Living life as a Software Tester!

Recently I read a very interesting article on “All I Ever need to know about testing” by Lee Copeland.I was so impressed with the concept of our day to day work comparison with the software testing.I will extract only points related to software testing. As a software tester keep in mind these simple points:Share everything:If you are a experienced tester on any project then help the new developers on your project. Some testers have habit to keep the known bugs hidden till they get implement in code and then they write a big defect report on that. Don’t try to only pump your bug count, share everything with developers.Build trust:Let the developers know any bug you found in design phase. Do not log the bug repeatedly with small variations just to pump the bug count. Build trust in developer and tester relation.Don’t blame others:As a tester you should not always blame developers for the bugs. Concentrate on bug, not always on pointing that bug in front of all people. Hit the bug and its cause not the developer!Clean up your own mess:When you finish doing any test scenario then reconfigure that machine to its original configuration. The same case applies for bug report. Write a clean effective bug report. Let the developer find it easy to repro and fix it.Give credit to others for their work:Do not take others credit. If you have referred any others work, immediately give credit to that person. Do not get frustrated if you not found any bug that later has been reported by client. Do work hard, use your skill.Remember to flush Like the toilets flush all the software’s at some point. While doing performance testing remember to flush the system cache.Take a nap everyday:We need time to think, get refresh or to regenerate our energy.Some times its important to take one step back in order to get fresh insight and to find different working approach.Always work in teams, team score are always better and powerful than individuals.

Top 20 replies by Programmers to Testers when their programs don't work:-)

"That's weird..."
"It's never done that before."
"It worked yesterday."
"How is that possible?"
"It must be a hardware problem."
"What did you type in wrong to get it to crash?"
"There is something funky in your data."
"I haven't touched that module in weeks!"
"You must have the wrong version."
"It's just some unlucky coincidence."
"I can't test everything!"
"THIS can't be the source of THAT."
"It works, but it hasn't been tested."
"Somebody must have changed my code."
"Did you check for a virus on your system?"
"Even though it doesn't work, how does it feel?
"You can't use that version on your system."
"Why do you want to do it that way?"
"Where were you when the program blew up?"
"It works on my machine"
Finally they won't fix it :)

Topics to learn before attending testing interview

Testing is not a simple subject:Anyway i will try to list important and most real time using things:
Testing Terminology
SDLC Models
Test Life cycle(STLC)
V-Model for testing
Defect Life cycle
Test case Preparation
a. Functional Test Case Preparation
b. GUI Test Case Preparation
Test Data Preparation
Test case Review
Test Case Execution
Smoke/Sanity Testing
Retesting ,Regression Testing Process
Bug/Defect Report writing
Bug or Defect Reporting and Tracking
Test summary Report Preparation
Excel using skills
The above mentioned things are minimum that you should learn to survive in software testing profession.Please try to learn atlest above things before going to any testing interview.

