This rant against Lotus Notes is a bit unfair: it should be a rant against companies that simply “assume” that people know how to work the software they use. Admittedly: Notes takes a different approach to a lot of things, and is therefore “difficult” for people who only know Microsoft UI conventions. (Which is not surprisingly is the main gripe of the website you refer to)
Nothing that cannot be alleviated with some (decent) training however, and that is what is quite often missing.
Yes, Vista is late to the party with the whole “reveal” option for the wireless. Ubuntu Linux and others have had this checkbox for a few releases now. At least Microsoft recognizes a good idea and steals it … wait - Microsoft always steals good ideas.
Seriously, how hard is ‘password1!’ to remember? And if you use it everywhere, it becomes very easy to type! ;p
Not to troll even more, its hieroglyphs, not hieroglyphics, a common mistake.
Poor poor lotus notes. Everyone’s always picking on him.
I use lnotes everyday for work. As someone else mentioned it deviates from MS UI and that makes it harder to learn. But then again Apple deviated from MS UI and that was a good thing! So IBM needs to readdress their UI in general. At least put all the configuration settings in one place instead of several. (oooh and use standard email addresses instead of the weird lnote addresses)
I’d have to say I’m half in favor of the Lotus login dialog box. I don’t like the hieroglyphics simply because I don’t think they are “distracting.” However, having a random number of *'s appear as you type is beneficial. For someone who wants to see you type but can’t, will still have a much easier time determining your password with brute force. I don’t know the exact numbers, but knowing the length of the password cuts down the number of guesses many, many times.
“people usually keep a password they can remember (unlike in wireless, where the pass key can be a 10-digit long number)”
Aren’t we forgetting here that it’s much, much easier to remember something that we’ve seen before? A reveal password option, would make it easier for people to chose more secure passwords.
I’d even go one step further and ask for a ‘hide password’ option having the password revealed by default.
“Many applications have disabled copy and paste to and from password fields for a while.”
Someone else noticed this? Holy cowbell, Gene Frenkle!
A very novel idea.
I love the yiddush.
I’m pretty sure the hieroglyphics are a visual hash to allow you to verify that you typed your password correctly. When I used Lotus Notes 6, they would be the same every time once I finished typing my password correctly. If I typed it incorrectly they would differ.
The only ‘safe’ system is one that is locked up in a Titan missle silo and not attached to any outside network.
That goes for passwords too…
As for the rest of us, it’s kinda like driving a car, we don’t expect to get into an accident but sooner or later it will happen.
Anyone ever use Password SAFE?
http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/
It has an autotype feature where it will paste your username and password and hit enter for you and then clear your clipboard.
You can generate random passwords and you only ever need to remember the 1 password to open the application.
In Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) the join network
has a show password checkbox too.
Actually, this has been in OS X for at least 2 years.
The Notes thing is a great example of poorly directed creativity. Huge teams pounding at diminishing code bases often get erratic spurts of creativity that ultimately make the overall product ‘fugly’. Instead of fixing the real problems, they just pile on more. It is a downward spiral, that most of our big well-known software products are unhappily in the middle of surfing (including, unfortunately huge parts of Linux, which are not immune to the same cultural problems).
I’ve always found that feature useful for network keys, but never thought of using it for password fields.
While I don’t think it is that useful personally, I could make use of it from time to time. I’ll be sure to try to add it to my future password fields.
I’m not a fan of having a check box for that feature but I think something else could be used, like a little button (with an appropriate icon) that only reveals your password when you hold the mouse button down and if you want to keep it revealed, you have to double-click the button.
I’m just thinking out loud here, thanks for the inspiration.
Great commentary. Now I’ll have to use some Javascript trickery to build this idea into my web-based login forms.
The first time I recall a non-obfuscated password field was on the Palm IIIx (the wireless one). I was horrified at first of the thought of entering in a password I could see! But then I realized that nobody else was really able to watch me enter the password in (it was a Palm Pilot after all) and relished the notion of making password entry that much easier.
"In Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) the join network
has a show password checkbox too.
Actually, this has been in OS X for at least 2 years."
Thats cause you have to retype the password every time you rejoin the network, which on leopard will be every time you come out of sleep.
Problem is, I don’t even know what my passwords look like because I’ve never SEEN them. Sometimes I’ll accidentally type my password into a regular text field (focus-stealing, anyone?) and I just sit there and think “WOW, my password looks nothing like I imagine it.” For even more password pain, try using virtual keyboards that never work.
I have quite different experience regarding MS design abilities rgearding the subject when I chose password for my xbox live in password boxes.
For rare people who did not have this experience - imagine huge TV screen. Left part is displayng table of letters visible from next block’s house and right part is the familiar password box with generic asterisks. To enter the password you have to choose by your controller letters from left box and press “A”, the letter choice being not only highlighted but also (of course) making beep.
But password box on the right – it shows asterisks. We don’t want to breach security, do we?