Authenticator Annoyance

The Blizzard Authenticator.

Blizzard Authenticator

I have had one now for about six months now.  Works like a charm, I have managed not to lose it, and I got that core hound puppy pet just for having it.

But Blizzard does one things that bugs me, and it has little to do with the physical authenticator itself.

I tend to sit in front of my computer in a dark room.  I have a nice, lit keyboard in the for of a Logitech G15.  And for any other light, my 20″ LCD monitor casts enough of a glow most of the time.

Most of the time.

When I go to log on to World of Warcraft, the main screen has enough ice and snow that my monitor casts more than enough light to see the authenticator display.  However, once you go to connect, WoW puts up the window to enter your authenticator code and turns the whole screen dark.

So at the one moment I need some light to read the authenticator, which is not backlit, my computer screen goes too dark to read the damn thing.  Then I have to tab out to something like the main Google page so I can read the code.

Okay, yes, even on the scale of trivial complaints, this ranks pretty far down at the “extremely trivial” end of things.  But I just thought I’d mention it because I know somewhere, somebody is going to read that and put up a comment along the lines of, “Oh, I hate that too!”

And then we’ll both feel better having had our petty gripes acknowledged.