133 Software Testing Interview Questions

I have so many questions in my mind when I think of any interview questions for Software testing / QA Engineer.These are all the questions extracted from the web and these are most asked interview questions too. Would you be able to answer all of them?If you know the answers please post your ans along with the question number.Ofcourse am giving links to some of the questions to find the correct answer.Do post your answers and help the people in finding answers.And also do mention your mail id in comment to get the answers for all the 133 Questions.Best of luck..!!
What is Software Testing?
What is the Purpose of Testing?
What types of testing do testers perform?
What is the Outcome of Testing?
What kind of testing have you done?
What is the need for testing?
What are the entry criteria for Functionality and Performance testing?
What is test metrics?
Why do you go for White box testing, when Black box testing is available?
What are the entry criteria for Automation testing?
When to start and Stop Testing?
What is Quality?
What is Baseline document, Can you say any two?
What is verification?
What is validation?
What is quality assurance?
What is quality control?
What is SDLC and TDLC?
What are the Qualities of a Tester?
When to start and Stop Testing?
What are the various levels of testing?
What are the types of testing you know and you experienced?
What exactly is Heuristic checklist approach for unit testing?
After completing testing, what would you deliver to the client?
What is a Test Bed?
What is a Data Guidelines?
Why do you go for Test Bed?
What is Severity and Priority and who will decide what?
Can Automation testing replace manual testing? If it so, how?
What is a test case?
What is a test condition?
What is the test script?
What is the test data?
What is an Inconsistent bug?
What is the difference between Re-testing and Regression testing?
What are the different types of testing techniques?
What are the different types of test case techniques?
What are the risks involved in testing?
Differentiate Test bed and Test Environment?
What ifs the difference between defect, error, bug, failure, fault?
What is the difference between quality and testing?
What is the difference between White & Black Box Testing?
What is the difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control?
What is the difference between Testing and debugging?
What is the difference between bug and defect?
What is the difference between verification and validation?
What is the difference between functional spec. and Business requirement specification?
What is the difference between unit testing and integration testing?
What is the diff between Volume & Load?
What is diff between Volume & Stress?
What is the diff between Stress & Load Testing?
What is the Diff between Two Tier & Three tier Architecture?
What is the diff between Client Server & Web Based Testing?
What is the diff between Integration & System Testing?
What is the Diff between Code Walkthrough & Code Review?
What is the diff between walkthrough and inspection?
What is the Diff between SIT & IST?
What is the Diff between static and dynamic?
What is the diff between alpha testing and beta testing?
What are the Minimum requirements to start testing?
What is Smoke Testing & when it will be done?
What is Adhoc Testing? When it can be done?
What is cookie testing?
What is security testing?
What is database testing?
What is the relation ship between Quality & Testing?
How do you determine, what to be tested?
How do you go about testing a project?
What is the Initial Stage of testing?
What is Web Based Application Testing?
What is Client Server Application Testing?
What is Two Tier & Three tier Architecture?
What is the use of Functional Specification?
Why do we prepare test condition, test cases, test script (Before Starting Testing)?
Is it not waste of time in preparing the test condition, test case & Test Script?
How do you go about testing of Web Application?
How do you go about testing of Client Server Application?
What is meant by Static Testing?
Can the static testing be done for both Web & Client Server Application?
In the Static Testing, what all can be tested?
Can test condition, test case & test script help you in performing the static testing?
What is meant by dynamic testing?
Is the dynamic testing a functional testing?
Is the Static testing a functional testing?
What are the functional testing you perform?
What is meant by Alpha Testing?
What kind of Document you need for going for an Functional testing?
What is meant by Beta Testing?
At what stage the unit testing has to be done?
Who can perform the Unit Testing?
When will the Verification & Validation be done?
What is meant by Code Walkthrough?
What is meant Code Review?
What is the testing that a tester performs at the end of Unit Testing?
What are the things, you prefer & Prepare before starting Testing?
What is Integration Testing?
What is Incremental Integration Testing?
What is meant by System Testing?
What is meant by SIT?
When do you go for Integration Testing?
Can the System testing be done at any stage?
What are stubs & drivers?
What is the Concept of Up-Down & Down-Up in Testing in integration testing?
What is the final Stage of Integration Testing?
Where in the SDLC, the Testing Starts?
What is the Outcome of Integration Testing?
What is meant by GUI Testing?
What is meant by Back-End Testing?
What are the features, you take care in Prototype testing?
What is Mutation testing & when can it be done?
What is Compatibility Testing?
What is Usability Testing?
What is the Importance of testing?
What is meant by regression Testing?
When we prefer Regression & what are the stages where we go for Regression Testing?
What is performance testing?
What is the Performance testing; those can be done Manually & Automatically?
What is Volume, Stress & Load Testing?
What is a Bug?
What is a Defect?
What is the defect Life Cycle?
What is the Priority in fixing the Bugs?
Explain the Severity you rate for the bugs found?
Diff between UAT & IST?
What is meant by UAT?
What all are the requirements needed for UAT?
What are the docs required for Performance Testing?
What is risk analysis?
How to do risk management?130. What are test closure documents?
What is traceability matrix?
What ways you followed for defect management?and finally
What is diff betn Smoke Testing and Sanity Testing?
What is the though situation you ever faced in testing?

Interview Questions @ CA this week

Questions gathered from interview at CA, Hyd this week.
Why S/W need testing?
How will you choose your test team?
Testplan shouldn't contain?
Extension for Object Repository in QTP? Ans: .TSR
How will you communicate with client in deadline situations?
QTP uses which script?
QTP and QC Integration?
What are list of Functional testing tools?
Will post remaining in next article. Happy Reading!

