This weekend I made a sad conclusion. As I get older, my vision gets worse. Squinting my eyes in front of a computer screen ten hours a day probably has not helped any. Growing up, my vision was always 20/20, but now I can barely read my email. Oh, and I've already moved my two monitors to the edge of the desk.

I have heard of free software that will magnify the screen wherever my cursor is, but I have always thought it was for people of the more "experienced" generation. Today I downloaded the Virtual Magnifying Glass software, and I can "see" already that it and I will become good friends.

After installation, a small magnifying icon appears in my system tray (right next to the clock in the lower right of the Windows desktop). Whenever I need to magnify something on the screen, I just click once on the icon, and I have a magnifier that moves with my cursor. The magnifier can be resized, and the magnification level can even be modified to 1.5x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 8x, or 16x.

With software like this, maybe I can put off the appointment with the eye doctor for a little longer. Virtual Magnifying Glass can be downloaded by clicking here.