Also, when that help screen appears, everything else on the page darkens out except the CAPTCHA (presumably because it's done in flash). It probably leaves some users confused about what the dancing text has to do with the help page, and what they are supposed to do with it in that context.

also why does the tooltip say the same thing as the link itself?

http://i.imgur.com/fdkpt.png

They have an ad banner almost as big as the login box, why would they be bothered with usability of that checkbox?

I just went over there and clicked it and all that happened was the box checked/unchecked :(

Maybe it's because I didn't fill in any other boxes?

The thing I hate is the warning that tells me that I'm about to view pages over a secure connection

That is coming from the browser and is a good thing.

But it confuses/scares the average user, which is a bad thing. Just have your site be SSL all the time and users won't get this warning.

> But it confuses/scares the average user,

Rightly so, because it "is a bad thing" and websites shouldn't be putting users in that position.

Sorry. I agree with you. I am personally pushing (don't have much influence but I can try) for 100% SSL all the time at my place as well.

Beat me to it. I always click on that label expecting it to tick the box. Why must people avoid convention?

Agreed. If you're going to give an unexpected user experience, it better be a damn good one.