There are plenty of things true about computer safety tips, but the most obvious is that you can't get enough of them. Why? Obviously, because computer security issues are the same as car accidents - they happen because someone ignored obvious facts. Since you have to repeat thinks as often as possible, I suggest you to go and read my 10 Computer Security Tips article before moving on with today's round of computer safety tips. These being said, let's move on and seek for...

...Help!!! That's what everyone does when the computer starts having problems, but I can't stop repeating - use Google, first of all! If your favorite search engine is not Google, use your favorite, and be sure to find a proper phrasing for your problem. For example, don't look for "I can't change my screen resolution," but try "LG 1919S resolution" instead - or whatever is the brand and model of your monitor. When there could be more sources of a problem, think a little about it, and then take them down one by one. General questions won't ever provide good answers, remember that!<-120x240 Vertical Banner - right->

When talking about computer safety tips in a house with children, I think parental controls should always be enabled, and - no matter if you can afford buying 20 computers or not, be sure your kids are using a computer that's not located in their room, or at least use some monitoring software. I can't say I understand "online predators," but they do exist, so kids and teenagers can be easy prey for them, unless their parents are watching carefully(try not to suffocate them, anyway - just keep an eye on the whole matter, talk things with them, don't just start saying "you can't visit THAT site, it's evil").

Regarding viruses and other potential threats, I told you last time, but now I want to repeat only one thing - think! Before complaining about things you can't do with your computer, THINK! Sometimes, too often for a lot of people crying out for other's help, the answer is just a few steps away. After all, this is one of the greatest computer safety tips I have ever thought about - don't forget that computers are just as smart as their users make them!

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Free Space Invaders! Can you believe it? The best part of it is that you can easily play this at work, as long as you're using OpenOffice.org! If you can't remember the notorious Space Invaders game, no problems, we'll take care of that right away, because it would really be a pity for you to miss this free Space Invaders game available as an Easter Egg right inside a free office software suite...

The original Space Invaders game was designed for coin operated arcades by Tomohiro Nishikado back in 1978, and was originally manufactured by Taito, and licensed by the Midway division of Bally in the United States. Today, this may seem a very basic game, but it's enough to say that Space Invaders earned Taito $500 million in revenue, causing a temporary shortage of Yen in Japan!<-125x125 Button - right->

In the meantime, the game became available on PCs, mobile phones, and other portable devices. Now, it even became an Easter Egg inside OpenOffice.org's Calc application. To access it, simply open Calc, and type =GAME("StarWars") into one of the cells...

...and it's all done! Choose one of the available heroes - Triminator, Huge Jelly Star, Mega Hunter, Natural Fighter, or Overkill Gun Fighter, and then kill'em all! Use the arrow keys to move, and the Space bar to fire. The game messages are in German, but I am sure you can find your way through!

At last, you should know that, once you close the game("Boss is coming!"), you won't be able to play again, unless you close and open the Calc software. Anyway, I am sure this free Space Invaders game will help you kill your time easier than before, so be sure not to lose your job over it!

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If you're looking for some Windows cleaning tips, then you are in the right place. How is that possible, when I don't even know if you're looking for Windows cleaning tips, or cleaning tips for your house's windows? It's very simple - today we won't talk about Windows cleaning software, but about avoiding the need to clean your Windows. Strange, but true, some of these tips could be applied to your house's windows, as we're going to see right away...

Keep your desktop clean! Since the Windows desktop allows you to easily drop files and - obviously - forget to delete them, having over 30-40 items on your desktop can turn from "I can't do such a thing" to "Oh, my God!!" in only a few days, even hours. Regarding your house, just be sure to have grass in front of it - it's always better than dust...

Just as a side note, to keep everything organized, best choice is a file manager. Total Commander, Frigate, and Unreal Commander are only a few of the many choices available.<-336x280 Large Rectangle - right->

Avoid installing junk! I have nothing against good games, useless programs, useful programs, or even worthless games, but I have something against those with 350 applications installed and only using 5 of them. Decide what's best for your needs, keep what you are currently using, remove the others. Oh...and no matter what you do, try avoiding IE toolbars as much as possible. Why? If you have at least 3-4 toolbars and you're wondering why is your computer so slow...you already have the answer!

Apart from keeping your desktop clean and everything in order, backup your data to DVDs on a regular basis! This way, you won't cry for the pictures taken in the last 3 years when your hard drive crashes!

