House rental process in Australia

There are basically 4 steps in house rental process in Australia. 

1. Search for property on realestate.com.au
2. Register for inspection
3. Apply
4. Payment and moving in

Search for houses 

You can search for properties on Realestate.com.au. You can filter the properties based on below parameters.

1. Budget
2. Suburb
3. No of bedrooms
4. No of bathrooms
5. Gas/Electricity availability

In Brisbane, lot of Indians live in below suburbs. 

1. 4070 - Moggil, Bellbowrie
2. 4300 - Gailes, Camira
3. 4074 - Jamboree heights
4. 4074 - Middle park, West lake, Riverhills
5. 4075 - Oxley
6. 4076 - Darra, Wacol
7. 4077 - Richland, Doolandella, Durack, Inala
8. 4078 - Forest lake, Ellen Grove
9. 4110 - Heathwood, Acacia Ridge, Pallara
10. 4105 - Moorooka
11. 4107 - Salisbury
12. 4108 - Coopers Plains
13. 4109 - Robertson, Sunnybank, Sunnybank Hills
14. 4115 - Algester
15. 4116 - Calamvale
16. Runcorn
17. Kuraby
18. Underwood
19. Mt Gravatt
20. Rochedale
21. Springwood
22. Eight mile plains
23. Wishart

You can find reviews of suburbs on https://www.homely.com.au.

Register for Inspection

You can register for inspection online on realestate.com.au Some real estate companies do not accept the applications if you have not inspected the property. At the time of inspection, you need to consider below things.

1. Internet connection?
2. Gas and or electricity
3. Any repairs
4. No of parkings
5. Ventilation
6. Kitchen amenities
7. If any furniture is included or not?
8. Nearby shopping centers and public transportation

Apply

If you are happy, you can apply for the lease. Multiple people can apply for same property rental. So if you are interested in house, do not wait for the application. Apply as soon as possible.

Below documents will be required for rental application.

1. Driving license
2. Salary slips
3. Tax return acknowledgement
4. Current address proof
5. Bond refund document
6. Rent ledger
7. Medicare
8. Bank statement
9. Car registration certificate
10. Birth certificate
11. Agent references of previous 2 addresses 

You do not need to submit all documents. But minimum required documents will have to be submitted.

Payments and Move in 

If your application is approved, you will have to sign the agreement and pay bond amount (4 week rent amount) and rent amount of first week (Sometimes you need to pay 2 weeks rent in advance before collecting key). Then you can grab the key of house on the commencement day of lease and move in. It is advised that you plan move on weekdays as some offices remain closed on weekend. Also energy companies will not provide electricity and gas connections on weekends.

What do you think on this topic? Please express your opinion or ask any question through comment below. You can write to me at reply2sagar@gmail.com

Automation testing project and how to overcome challenges

80% of the automation testing projects turn into a firefighting mode post delivery.  

What are the common reasons for poor automation projects.

1. Synchronization issues
2. Application changes over a period of time breaking the automation code
3. Bad Framework design
4. Poor coding techniques
5. Impact of changes in environments (SIT, UAT, DEV) and data issues in different environments
6. Unstable environments - Interconnected systems and services not working properly
7. Poor reporting mechanism used in the automation framework does not help to find out the exact problem in the application under test. 

With so many issues in automation project, engineers usually find it very frustrating to be working in such projects. Instead of providing return on investment, most of projects turn out to be expensive due to the heavy maintenance efforts required to fix the issues that keep cropping up. So how you can make the automation project a big success. You can follow below guidelines to handle any automation project with ease.

1. Remember that 80% of the problems in the code occur due to 20% issues. If you can nail down recurring issues, you will have a big sigh of relief.
2. Add robust synchronization points to synchronize your automation code with the application response. Application response time always keeps changing. So avoid fixed time outs. It's a big NO. Problem with fix timeouts is that they are very inefficient and does not solve the purpose of synchronization at all. On the contrary, heavy use of time outs may lead to slower execution time. Additionally, what if application takes more time to respond than fix time out? To handle such scenarios, try to always use the synchronization points based on the application objects, properties and values. Sometimes, you may need to repeat certain steps (Code block) to better synchronize the application.
3. Design a proper reporting mechanism and error handling in the code which will help you catch the problems by just looking at the report of execution. What is more frustrating is to reproduce the issue by manually executing the test. To avoid it, create impressive reports that will be easy to read. Video recording the test execution can be very useful in troubleshooting the problems.
4. Major problems occur at the time of executing tests in different environments. So you should have detailed documentation on how to set up the build agents, how to set up configuration files and any other prerequisites that may require. Always have separate  configuration files for each environment.
5. Never ignore application errors and exception that you see while automating the application or executing your tests. Try to handle all these errors and report them so that you can easily explain to the stakeholders why tests failed. For each error that you handle, try to add recovery logic to resume the execution in more graceful manner. 
6. Property values used for identifying the objects should be very robust. Slight change in the values should not break the ability of the code to identify the objects. Using regular expressions wherever possible could be very handy.

