Admittedly when registering on a new site I almost always just cut and paste my password into the repeat password field. Indeed with various systems now insisting on specific character patterns, i would imagine the purpose-defeating practice of cut/paste into the repeat password field is only more prevalent. The Smashing piece includes a JQuery plugin that allows for a single password field that may be toggled to show the entered password – definitely worth a look.

The login user name suggestion is much simpler – allow users the ability to login with either a user name or email address – both should be unique in any case and your email address is certainly harder to forget.

Check the article out here — Innovative Techniques To Simplify Sign-Ups and Log-Ins.

Some other useful login/sign-up resources i’ve found useful in the past are listed below.

• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/07/04/web-form-design-patterns-sign-up-forms/
• http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/login-registration-form/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/23/10-ui-design-patterns-you-should-be-paying-attention-to/

In my subsequent travels i found Favicon Builder.  Simply upload a gif, jpg or png image and it generates a favicon that rendered perfectly. The generated download is a zip archive with a readme file, animated icon as a gif, favicon ico and a couple of scaled png files. Very nice

I recall it being a really intersting story and it prompted me to look it up on the Wired site so here it is: The Perfect Thing.

some interesting material around this featured in Wired magazine a little while ago in Straight Dope on the IPod’s Birth and in a more recent piece How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong.