You never know what you’re going to pick up from conference presentations…  While I’m certainly not the first to pick up on this great utility the Windows SysInternals group has released a handy utility called ZoomIt v1.8.  This utility allows you to use a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-1, by default) to automatically zoom in on the screen.  You can then use the mouse to pan around and the left mouse button to annotate the screen.  Best of all, it runs as a simple executable (which is 44KB in size) – no need for startup programs, installers, and other annoying software stuff.

Obviously, this can be useful for presenters.  When showing code samples or UI elements on a projector (even at relatively low resolutions), it can be helpful to expand upon a section of the screen.  I have also found it useful on my own computer.  I run two monitors: One is running at 1680 x 1050 (horizontal), and the other is running in a vertical 1280 x 1024.  It can be useful to zoom in on sections of web pages with small fonts.  I’m sure it will be more useful as I get older, as well.  Along with DisplayFusion (which I wrote about in a previous post titled Managing Multiple Monitors on Windows Vista) , it really provides some useful capabilities.  Good luck, and feel free to post your reviews/hints here!