Smoke Testing Vs Sanity Testing

Smoke Testing Vs Sanity Testing1. "Smoke Testing" is usually done on the nightly/interim build to test its stability. Therefore "smoke Testing" is often called as "Build verfication Testing" too. In contrast, "Sanity Testing" is usually done during the later cycles after thorough regression cycle are over. When multiple cycle of testing are executed, "Sanity Testing " is done towards the product release phase.2. "Smoke Testing" is done following a shallow and wide approach where all the basic and major areas are tested without going too deep into the functionality. In contrast, "Sanity Testing" is usually a focused but limited form of regression testing, which follows a deep and narrow approach to test a particular functionality in detail.3. "Smoke Testing" is done by developers before the build is released or by testers before accepting a build for further testing. On the other hand, "Sanity Testing" is done mostly by the testers.4. "Smoke Tests" are mostly in form of scripted form whereas "Sanity Tests" are mostly non-scripted.5. "Smoke Testing" can be compared with the normal health check-up of the product whereas the "Sanity Testing" can be compared with some specialized tests to reveal possible problem with a particular functionality of the product.

Defect Report Template

Defect reports are probably primary work product for most of the software testers. Good bug report, which is informative and understandable earns you a good reputation. Weak report generate extra work for everyone. Most of the time, a weak bug report is returned with comments saying not clear, need more information etc. That makes you work again on the same defect and thus reduces efficiency of testers and developers both. Defect reports are not only used by programmers, but also by managers, executives, documentation team and support executives for various reasons.Purpose of a defect report is multifold in any organization. Defect reports are used to
Alert software programmers about the defect and gives them sufficient information to find root cause and fix the problem.
Provide information to technical writers who are writing troubleshooting, known limitation etc.
Provide starting point for the next release
Add test cases in the regression suite for next release.
According to IEEE 829, A good defect reports should be simple, understandable, reproducible, legible and non-judgmental.
Defect Report Template :
A good defect report might have following sections.
Headline: One line description of the defect. Remember, A good headline will always be clear, related to the defect and give some hints on how critical defect could be.
Product: In most cases defect tracking system is used for more than one product. So specifying appropriate product and version is very important.
Component: Products are normally very complex, and can be divided into components. A defect report containing proper information about component can help managers in assigning it to appropriate person.
Defect Type: Defect type could be, functionality, specification, regression, UI etc. This classification can be used to analyze how defects are distributed in the system.
Priority: Priority is the impact of defect on business. This field gives an indication of the impact of this defect on business. In some organizations, testers do not specify priority, It is defined my manager or triage team members.
Severity: Severity is the impact of the defect on the product. For example if you hit five keys together and your product crashes, it is a very severe defect. But its priority is probably low because normally people might not hit five keys together. Now consider that the company logo is not proper on the splash screen. From severity point of view it is not severe as it is not crashing application or blocking user from using the application. However, it is hig priority as it is affecting organization's image.
Environment: Proper information about your test execution environment should be present. For example, information about platform, databases, run times everything should be included in your defect report. This information helps development team in reproducing the defects.
Steps: All the steps should be specified clearly. You should not assume that programmer will understand this. Programmer might be looking at your defect report when are not around to explain. Your steps should be clear enough for a novice user to follow and reproduce or verify the defect .
Attachments: Whatever additional information is needed for the defect, should also be attached. This additional information could be logs generated by system, application etc. It could be screen shots or any other thing that might help developers in reproducing the defects.
Comments: If you have any additional comments on the defect, you should specify it clearly. For example if you observe/think that defect is related to some other defects filed in the same component with little variation. You should specify that.
Hope this template was useful for you. You can also visit test plan Here.
In every organization defects are reported or tracked in a defect tracking system

Software Test Life Cycle(STLC)

