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!

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!

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? :)