I have just installed F.lux on to my Windows XP laptop (there are Mac OS X and linux versions too) and as it is about 8pm it has changed my display colour so it looks to have a hint of orange which seems quite warm and not nearly as painful to look at.

Now that I have been using F.lux for about an hour I do not really notice anything different, however I really notice how bright and painful the screen is to look at when I turn it off.  For that reason along I would say that F.lux is a must have for those who like to use their computers late at night, or first things in the morning before they get out of bed.

I have found over the last couple of weeks that the display of my computer at work is extremely bright after about 4pm and I imagine this is because it has got dark so I will be looking forward to installing F.lux on my work  computer tomorrow and see the difference come the end of the day.

• A friend or client wants CD burning software and doesn’t want to pay for it
• I’m re-installing a PC where the owner does not have the key for it
• To replace an unlicenced copy of Nero

Over time I have come across my favorites to replace these programs and in this case I have found a free alternative to Nero which fits the bill quite nicely.

CDBurnerXP is a free alternative to Nero which runs on all windows operating systems from Windows 2000 SP4 upwards (so it is not restricted to Windows XP as the name might suggest) and can perform all the operations you would expect with Nero.  The dialog options appear slightly differently but you can find your way around the software very quickly and can perform all the normal operations you would expect from Nero including:-

• Copy a CD or DVD
• Burning an ISO file to CD or DVD
• Create an audio CD
• Create an data CD

In addition there is also a very clear FAQ section with helpful tutorials for those who are not familiar with the software and an active user forum with over 23,000 members (at the time of writing this post) so help is not far away should you run into any difficulties.

All in all this is a very nice, user friendly free alternative to Nero which I recommend to all my friends and clients and I have even gone as far as replacing Nero on my own machines with this.  Nothing seems to sell a product better to your client than the fact that you are using it yourself.