a good example of this technique.
- A single global name structure spans all the files in the system.
* The DFS is built in the same way as a local file system.
* It is location independent.

Enabling a product to work across different locales - what is the need ?

Nowadays, in order to have a successful software product, there is a dire need to ensure that you release the product in different languages. You might argue that your main market is in the United States, and there are enough English speakers the world over to make your product successful. However, consider the following factors -
- Do a quick survey to determine potential users for your products in different countries
- Look at your competitors and see how many different countries they are sold in
- Consider the problem of negotiating deals with hardware sellers to include your software in their hardwares as part of OEM deals (they would want the ability to include the same software in their different country deals)
- The incremental benefit to having multiple language sales is more than the cost involved
- You can seriously cause harm to your image if you don't have a global presence. With an increasing percentage of people in countries being bilingual or from another country of origin (such as the increasing Hispanic population in the US, and the movement of people within the EU), it gets difficult for you to justify yourself as a serious software product if you don't have language versions.

Now, how do you actually go ahead with ensuring that your product can be localized easily and is properly available in different languages ?
Well, you do something called software internationalization; a process that ensures that your software application works in different languages and regions without having to make changes at the time of use. You enable the software during the design time to work with different languages, typically by adding something called language packs that allows the same software to pick up the relevant language packs, and in many cases, enabling the software to change languages easily during use. The engineering work needed to enable this to happen is a lot more complicated, and will be detailed over the next few posts.