Posted By Quentin Carnicelli on November 28th, 2004

Task #1963 in our task database reads as follows:

ID: #1963

Description: When user registers, display them a certificate image with their name/serial number, that they can print out.

Our task database is full of sometimes useful, sometimes crazy, ideas like this one. Most of them sit there, waiting for the day when they either get done or get deleted. On November 25th, 2004, 21 months after it was originally conceived, task #1963 was finally selected and completed:

Personally, I always figured task #1963 was headed for the great bit bucket in the sky, as it was just a bit too grand of an idea. But that’s exactly what makes the result turn out so great.

Most registration windows, including our old one, are afterthoughts. That’s unfortunate, as the registration window is the first thing you see after forking over your cash when buying an application. And right at that moment when you finally own the application, what do you get but a couple of text fields and a tiny “Thank you for registering” note.

That was the motivation behind task #1963. We decided we should do something special at that moment, and give something tangible too. A printable registration certificate seems to fit the bill nicely. And if everybody prints it out…we’ll never have to deal with lost license keys again! Ah, pipe dreams.