Skip to Content

Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

FontSmoothing posts

Filed under: Design, Developer, OS Updates, Text, Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Microsoft, Freeware

QuickType - ClearType Toggle

QuickTypeFirst things first - if you're running Windows XP and you've never heard of ClearType, you need to check it out. Head to Microsoft's ClearType Tuner web page to see what it's all about, and try it for yourself. For those of you that know and love ClearType, here's a little utility to help you love it just a little bit more.

Although I find that 98% of the time I want ClearType running, there are the occasional times when I'd like to turn it off - just for a second. It's sort of a hassle, since you can either go back to the Microsoft ClearType Tuner website I pointed to before, or navigate through your system's Display Settings to the Effects button on the Appearance tab to turn it on or off. If you find that you want to do this on a fairly regular basis, you might want to try QuickType, a little utility that sits in your system tray and allows you to turn ClearType on or off at will. It also gives you a shortcut to a local version of the ClearType Tuner if you have it installed (get it here), so that if you're like me and you move around from monitor to monitor, you can quickly tune your display.

The download contains no installer, so simply extract the zip file to a known folder and run it from there. The context menu when you right-click the system tray icon offers the option to run the utility when Windows starts. Note that you'll need the .Net framework installed to use QuickType, although they don't specify which version you need installed.

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio