Tech Review: BreakTaker app for Windows

[makoyi]

I've been looking for a good break reminder app for Windows lately because I tend to lose track of time when I'm reading and it hasn't been good for my eyes (staring at book pages is bad enough but staring at a computer screen, even with the brightness turned way down, is so bad after awhile), but I've finally found one that does everything I want without any silly "inspirational quotes" or silly pictures of people stretching or whatever.  BreakTaker has a simple popup from the system tray that lets you know whatever time you set has elapsed.  That's it.  You dismiss the message when you've taken your break.  You can also right click the tray icon and say "Take a break now" and it lets you, then resets the timer when you get back --- that's an important feature for me.  You can also see exactly how long until your next scheduled break by hovering over the tray icon.  And if you're one of those people who leaves your computer on constantly, then before you go to bed each night, you can pause the break timer - just remember to start it again when you sit down to work.  The one and only thing I'd like that this app doesn't have is I wish the popup would refuse to be dismissed for a user-set length of time, but I'm a big girl - I can trust myself to actually get up and move around instead of just dismissing the popup and ignoring it.  This app is free and available for download on CNET (be careful that you opt out of all the crap they try to bundle with it) and from the developer's website (linked above).  This one is for Windows only, which is a bit disappointing, but will work for some people at least.  I like it a lot and definitely recommend it, especially if, like me, you get caught up in reading and don't keep track of how long you stare at the screen.