For years I used an old version of Tiger Color’s application Color Impact to grab colors from the screen (like the eyedropper in Fireworks or Photoshop). But a few years ago they increased the price to $40, which IMHO is way too much to pay for a feature that should have already been included in MS Office.
Enter Color Cop, a freeware eyedropper for Windows. In the spirit of “Getting Real” (and unlike the bloated Color Impact app) it does just what you need and nothing else. Using this small, light app keeps me from firing up Fireworks when I just need to grab a hex or RGB for some pixel on my screen.
Props to Lifehacker, the source of many great tips.