Still in need of Windows cleaning tips? When the rain comes, be sure to wipe them clean! This way, you'll be able to save some water...:)

To be honest, I love keeping things clean, rather than cleaning them, and that's exactly what you should do with your computers. Windows cleaning tips may be good as an idea, but "tips for not having to clean Windows" are the best, and I think my short article helped you realize a few basic things a lot of people forget about. Good luck and...keep it clean!

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If you think about the Windows XP Welcome Screen, the first thing that comes in your mind is customizing it. After all, there are plenty of applications allowing you to change the Boot Screen, so why not change what comes after it, too? Anyway, if you're looking for some Windows themes tips and tricks, this is not the right time and place. If you are really going to insist, I may tell you a few things about that in the future, but now we have to talk about a very interesting, and often ignored, topic: ClearType fonts in the Welcome Screen. Are you surprised?

Well, you should be surprised, because I considered this topic irrelevant for a long time, especially because, being the only user of my computer, I changed the settings so my Windows XP would always jump over the Welcome Screen and login automatically to the one&only user account I had. Now, let's talk a little about ClearType, then we can move on and see today's trick about it. Ready or not, here we go...<-125x125 Button - right->

While everyone says ClearType is very good for having smooth and better readable fonts on LCD screens, I have to say this is not the truth. I have been always using ClearType on CRT screens(no more CRTs for me anymore, but I was just saying), and the difference is just as big as with LCD ones, so be sure to enable ClearType on older CRT screens, too. In Windows XP, the feature is enabled after you login into a certain account, so the Welcome Screen will display jaggy fonts.

As usual, I have to warn you about the risks involved when editing the registry, so be very careful - as long as you make things right, nothing bad can happen. OK, now you have been warned. Move along, move along...

1. Open up the Registry Editor(Start>Run>type Regedit>press Enter)

2. Locate the two following keys:
HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ FontSmoothing (String Value)
HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ FontSmoothingType (Hexadecimal DWORD Value)

3. Set both these values to 2, and ClearType will be enabled inside the Welcome Screen, as well as being the default setting for every new user you'll create from now on.

Eh...much better now, don't you think? :)

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Despite the fact Windows Vista works well with most modern computers, once you finished tuning it, I still consider Windows XP the best choice for a lot of PC users that still want to remain by Microsoft's side. I am not talking about things I've heard on the street, because I am a Windows user having to choose between XP and Vista each time I boot up my computer(not too often, I should say that, since sometimes I get Windows uptime of 1-2 or even 3 weeks or more), and Windows XP wins in over 90% of the cases. Anyway, since having an older OS on a modern computer can sometimes cause problems, let's see a few speed tweaks for XP, shall we?

Obviously, there are hundreds of registry tweaks, as well as software Windows optimizers, but I don't want to talk about those now. Why? Well, in the last 6-7 years, these have always been hot topics on the Web, while others are still hanging in the balance.

For example, let's take the optimum swap file size. According to Microsoft, this should be 2.5 times the amount of memory your computer has. While this is efficient with computers having less than 1GB of memory, and can be further improved by creating a partition only for the swap file, there's something you don't hear too often - disable the swap file!<-336x280 Large Rectangle - right->

Yes, I know, this can lead to various problems, but it depends a lot on the programs you're using. Anyway, the advantage is that, as long as you have at least 2GB of memory, it should be enough to keep Windows XP away from writing data to disc when it shouldn't. For example, now I have a bunch of programs up and running, over 1GB of free memory, but also 1GB of swap user. Got the idea? While disabling the swap file will surely limit multitasking capabilities, your computer will be much faster with only a few programs open. Give it a try! After all, you can always get back and restore default settings...

I know some may say this is not really a speed tweak for Windows XP, but it may be the best choice in the right place and the right time. As an example, I was just about to sell my old computer, but after giving away the video card, hard drive and memory, I decided it would be better to keep it and turn it into a Linux box. I found a 40GB hard drive lying around that I considered dead, performed a low level format, and now that one is as good as new, I got an old GeForce 4 MX440 video card that was also lying around, but I only managed to find 256MB of memory. Considering this, and after a lot of research, I got to a point where the only conclusion was that Xubuntu is the best OS for my oldie, and this is the pure truth - compared to those days when I was running Windows XP using only 256MB of memory, Xubuntu is going as fast as a shark!

One last thing - if you are looking for speed tweaks for XP, it may be possible that your solution is one of the two unconventional ones I just described. I know this may sound strange, but the straight line between two points is not always the shortest path...

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