Life Cycle of Testing Process This article explains about Different steps in Life Cycle of Testing Process. In Each phase of the development process will have a specific input and a specific output. Once the project is confirmed to start, the phases of the development of project can be divided into the following phases:
Software requirements phase.
Software Design
Implementation
Testing
Maintenance
In the whole development process, testing consumes highest amount of time. But most of the developers oversee that and testing phase is generally neglected. As a consequence, erroneous software is released. The testing team should be involved right from the requirements stage itself.
The various phases involved in testing, with regard to the software development life cycle are:
Requirements stage
Test Plan
Test Design.
Design Reviews
Code Reviews
Test Cases preparation.
Test Execution
Test Reports.
Bugs Reporting
Reworking on patches.
Release to production.
Requirements Stage:Normally in many companies, developers itself take part in the requirements stage. Especially for product-based companies, a tester should also be involved in this stage. Since a tester thinks from the user side whereas a developer can’t. A separate panel should be formed for each module comprising a developer, a tester and a user. Panel meetings should be scheduled in order to gather everyone’s view. All the requirements should be documented properly for further use and this document is called “Software Requirements Specifications”.
Test Plan:Without a good plan, no work is a success. A successful work always contains a good plan. The testing process of software should also require good plan. Test plan document is the most important document that brings in a process – oriented approach. A test plan document should be prepared after the requirements of the project are confirmed. The test plan document must consist of the following information:
Total number of features to be tested.
Testing approaches to be followed.
The testing methodologies
Number of man-hours required.
Resources required for the whole testing process.
The testing tools that are to be used.
The test cases, etc
Test Design:Test Design is done based on the requirements of the project. Test has to be designed based on whether manual or automated testing is done. For automation testing, the different paths for testing are to be identified first. An end to end checklist has to be prepared covering all the features of the project.The test design is represented pictographically. The test design involves various stages. These stages can be summarized as follows:• The different modules of the software are identified first.
• Next, the paths connecting all the modules are identified.Then the design is drawn. The test design is the most critical one, which decides the test case preparation. So the test design assesses the quality of testing process.
Test Cases Preparation:
Test cases should be prepared based on the following scenarios:
Positive scenarios
Negative scenarios
Boundary conditions and
Real World scenarios
Design Reviews:The software design is done in systematical manner or using the UML language. The tester can do the reviews over the design and can suggest the ideas and the modifications needed.
Code Reviews:Code reviews are similar to unit testing. Once the code is ready for release, the tester should be ready to do unit testing for the code. He must be ready with his own unit test cases. Though a developer does the unit testing, a tester must also do it. The developers may oversee some of the minute mistakes in the code, which a tester may find out.
Test Execution and Bugs Reporting:Once the unit testing is completed and the code is released to QA, the functional testing is done. A top-level testing is done at the beginning of the testing to find out the top-level failures. If any top-level failures occur, the bugs should be reported to the developer immediately to get the required workaround.The test reports should be documented properly and the bugs have to be reported to the developer after the testing is completed.
Release to Production:Once the bugs are fixed, another release is given to the QA with the modified changes. Regression testing is executed. Once the QA assures the software, the software is released to production. Before releasing to production, another round of top-level testing is done. The testing process is an iterative process. Once the bugs are fixed, the testing has to be done repeatedly. Thus the testing process is an unending process.

Google Way Back Machine can takes you to January 2001

You might have heard about way back machine, which takes you to past to know how things happened at that time. This time Google came with the same concept in honor of its 10th Birthday. Google provided an opportunity to go back to 2001 to see the past. So follow me here I will take you back to January 2001.
Google explains that the index from January 2001 is the earliest available. “Well, for various technical reasons that are too boring to go into, earlier versions of our index aren’t readily accessible. But we did still want to offer users a chance to search an older index as a way of looking back at web history, and the January 2001 index is the best we can do.”
As Wikipedia informs us, January 2001 was an important month: Wikipedia is founded, George W. Bush becomes the 43rd President of the United States and Apple introduces iTunes.
A search for Gmail returned results about a Linux mail client and the Garfield email service.
If you observe you can see a exclamation mark next to Google in logo. Later they removed that mark!
So what you think? Go back to 2001 enjoy searching with your name, your blog name and etc…. Fun Blogging
Images and some facts with courtesy of Google System

Google desperately searching for Arabic Speaking Engineers

Do you have a dream to join Google? Ofcourse every ones dream I guess J.So here you have a change to make that possible. Google is on High-powered search for Arabic-speaking engineers. If you know Arabic, that’s enough to try.
From Google: Are you a great engineer familiar with Arabic speaking skills? We’re looking for engineers with the regional knowledge and Arabic language expertise to make Google products more relevant to this important population and to build new products for the global market. If you’re interested, please visit our job center and apply for one of the open positions. You could be a part of a team that will positively affect the lives of millions of Arabic users around the world.

