- a fat toolbox -

It's becoming a boxing day tradition to buy an external hard drive. This year I decided to splurge on a portable one - the type that can fit right into your pocket. So far it's been totally worth it:

- No longer feels like a brick
- Appears on My Computer in seconds
- No need to plug for power

I can't emphasize how much trouble that last point was in the past; I've been meaning to take regular backups but I didn't want to navigate through a maze of wires. Now that I no longer have to deal with wires, my new complaint is that copying over all my files takes A Really Long Time.

I *could* copy over just my new and changed files - if only there was something to do all that automagically for me. And then suddenly there is. I found SyncToy just today and the software's been insanely fast and intuitive to use. A++ Microsoft, never knew you'd come up with nice little gems like this.

Speaking of nice little gems, have you ever...

Needed to re-install a metric tonne of software on a new computer? Try Ninite. And then try everything listed on Ninite.

Hurt your eyes staring at the screen? f.lux matches the brightness to the hour

Wanted to search and load *anything* on your computer with a few keystrokes? Launchy. Ever since my friend installed this on my work computer, I can't stop alt-spacing to get to all my stuff.

Have you stumbled upon life-improving software lately?