One morning after some deep meditation, the Xobni team woke up and realized that not everyone uses Xobni on the same Dell Inspirons and IBM ThinkPads that we all use. Matt’s head almost exploded from this realization. True story.
We knew that testing had to be done on the machines our users were actually using. This involves more than simply doing testing on virtual machines, which we have used since day 1 (for non-techies: virtual machines are software simulations of computers commonly used in quality assurance engineering). Instead we needed computers that have all the pre-configured bloatware, special packs of Microsoft Office, extra restore partitions, and all of the rest of that great stuff that slows down your computer to a crawl.
With this goal in mind, we searched Craigslist for machines that were 1-2 years old, and better represented the types of machines that our users were using. Behold, I present the Pirate Lab! Or Ninja Lab, depending on which group you’d rather fall into.
What is that bizarre thing in the corner?
Oh yes friends, we go get hungry here in the Xobni office. While the kitchen is stocked with goodies to eat, sometimes the kitchen is just too far away. Brownies, anyone?
If any users out there have extra old laptops that they’d like to donate to our lab please send them to 211 Sutter St. Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94108 c/o Pirate QA Lab. We’ll send you a free Xobni shirt in exchange! You’ll also maintain the honor of knowing that you had a small part in changing the world of email.
