F.lux: Free Software to Make Your Life Better

Does this scenario sound familiar? It's late, you're at the computer working on an assignment or project, your eyes hurt, and your brain feels like it's throbbing inside of your skull. You need sleep, but have to get this work done. You finally reach a stopping point and crawl into bed, but your mind is still racing a mile a minute from staring at the bright computer screen for so long. A restless night ensues.

I know that I've been in this situation way too many times, and I can safely guess that I'm not the only one. F.lux, a free piece of software, fixes this.
It adjusts the color of your computer's display based on the time of day (if anyone is familiar with Picasa, Google's free photo editing software, it's from the same developers). From the f.lux website:

During the day, computer screens look good—they're designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you probably shouldn't be looking at the sun. 

F.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day. 

It's even possible that you're staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better.

The software is incredibly easy to use (and it's free). You just download it (available versions for Windows, Mac, Linux, and iOS), apply a few settings, and you're good to go (did I mention it's free?). You can even customize your lighting in case the preset options aren't working for you. On my Mac, I have an icon in the menu bar that I can click to adjust whatever I need. To really understand the difference that it makes, go to the f.lux menu and change the "Lighting at night" option back to "Daylight" when you're working at night. This is actually what your computer looks like during the day, and it makes me wonder how I was even able to stare at that blinding screen.

The only issue I've encountered with f.lux occurs when I'm doing anything color-sensitive, such as texturing a 3D model or editing photos. The fact that f.lux adjusts the color of your display means that the colors in the photo will appear too warm. While this issue isn't a software bug and can easily be fixed by changing the settings, I figured I'd mention it.

F.lux can be downloaded for free at stereopsis.com/flux/. And for the record, I'm not endorsed by the developers or anything. I just love the software (as do my eyes), and I wanted to share it. Let me know in the comments section below (anyone can comment!) if you've tried f.lux and what you think of it.