I've mentioned a number of Zoom Tools over the years, and most recently had settled on Magnifixer.

But...OMG, people, check out Mark Russinovich's new ZoomIt tool. This is a different take, IMHO, on a zoom tool for presentations. Some folks like the "drag a magnifying glass" paradigm. ZoomIt takes a different tack, zooming in the entire screen.

I have an IBM T42 with a "Zoom Craplet" that, with a press of FN-Space, automatically changes the screen resolution. This is cool, but the subsequent re-syncing of the projector makes it totally unusable for presentations.

ZoomIt does the same thing but without changing the screen resolution, but also includes screen writing/drawing/annotation. Fantastic.

The only downside of ZoomIt is that you're looking at a zoomed in snapshot of the current screen. You aren't getting live window updates when you're zoomin.

Magnifixer does give you live updates, as well as some other niceties like an eye-dropper/rgb value lookup.

Still, between these two tools, I'm totally covered when it comes to zooming into during a presentation.

Thanks to reader and fellow presenter and trainer Gerben Wieringa for the heads up!