List of cool features coming up in WordPress 2.7

After screenshot released last week, WordPress dev team released the list of features that they are going to be implemented in upcoming version 2.7 of WordPress Here is a brief list of features that you can expect at version 2.7:
MenusContextual Access TabsModule LayoutRight NowStatsQuick PressRecent DraftsFeedsIncoming LinksHooksRecent CommentsBye-Bye Inbox
So that’s the new Dashboard. A little [...]

Google enabled Adsense for Games

Google is still working towards providing Adsense for all the internet users and masters. After came with Adsense Feeds, now its turn for Game site masters and developers. Yes from now Adsense is available for Games sites also. They can keep Adsense ads (Video, Image, Text ads) with in the game. Even we can define [...]

MS TO RELEASE NEW SOFTWARE

Microsoft planning to release a new software for virtualization to compete with VMware.Microsoft Corp will release free software that allows multiple operating systems to run at the same time on a single server computer. The Hyper-V software will be available for download within 30 days, Microsoft said in a statement. The company released Hyper-V in [...]

Smart List of Free Desktop Softwares

Downloading free software is one of the great uses of the Internet. The Web is like one vast smorgasbord of free software – just fill up your plate with tasty downloads.All your desktop needs are addressed in this list:Browsers, IM’s, FTP,Players,Zip Tools. Start downloading!Browsers:Firefox:The tabbed, super-fast, open-source brower from Mozilla.Chrome :A mazic browser from Google [...]

Google:Gtalk Tips & Tricks

Most of the people online love Gtalk from Google. Reason is simple and known to all of us. Gtalk got simple design compared to all other IM’s. And also it doesn’t carry any advertisements like Yahoo messenger. Yes if you observe yahoo messenger it carries too many unwanted options, image ads and flash ads. Where as Gtalk is free from all these hectic things. Let me share 5 reasons why Gtalk is on top:
Simple design
Simple and Ads free interface
Chat in browser along with mail
Supported by maximum mobiles and less time to load compared all other IM’s
Cross platform (Supported in Windows, Mac, Linux and etc…)
Ok, I think you also love Gtalk and wanted to know more Tips & Tricks at this moment.
Keyboard shortcuts:
Ctrl + Mouse wheel up/down: Change the font size in a conversation window.
Ctrl + E: Center text
Ctrl + R: Right justify text
Ctrl + L or Ctrl + J: Left justify text
F9: Open Gmail to send an email to the person you talk to
F11: Start a call
F12: Stop the current call
ESC: Close the current window
Conversation Tips:
To write bold text, type *your Gtalk message*
To write italic text, type _your Gtalk message_
Interface Comparison:

Who Is Your Audience?

One of the first things that you need to decide, long before you begin your Blog, design , analysis and implementation, is who is your audience ? With whom are you trying to communicate? Or whom you are targeting with this blog? You are obviously creating blog for a reason, and hopefully you intended someone to view it.
There is the odd circumstance of someone creating a web site just for him, but this is a very rare exception. Usually there is some intention for someone else to read the articles. So before you monitor your analytics or stats, think or plan about your targeted audience. Then by keeping this in mind monitor your blog and try to rectify the mistakes you did.
After deciding your audience, always keep in mind that you should write the articles that reached those people. For example if your blog is intended to be read by advanced webmasters, you probably don’t want to include articles on how to load you site onto a free host. They should already have this information. Some of the quick checklist points are:
Always target certain kind of people on web
Try hard to impress them
Don’t write articles that doesn’t need by your audience
Give more information links to readers
Always try to answer their questions
As you can see, by understanding your audience, you can answer many of the questions that come up during long run of your blog. In fact, this understanding often makes the decisions become non-issues they are obvious.

Should you place relevant images in every article?

It’s a well known fact that human eyes will catch images first than text in a page. By seeing an appropriate image, reader can get an overview of what the author intended to say. So it’s highly recommended that using an appropriate image adds worth value to your article.
For example let’s imagine you are writing an article related to Adsense, here its worth to place a Google Adsense logo in your article. Let me share some Do’s and Don’ts while you play with images or logos in your articles.
Do’s:
Do use a company logo if you are talking about it
Do credit the designer if you use images on personal websites or blogs
Do use images on public domains like Gov
Don’ts:
Don’t edit the images without written permission from author
Don’t use company logos in unnecessary situations
Don’t remove or edit water marks on images
Please feel free to add more if you know. By the way are you placing images in your articles?

