anti-aliasing

My workstation is a crusty Pentium II running a version of linux now several generations old. Unfortunately, it's not really worth an OS upgrade—whereas once, not so many years ago, linux was quite happy with 256 or even 128 megs of memory, these days it takes a gig to make most distributions purr. Bloat, it seems, is not just a Microsoft issue.

At times I must still genuflect before the Redmond Imperium—when I want to follow a multimedia link from the Flea, for instance, or this week while working on my first PowerPoint slideshow. My wife's shiny laptop is the tool of choice in such instances: XP Professional, with a truly impressive liquid crystal display.

But until a few days ago, the font rendering on certain websites—including this one—was dismal. So late on Tuesday night I suddenly thought anti-aliasing! of course! After googling a bit I found this, on Scott Manning's site.

For those of you on a Windows XP machine, there is a way to increase readability of text on your screen by 10-15%. Microsoft has introduced what they are calling ClearType to their operating system. Apple has been using a similar technology since 1976, but Microsoft has just finally caught on.

In addition to step-by-step instructions, Manning includes this gif comparison.

The difference is rather striking, no? But note that ClearType is intended for LCD screens only. Employing it on a CRT will likely make your eyes feel stuffed with cotton.

If you find (as I did) that ClearType's smoothing renders some fonts a tad fuzzy, there is a freeware utility that will allow you to fine-tune the anti-aliasing: ClearTweak. I dialed down the contrast to 1100 and am quite pleased with the result.

And while I'm giving self-interested recommendations to make this blog render better: Are you using Firefox yet?

Anthony,

Thanks for the tip... Turned on my workstation... Like what I see.

Tom Bombadil
Who is Tom Bombadil?