TechFold - Bold tech & web commentary

Bold tech & web commentary

TechFold is technology discussion, commentary, reviews, and opinions from well outside the valley. There's no koolaid to drink here, and TechFold is not in SL, or on Twitter.

Coding Horror on Registration Keys

After bitching about incompatible power supplies earlier today, I thought it would be appropriate to point readers to Coding Horror’s take on the aggravation of registration keys. The use of commonly mistaken characters in keys (”O” vs. “0″), excessively long keys, clunky entry forms, etc. all make registration keys more evil than neccessary.

The Annoyance of Registration Email Validation

Right now, I’m trying to write reviews of two services. Both require registration to get deep into, and both registration processes require a validation email link to be clicked, and after more than an hour of waiting, neither service has managed to deliver that activation email yet. Is there some poor personal literally sending these out? Or are the tubes clogged? Or has my mail server gone to bed for the evening? Who knows. Email validation can be really annoying. I would think a captcha would be as effective at rooting out robots, which leaves little purpose for the email other than confirming that a member did indeed type their address in correctly.