338 Cool and Quality Icons For Free

Do you want an icon for your blogs favicon or you like to collect and use icons much. If yes, here is a good collection of 338 free quality icons waiting for.
I like to find and collect the quality icons. In that process I found some good number of quality icons at Elitefreelancing and originally from Iconeden. Iconeden has the good quality premium and free Icons. You can find them in all the image formats like png, gif, jpeg and etc… and with sizes 48×48 and 64×64.
They categorized these 338 icons into 3 categories: Fresh, Milky and Bright!
FRESH: 59 fresh and lively icons such useful and flexibly applicable icons as application and financial symbols and the set surely will make your web applications and softwares more attractive and adorable.
MILKY: The Milky set contains more than 131 icons primarily colored in green, giving an eye-pleasant look and prominent display on either dark or bright backgrounds.
BRIGHT!: This 148-icon set contains all crisp-shaped icons that are designed for wide use in web applications, multimedia and software. This is a meaningful giveaway from Iconeden to community, so you can use Bright! For free for your personal and commercial projects.
You can find all these icons at Iconeden.We all must say thanks to guys at Iconeden for making this huge number of icons for free.

10 Tips to Design Great Wordpress Themes

Most bloggers have fun changing blog designs for free wordpress themes . Others design and create their own wordpress themes - this includes buying wordpress themes from professional blog theme designers. No matter which option you choose as a blogger, it is always better to have some knowledge on designing wordpress themes so you can interact in the theme designing process and the right blog design for your theme. The information provided here will be useful not only helpful to bloggers looking to re-design blog themes but also those looking for some blogging tips.
Here are 10 tips that can help you design great wordpress themes:
Decide how much you want to change the design: It is better to limit changes to your current blog design to a minimum so that you can keep intact the brand image already gained by your blog. See whether it is really worth to go for a complete revamp of your wordpress theme or do you want to save some of its valuable elements. Your decision should depend on your answer to this questions: What does my blog gain from changing to a new theme? Sometimes, in the case of personal blogs - simple alterations of the design can do the job at a much lesser cost. But this may not be possible with business blogs where the need is to create as ideal brand image. In such cases, it is worth spending some money to hire professional wordpress theme designers to do the job.
Check your blog design for readability: Readability is very important and for this reason you should ensure the correct selection of fonts, background color, whitespace etc.
Choose the right color scheme and stick to it: The colors should have better contrasts and should impress both you and your audience . The colors should match with the logo used in the blog and also the idea behind the blog. Finalize these colors and stick to it. Do not change the colors too often.
Highlight your most popular blogs: A good way of promoting your blog is to highlight your best work. You can showcase your most popular content on the right sidebar or any other place where it can be easily seen. Your layout should be designed in such a way that the highlight appears prominent.
Decide where your ads should appear: You have to include spaces for banner ads, AdsSense ads and paid text links if you want to make some money out of your blog. So you should decide before-hand where these ads should go on your layout and also the banner size. The ads should be cleanly placed, they should not be sprayed here and there as this can irritate your audience.
Use subscription facilities and make it prominent: To increase subscribers, you should highlight links to subscription options like RSS feed and email on your blog. Decide the location of these links so that they are prominent on the layout.
Decide whether you are going to show full posts or Excerpts on your front page: The advantage of using excerpts is that your content will not be penalized by search engines for duplicate content, if the same content is on your home page. The disadvantage of using excerpts is that the user needs an additional click to view the full content. You need to decide this before designing the layout.
Optimize your theme for better load speed: Slow load speeds can annoy visitors. To increase the load speed, you should minimize the number of PlugIns, images, widgets, video, etc. You should strike the ride balance in this regard, you dont want a dull and lifeless blog either.
Check your code for validation: Most blog template designers don’t care to check whether their code gets validated. Valid code can give better chance of providing the audience with error free visits. You can validate the code for your web pages using validating tools available on the web. In this way you are not only checking whether your code is error free but also seeing that it meets industry requirements. Validating your code can also improve search engine rankings for your web pages.
Be unique: Choose unique styles for Logos, banners and icons if you want to stand out from the crowd - especially if it is a personal blog. Business blogs can also be unique but it should be in line with the style and feel of the home page. However, do not mess too much with the template and style followed by most other blogs in blogosphere - as this can only confuse the visitor.
Design your Unique templates and be on top. Happy Blogging!
Do you design your template?