Dragons Out as audiobook and more conferences

Did you notice that Dragons Out! has now reached new frontiers? Not the final frontier, where no one has gone before, but an important one, where many others have gone before. : ) Audiobook! Yes, Austin Macauley has now published Dragons Out! as an audiobook. It is available at many audio services, including the most extensive audiobook service in the world, Audible - you can get the book from here.

I was very happy listening to some narrator examples months ago. The audiobook project was progressing! The narrator candidates all read a 2-minute section of some toddler book, so I had to imagine what they would sound like when they read something more adventurous. The fantasy story in Dragons Out is really an adventure story -  the children look for dragons and get into difficult situations where sometimes it is them and not the adults who get them out of trouble! Anyway, I thought the tone of one of the narrators would fit my book perfectly. So I chose him! Many months later I was happy to listen to Marco Villa reading Dragons Out audiobook chapters. Listening through the chapters, there were - of course - a few things to correct (forever the tester!), but it sounded great! And then, through all the audiobook production stages.

So, now the audiobook in English is there. Get it! Enjoy it! Which language next, I wonder?

The autumn also featured a trip to Morocco, where I spoke at two events. The first was the Journée Marocaine Des Test Logiciels (JMTL) or Moroccan Software Testing Day in Casablanca. No, I didn't have time to visit the famous gin joint Rick's cafe. : ) I spoke about the Dragons Out project and was happy to get good feedback and sell and sign some books afterwards. English books work quite nicely in Morocco although French books will work much better. Or Arabic of course - this request I heard several times. My publisher needs to take action towards the Arabic edition of Dragons Out!

The other event was the A4Q Test Summit in Marrakech, adjacent to ISTQB General Assembly. There I spoke about How to Become a Multitalented Tester, which was a talk of many things but also of testers becoming authors. When you write, you'll have to find clarity in your thoughts about testing, which will help in all the other testing-related tasks. The same goes for any topic of course. Authoring is an act of crystallizing your opinions into letters. You'll think it through once, and then you can rely on your views at all later stages of your life. It was good to take a skill and career view into tester life after winning all those testing awards last year. Thank you again!

Now, Christmas time is upon us again. How about getting some software testing knowledge for your kids or yourself, coupled with fun fantasy adventures? Dragons Out! makes an excellent Christmas present, in Finnish, English, or Polish - in hardcover, softcover or e-book. Or why not get more books on one go, sign up for Audible audiobook service for a year and start by listening through the Dragons Out! audiobook? Anyway, happy festivities!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Amazing feedback and school visits

Image
 I recently got some  amazing feedback  from a 9-year-old reader through his dad. The Dragons Out book was an exciting Christmas present that the boy started reading on his own. He did the exercises at the end of the chapters and was really thrilled about them ("I did all of those great exercises!"). Upon asking why the book was so thrilling, he answered, "It was a great book because it had true things and fantasy side by side, and the exercises were fun!". It feels so good to hear such feedback - keep it coming! The unique approach of fantasy coupled with testing works. Remember my school visits, earlier? It is  again time to have school visits in Finland , too. It is especially nice now that face-to-face meetings are possible, and I don't need to access the school class virtually over a Teams meeting. That works too, yes, with a teacher facilitating in the class, but it is so much nicer and more concrete to meet and teach children face-to-face. I asked for som
Read more

Article in Dimensio-magazine

I recently had a chance to write in the magazine of math teachers. Mathematics is one of the natural stepping stones towards software development and software testing. The association of math teachers (MAOL) has been interested in cooperation with me. They considered software testing to be an interesting angle for anyone interested in mathematics. I wrote about my book writing project and how software testing can be taught to children via a fantasy book. The article is in Finnish here: https://www.dimensiolehti.fi/opetetaan-lapsille-ohjelmistotestausta-fantasiakirjan-avulla/
Read more

AI creating Dragons and testing stories

Image
In recent times, it seems like the whole world has gone crazy trying to use Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence). These LLMs (large language models) can create content based on user prompts.  Now I tried the LLM Brave Leo (Mixtral) to create a Dragons Out -like story for me. Although it was just experimental, the results are quite impressive. I used just three prompts. Finally, I tried to get a picture of all this - a fourth prompt. It didn't work, but I got a description, which I used in a prompt of a picture generation AI, Deep AI.  Did you learn something from the below? I think an LLM can help with quality like this. But the picture was quite disappointing to me. Anyway, I think I'll write my own stuff also in the future and ask Adri for more fantastic illustrations. Me: What is RPG? Brave Leo: RPG stands for "Role-Playing Game." It is a type of game where players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting and engage in activities to develop their ch
Read more