Software Testing News - 04 October 2011

• Music Tuesday: Wilco, an introduction to juking, and more
  October 4, 2011
  What’s happening on youtube.com/music this week? We dig into two facets of Chicago’s music scene, starting with Wilco’s indie-Americana explorations and then exploring the future-forward sound of juke. And then we go even farther afield...come with us!
  
  
  Wilco curation
  The iconic Chicago band Wilco have just released one of the most acclaimed albums of their career -- and possibly of 2011 (time will tell) -- in The Whole Love. The hook-filled album also stretches at its sonic space, artfully scarring its easy beauty with shards of noise and the occasional extended guitar jam. And yes, they’ve made some pretty lovely videos to go along with it. We invited the band to take over the YouTube homepage today, and they flood it with music you might not ordinarily see there. Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim. The inimitable Bill Withers. They gravitate to music that endures...not unlike their own.
  
  
  
  
  
  Chicago Juke
  While Wilco reps one aspect of Chi-town (its indie-Americana side), we turned to a completely different set of musicians to explore another facet of the city’s music scene. Maybe you've heard about juking. It's a dance scene; it's a musical style. It was born in Chicago, and it takes house music and hip-hop and strips them down, cranking up the BPMs and muddying the production values so it feels as if it could have come out of any corner of the world. People get wild to it; the footwork style has become hugely inspirational to dancers around the country. Even overseas dubstep producers have been influenced by the scene in recent years. Check out our introduction to this vibrant musical subculture.
  
  
  
  
  
  Dakha Brakha “Vesna” Speaking of going local, you can’t get much more local than Dakha Brakha -- it’s just that the locale is a bit farther afield. (The Ukraine, to be exact.) Dakha Brakha play Ukranian folk music, but they do it with such art-house panache that it feels avant-garde instead of old. In “Vesna,” the band’s most recent video, they emerge from Ukraine’s forests in full traditional garb, setting up and performing in modern-day Kiev. The video builds slowly, but by the time it ends, modern life feels as if it’s been briefly transformed.
  
  
  
  
  
  Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Yo Yo Ma - Attaboy.”

  

  

  
  
• Using AWCLI (AdWords Command Line Interface)
  October 4, 2011
  Earlier this year we released a demo that allows you to run AdWords API queries from the command line. Today, a new version is available and I’d like to point out some of its features.
  
  
  Accessing production environment
  
  We’ve made a change to reduce a risk of accidentally running the demo tool against a production environment. Since version 1.2.0, an explicit ‘--prod’ flag is required in order to query billable services. Check out ‘awcli --help’ for all available command-line options.
  
  
  Automatic batch mode
  
  AWCLI can now run in interactive or batch mode and detects the required mode automatically. In interactive mode, you will get a prompt to type your commands:

  awcli:/>

  
  In batch mode, any extra input is suppressed and the application exits after a command completes. This makes it easier to use the tool in shell scripts:

  bash $ echo ls | ./awcli.sh
      #1 Campaign Name [69266990]
      [...]
  bash $

  
  You can also specify a command and its parameters as extra arguments to the tool itself:

  bash $ ./awcli.sh --prod ls 69266990
      #1 AdGroup name [2390064350]
      [...]
  bash $

  
  Browsing Ad Parameters
  
  A new CriterionLocation was added which allows you to browse Criteria. This enables you to list and view AdParams associated with your criteria:

  bash $ ./awcli.sh [options] ls //
      #1 $100 [1]
      #2 50 [2]
  bash $

  ...and even edit them: 'edit #1' will spawn your configured editor. The changes will be automatically applied when you save and exit.
  
  
  Querying stats
  
  You can combine AWCLI output with other command-line tools to retrieve parts of the information you need. For example, you can use Unix filters to obtain ad group stats:

  bash $ ./awcli.sh --prod cat / | grep -E "clicks|impressions"
          clicks = 12,
          impressions = 160,
  bash $

  
  Getting AWCLI
  
  AWCLI is available from the Google Code page and is part of the AdWords Java API client libraries project. You can find installation and running instructions as well as usage examples on the wiki page. Please join us to discuss the tool and report any issues on the project page or forum.
  
  
  Danial Klimkin, AdWords API Team.