What do you think on this topic? Please express your opinion or ask any question through comment below. You can write to me at reply2sagar@gmail.com

car driving differences between India and Australia

Here are major differences in car driving between India and Australia.

1. Honking - In India, people honk without any proper reason. Here in Australia, you can honk to warn others only when other driver is making any mistake
2. Strict rules - In India, people tend to ignore traffic rules. But in Australia, All road rules are very strict and most importantly people follow road rules strictly.
3. Fines and demerit points - In India, fine amounts are very less so people are careless and tend to break rules. But in Australia, road fines are very heavy and also demerit points will be logged againt your license. If you accumulate lots of demerit points, your licenses may be cancelled. All traffic history is recorded in central database.
4. Parking zones and limits - In India, parking limits do not apply. If you get a parking spot, you can park the car, for unlimited hours. In Australia, there time restrictions for each parking at certain spots. I was fined $65 for exceeding parking limit by just 5 mins. 
5. Prams - In India, there are no rules related to baby and pram. But in Australia, if you are travelling with baby, baby must be sitting in a pram. You can not just hold a baby in your arms and travel. 
6. Driving test - In India, driving test is very easy to pass. In Australia, driving test is very difficult.
7. Intersections and roundabouts without traffic lights - In India, at intersections where there are no traffic lights, people cross the intersections without following any rules. But in Australia, we have certian rules when there are no traffic lights
8. Speed limits and speed cameras and automatic rego plate recognition - In India, there is a limited use of speed cameras
9. Rego after every year (not one time) - In India, you have to pay registration charges only once. But in Australia, you have to pay rego charges every year.
10. Fuel stations or petrol pumps - In India, car drivers do not need to fill the petrol on their own. You will find fuel station employee everywhere in India. In Australia, you have to fill petrol on your own.
11. In India, you can sit in UTE trailer and travel. But in Australia, you can not travel in UTE trailer.

What do you think on this topic? Please express your opinion or ask any question through comment below. You can write to me at reply2sagar@gmail.com

My practical car driving test experience in sherwood Brisbane QLD Australia

In this article, I am going to share my practical car driving test experience.

Booking a QLD practical driving test

I booked a test by calling TMR department phone number and paid $65 as a test fee. I chose the "Sherwood" test center. You have choice to select the test center. I would recommend choosing such a center which is located in the suburb where you have done a driving practise. Knowing roads in suburb will help you feel comfortable during test.

On test day

I arrived at the test center 15 mins before actual appointment time with all required documents. Note that if you are using your own car for test, you need to ensure that car is in good condition (roadworthy). But it is not mandatory to produce Roadworthy certificate at the time of test. You need to carry your any existing license, id proof, license application form - QF3000 and appointment sheet - QF3910. You might need to provide car driving instructor details but it is optional. Test examiner verifies all documents. 

Predrive check

During predrive check, examiner checked that all lights and indicators are working fine then tyre conditions and mirrors were also checked. Then She asked me where wipers and hazard lights are located. I answered that correctly. If you fail to answer car control questions correctly, you may fail the test.

Practical car driving test

Finally actual driving test started. Overall I made 6 non-critical errors as mentioned below.

1. After 1 minute of driving, I came to the railway level crossing. This is where I made first non-critical driving error (NCDE). I failed to scan and observe at the railway level crossing
2. Next error was that I failed to do shoulder check during slow merging. Whenver you are turning left or right or merging to left or right, you have to do shoulder check. This is also called as blind spot check.
3. Next error was related to U-turn. Test examiner asked me to do U-turn at T-intersection. I took inappropriate course during U-turn.
4. Next error was I did not enter the intersection when there was a green light. I kept waiting for oncoming traffic even though I had a chance to cross intersection.
5. Another NCDE was positioning the 1/3 of vehicle  on the incorrect side of road
6. Final NCDE I did was driving too slowly at school zone when school holidays were going on. During school holidays, you can drive at normal speed. School zone speed limits apply only during school term is on. I drove at 40 kmph instead of 60 kmph.

Post test assessment report

At the end of test, Examiner said "Congrats! you have passed the test". What a relief it was! She also gave me the driving assessment report mentioning all errors I had made.  You can make maximum of 8 non critical errors, otherwise you would fail the test.

Practical car driving test help

If you need any help related to practical car driving test, please contact me on reply2sagar@gmail.com . I live in Brisbane city and can definitely help you.

What do you think on this topic? Please express your opinion or ask any question through comment below. You can write to me at reply2sagar@gmail.com